A/N; I've been so busy lately! I'm terribly sorry for the delay, but real life keeps interrupting my muse. Thank you all for your feedback, I treasured every single one.
Warnings for; Explicit language, mild slash (James/Sirius), Violence and massacre (non-descriptive).
Enjoy!
Chapter Three
"Please go to sleep." James Potter pleaded for what seemed to be the umpteenth time in the past three days. The baby on his lap only gave him a grumpy glare and then returned back to feverishly chewing on his thumb. James sighed.
They were in their kitchen ( in the safe house the order provided for them four months prior to all this madness), with James seated in one of the chairs he had set by the sink and Harry on his lap.
The Gryffindor's hands were firmly clasped around the baby's back, too afraid that the kid would flail and hurt himself, or worse, James would accidentally drop him out of exhaustion.
Harry had refused to sleep for more than two days, and only managed to get enough rest when he cried himself to the point that he couldn't even open his mouth anymore, and James, having zero experience as a parent and little patience to deal with an uncooperative one year old had no idea how to fix it.
"Why don't you just sleep?" he rubbed Harry's back in frantic circles. Wishing someone would do the same for him.
"Come on, you're a baby. Babies sleep." his words slurred as he voiced his whine like complaints, wincing as a low throbbing pain pulsed in his temples and his glasses sorely dug into his nose.
Harry whimpered quietly and threw him another glossy look. The older man whimpered back, feeling like he could cry at any given moment. He was gloriously past bashing his head against the counter or pulling at his messy, wild hair. He was so exhausted that all his given energy was focused on keeping the baby upright on his lap.
That was the only position that calmed the child. James didn't dare as much as to recline the kid or keep him to his chest without setting Harry off to throw another tantrum.
Extending one trembling hand towards the sink, James checked on the bottle he had carelessly dropped into the bowl earlier. Baby food was out of question after Harry managed to ruin his favorite shirt with apple porridge puke, and soiled the other one with chicken broth as soon as he changed.
Madam Pomfrey told him the best way to cool a hot bottle was by holding it under running water for a minute or two, James was so spent that he doubted he could hold his hand up long enough to do as she said. He settled for a water bowl instead.
He would have done it with his wand, but he honestly had no idea where he had put it last, a disconcerting fact, and frankly, the last thing on his sleep addled mind. It could be anywhere; by the conjured changing table in the guest room, or in the laundry basket with the ruined shirts or even in their own room on the nightstand. Potter didn't have the slightest idea.
His hand dunked in the cold water and he pulled the bottle out, realizing with dismay that he had left it there too long. The formula milk was positively freezing now. He sighed, rubbing the bottle dry on his rumpled shirt before holding it out to the pouting baby.
If Snivellus could do it then so could he. James thought. He was a marauder, he would sooner die than lose to a one year old.
"Do you want something yummy?" he tried to sound soft, holding out the cold bottle towards the baby with an ashen face. "Maybe some milk? No?" Harry gnawed harder on his thumb, promptly ignoring the desperate young man.
James nodded to himself, breathing out slowly and flexing his hands on Harry's back. "Alright," he told himself. "It's okay, it's okay." he looked down at the baby. "How about we just go to sleep then?" the bottle fell and rolled on the ground as his pleas went ignored. James didn't care.
"He's not sleeping yet?" Sirius's voice washed over him like a cold balm and James screwed his face. 'Good god,' James mused in relief. 'He's back. Finally, he's back.'
That intense fear that gripped them both when the other is out on a mission or a simple patrol is earth shatteringly real. Some days James didn't see Sirius for /days/ to no end until the man finally showed up exhausted, injured or royally pissed off.
James wasn't usually the man they use to do field work, his /talent/ made it absurdly hard to focus during a battle with dozens of different curses of all origins being spewed on all sides all at once. His only use in the order was his funds and his uncanny talent to tell one magical trace from the other.
But the fear still remained; the terror of not seeing the other when they're being sent off to the battlefield with nothing but a wand and a goodbye kiss, or forced to navigate the ruins and corpses after the fight to cross names off a long list of potential names to add to the death eaters' ranks.
Sirius killed and put them behind bars, he was in action. He could get killed at any given time and leave James behind. James searched and examined the bodies of the other people who left their own beloved behind in order to find the unknown death eaters that still weren't in their base.
Funnily enough, James was the one who got more death threats at the end of the day.
Sirius repeated his question as he got closer to the due.
"No." he whined back with closed eyes, feeling Sirius's soft lips land a gentle kiss on his sweat coated forehead.
The other man winced loudly at James's state and flopped down on another chair. "Alright, I know this is going to sound horrible, but, on a scale of one to ten, how bad would it be to give him a bit of dreamless sleep potion?" James's head snapped up in a flash and he glared.
"One hundred and fifty five, Sirius." He gritted out. "We're not giving the kid anything. Especially not an addictive," he trailed off and then shook his head. "Substance."
His partner ran a hand in his hair and rubbed at his stubble with the other. "You need to rest, and so does he. Look at the kid James."
Harry sniffled on his partner's lap, his thumb quivering with his trembling chin. Sirius cringed upon seeing the scene; they might need to replace that thumb with a pacifier soon, he recoiled at the thought of chewed up baby skin. They already had so much to deal with without having to worry about the baby's fingers too.
"What do you suggest I do?" James's hand felt raw from the amount of back rubbing he had been doing. "I cannot get him to sleep, I can barely make him eat... The kid's too stubborn. I feel terrible, and guilty... He's gonna hurt himself like this."
As if on cue Harry let out a pathetic whimper, sitting as rigid as a wooden plank. Sirius crouched down to pick up the fallen bottle that had rolled away under the table, then momentarily flinched back as he realized just how /cold/ the bottle was. He risked another glance at his exhausted, and thoroughly frustrated partner and cleared his throat. James's eyes glimmered with gratitude when Sirius reheated the formula with a quick flick of his wand and handed it to him.
"Okay Harry." The man said. "We're gonna make a deal, you could drink this yummy milk now; and I promise we'll do something fun tomorrow... We go to the zoo, or you can have ice cream... Merlin, I don't know."
"He's not gonna sleep." Padfoot quietly stated. With a heavy sigh, James set the bottle away, narrowing his eyes. Maybe he had missed something, maybe there was still some magical damage left. He bore his eyes on the small child.
Seeing magical traces wasn't something he had to force himself to do. It came as naturally as knowing that a banana was yellow and the sky blue, and right now, all he could see around Harry's halo was nothing besides normal. A blank slate. A white shimmering halo that proved that young Harry hasn't done a single ounce of magic by himself or accident.
Unlike Snape's black murky halo that tinged brown at the edges, or Sirius's that faded into a stormy grey. Halos, or rather, magical traces, rarely had a specific color, unless the magic was dark or morbid in nature. The baby had a vivid bubble of dark surrendering his head that night in Albus's office, and a bit of Poppy's fizzy trace after the medical procedure was done.
But he was fine now.
"We didn't do anything to him." He muttered, titling his head. "I tried everything. There's no trace of magical damage to