I am SO sorry for the horribly horribly long wait! I feel so bad! I would give you all my excuses about this being the hardest, worst year of my life but I'm not going to. I'll just get onto the story. It's not moving too fast I know, but there's a lot of emotional weight to wade through, and lot more to come. I don't like the end of this chapter, it's too rushed, but overall I like tone of it. I hope I can write again soon, but the way my life is going at the moment...and it's only going to get worse...but anyway, here's Chapter Seven. Hope you enjoy it!

Chapter Seven: Sirius and Harry's Proper Reunion

Last Chapter:

But after this quite significant amount of time, when Harry finally got into the Common Room and by himself for the first time in over a day, he found he didn't want to be alone at all. Though his dormitory was a welcoming sight, and his bed looked more inviting than it ever had, it was just plain strange to be without Ron, and, well, all of the Gryffindors, really. He didn't even get into his bed; instead he grabbed a blanket and went down to the Common Room to think.

There was no way he would be sleeping that night.

The house-elves had mercifully lit a fire for him, and even though it had long ago died down, there were still some dying embers left. These proved to be perfect for Harry, as he stared into them and thought. And thought some more. In truth, he was so confused that he wasn't able to think properly at all.

His parents.

Parents.

Alive.

Even this was too much to take in. The very people he had seen in the Mirror of Erised so many years ago, the ones he had longed for more than anything in the world, were back. Home. With him.

He leaned back against the armchair behind him (he was sitting cross-legged on the floor) and looked out the window. He was startled to see that the first rays of sunlight were seeping through. Had he been lost in thought for so long? Had he dozed off at some point? He must have, there was no way he had been staring at the fire for five hours.

The sky, he mused absently, was like his life. Before, it had been dark, and lonely. Now, even though some of the darkness was still there, he could see hope for the future shining through. His life would be better now, he knew it. His parents were here. They would protect him, help him.

His parents.

Lily and James Potter.

His Parents.

Harry thought he might be violently ill.

"The point is," Lily said. "Is that we are apparently thirty-something years old. Thirty! You would think that by the time I had reached thirty-something years old I would be able to get some bloody sleep!"

"You know, Lily, if you actually stopped snoring, some of us might actually be able to sleep!"

James groaned. One week, that was all it had lasted. One week of blissful silence before they started again.

"I DO NO SNORE, BLACK!"

The rustling sound that undoubtedly signified a wand being drawn.

"DO I, JAMES?"

James didn't even bother to open his eyes. It couldn't be earlier than eight o' clock. Eight! He rubbed at his eyes, searching for his glasses on the bedside locker to his right.

"'Course not, dear."

In truth, it was more of a high-pitched whistle. Sirius shot glares at him behind Lily's back. James knew he had just probably broken some Very Important Friendship Rule, but Sirius should know that he couldn't be held responsible for what he said at- he glanced at his watch-

"HALF-PAST FIVE! STOP ARGUING ABOUT NOT BEING ABLE TO SLEEP AND GO BACK TO BED!"

The combined shouts of his wife and his best friend bounced off the walls. James groaned and turned on his side, trying in vain to ignore them.

"I don't snore; I don't know what you're talking about! You're the one muttering on all night about hippogriffs and Quidditch!"

"Don't snore? You sound like one of those Muggle air horns they had at that footie match you brought us to!"

"If you don't like the way I sleep then go find somewhere else to sleep!"

"FINE! I WILL!"

And with that he grabbed the pillow and covers from his bed and marched out of the Hospital Wing, with the air of someone who had been done a great wrong.

If James thought that he would then be able to sleep, he was fooling himself. Lily set about fixing her bed (the covers seemed to have been flung across the ward at some point) and muttered to herself as she went along. James groaned (quietly, so as not to be thrown out of the Hospital Wing himself).

By the time Lily had finished muttering, she was seated on her bed, the covers drawn to her chest.

"Where's he going to sleep?"

James groaned again. It was time for "The Guilt Stage."

"He'll be able to find a bed, won't he?"

"The Fat Lady will let him in."

"But he doesn't have a password."

"The Room of Requirement, so."

That seemed to pacify her, for the time being.

"But what if he can't remember how to get in? What if he's still too weak and ends up collapsing in the corridors? What if he DIES? It'd be all my fault!"

"Sirius' a big boy, Lily. He can manage by himself. Sure, wasn't Remus just telling us about how he survived thirteen years of Azkaban and then lived on the run for three years! This is no worse than the time you kicked him out of the house for getting drunk on Christmas Eve!"

Lily stared at him in disbelief.

"I can't believe you just mentioned that! How dare you! Of all the nerve, James Potter!"

James resigned himself to that fact that he would not be getting much sleep.

Sirius was in a Predicament, with a capital P. Still fuming with suppressed anger, he wandered the halls of the castle, freezing his arse off and feeling more foolish by the minute. He hadn't meant to insult Lily, he hadn't meant to fight with her at all; in fact, he had forgotten how conflicting their two personalities were. He had conveniently forgotten their quarrels and clashes and screaming matches in the past fifteen years.

And now he had to find a bed for the night. He would have found Remus, except he had no idea if he was even in the castle that night- he tended to come and go. The only sensible place to go was the Gryffindor Common Room. But that posed another question. How to get in? The Fat Lady would never let him in, would she? He would have to smooth talk her into it. Give her some of that Black charm, to make up for the fact that the last time they had come into contact, his knife had come into contact with her canvas. Oh dear, this was going to be difficult.

But amazingly, miraculously, the Fat Lady took one look at him, muttered something about Dumbledore, and swung open to let him in. Sirius thanked his lucky stars and clambered in. He'd forgotten how tired he was, how nauseous it felt to move around for too long. But this left him suddenly when he noticed his only godson was sitting by the fire, staring at him in utter astonishment.

Sirius became aware of the fact that he was standing behind at the opening of the Common Room, wearing only some sort of tunic-thingy Madame Pomfrey had put on him, pillow under one arm. There was also the fact that he had wrapped his duvet around his entire body (including feet) at some point to guard him from the cold, and had hopped all the way from the Hospital Wing to the Common Room. He decided to ignore his appearance in the hope that Harry would too.

"What are you doing up?" If James had been here now, he probably would have laughed at the idea of Sirius Black being concerned and responsible. But Sirius had long ago resigned himself to the fact that he was Harry Potter's guardian, and he would act as such. Except that now, he wasn't needed anymore.

It shamed him, the bubble of jealousy that rose in his stomach at that thought. Harry had his parents back. Lily and James had their son. Sirius had no-one.

"Couldn't sleep."

No, that wasn't true. He had them all. But he didn't really. He wasn't part of that family, The Potters. He could get as close as he could, but he could never be one of them. Maybe that was why he and Lily fought so much; they were both vying for a place in the Potter family. Eighteen years ago, or thereabouts, Sirius had graciously stepped out of the running and let Lily win. He had consoled himself with the fact that he would have a godson. A godson who he could spoil and love, and who could come to him when he needed to get away from his parents.

He was startled back to reality by the glistening tears on said godson's cheeks. He had never seen Harry cry, not even after the third task of the Tri-Wizard Tournament. He realised that this was one of these times where he could be a good godfather, when Harry could come to him when he needed to get away from his parents.

And there Harry sat, drinking in the sight of his first real family.

"Why did you have to go and die on me?"

Oh, God, now Sirius was going to cry. It wasn't right. He shouldn't have died, shouldn't have let Bellatrix beat him. How could he have been so reckless as to leave Grimmauld Place?

"It's all my fault. It was a trap," Harry whispered.

Oh, no, no Harry! He would go anywhere, fight anyone, for this boy. He would charge into that Chamber a million times, if it meant saving Harry. He would jump, sail through that veil; die, any time, for his godson. Why didn't he see that?

"I'm so sorry, Sirius."

No, he couldn't be. It wasn't his fault. Why didn't understand that? Words were spilling from Sirius' mouth, too fast for him to comprehend, but he knew he was saying what he wanted to say, what he felt. He gathered his godson into a tight embrace and they stayed there for a long, long time.

But, all moments must come to an end, and Sirius found himself dozing off, for a good while. It actually probably hadn't been for more than a half an hour, but when he awoke Harry was sitting on the larger armchair nearest the fire, staring into its depths.

"That," Sirius pronounced. "Is a terrible fire. Didn't anyone ever teach you how to stoke a fire?"

"Oh yes, we had a class on that in first year!"

"Don't get smart with me, Potter. You're telling me that the Dursleys made you cook and clean and do all those other meaningless chores, but they never taught you how to get a fire going? Muggles!"

"They had an electric fire."

Sirius snorted. "Muggles! Always looking for an easy way out when the practical solution is right in front of their noses!"

"Isn't that wizards?"

"Are we are we not slating your relatives?"

"We are."

"That's my boy!"

An extremely terse silence followed this pronouncement. Sirius decided to ignore it.

"So, fire!" He scooted closer to the fire. "The trick is to arrange the coal in such a way that it doesn't squish the fire. Because then the smoke can't get through and it fills up the room and suffocates everybody in the vicinity."

Harry snorted. "This is obviously the textbook definition," He said sarcastically.

"Hey! This is good life advice I'm giving you here. You arrange coal wrong and you could end up with a catastrophe! Once Moony tried to light a fire in Grimmauld Place, and he got the coal-to-firelighter ratio screwed up and BANG! A smoke-covered room in less than ten minutes! That reminds me, actually. Remember to keep your chimney good and blocked during the holiday season or else that fat Muggle serial killer could get in. What's he called again...The one who rides in a sleigh on the roof and slips down the chimney during the night and murders you in your sleep!"

He couldn't for the life of him figure out why Harry was laughing so hard that he slipped off his chair and onto the floor, and couldn't get up for a good long time.

But sadly, Sirius' enchanting lecture was cut short by the Fat Lady swinging open and the entrance of several…well Sirius didn't have time to see before his vision was obscured by a mountain of thick bushy brown hair. It had seemed the person had run to him so quickly she hadn't even the time to warn him by shouting. And now Sirius was completely winded.

"'ermione," he managed to get out just before a flash of red barrelled into him. "Ginny!"

"Sirius!" He thought he heard them say but their voices were muffled by the duvet still wrapped around him.

He ruffled their hair, and gently extracted the two girls from around his waist. But, of course, as soon as he had gotten them off of him, he was attacked once again! He made a strangled noise as he tried to decipher the flashes of red around him. Somewhere behind him, Harry made a "Gahh!" sound.

Not knowing who exactly he was hugging (and there was definitely more than one redhead clinging to him), Sirius rescued himself by patting each red head and greeting them with a joyful, "Hey you!" and "Weasley!" Harry was still making choking noises behind him that sounded rather humorous. "Mff errff e!" he called, his voice faint and muffled by whoever had now grabbed him. "Aagh! Sumfum elp e! Ermyne!"

"Sorry!" Hermione let go of him quickly. "Oh dear, are you alright?"

Flushed, Harry and Sirius both emerged from the pile of duvets, pillows, and Weasleys they had become entangled in. Mrs. Weasley swooped out of what looked like thin air to sweep Harry into another bone-crushing hug and held him for several minutes. "Oh Harry, we came as soon as we heard! Dumbledore wrote to us only yesterday but we had to get everything sorted out of course, and trying to organise this lot"-she glared at Ron, Fred, George and Ginny behind Harry's back-"but what am I doing, jabbering on about unimportant things! How are you, dear? Are you eating alright? You look pale!"

Nobody else in the room could see how Harry looked pale. On the contrary, he was flushed and breathless, but he decided not to respond. Mrs. Weasley spotted Sirius who was still sitting on the floor, looking quite shell-shocked.

"SIRIUS!" she screeched, letting go of Harry and hurrying over to the newly-resurrected ex-convict. She pulled him into a hug similar to the one Harry had received while still talking at lightning speed.

"Oh Sirius, it's a miracle, isn't it! We thought Harry would never be able to recover after you died, and then we got Dumbledore's letter and came here and he explained to us that it wasn't just you who was back, it was the Potters too! Oh, Sirius I'm so terribly sorry that we got on so badly last year! I kept thinking about how much we fought and I feel so terrible now! Arthur is still with Dumbledore, they're going over Order details as far as I know. But we just had to see Harry! We didn't know you'd be here with him it's such a welcome surprise! And of course we're all dying- oops that's not a good word to use- we're all so excited to meet Harry's parents! Has he met them yet? How are they? You poor thing, you look terrible! But I suppose that can only be expected after-"

"MOLLY!" Sirius shouted. He had been trying to interrupt her for several minutes but she just wouldn't let him! He felt drained and unable to answer her many, many questions.

"Lily and James are in the Hospital Wing," he told her quickly. "I'm sure they would be delighted to meet you!"

Mrs. Weasley's looked sceptical. "But surely they're sleeping! Dumbledore told us that all of you were very ill after your, er, arrival."

"Oh they're fine," Sirius waved his hand dismissively and steadied himself against the armchair behind him. "They've been awake for hours! They're dying to meet you…not literally of course! He said weakly. He felt worse than ever, and his eyes began to droop.

"Well, alright then! Come on you lot! Lets leave these two to some peace!" she shouted. She turned back to Sirius with a concerned, motherly expression. "Are you sure you're alright, Sirius? You're look awfully faint…"

"Fine, fine," Sirius muttered, and shepherded them out of the Common Room. "I just need some sleep."

He collapsed on the couch and fell asleep immediately, snoring softly and shivering slightly.

Harry watched him for a moment, happiness swelling in his heart. Then he tenderly placed a blanket over his godfather and clamoured onto the nearest armchair, where sleep carried him away swiftly and sweetly.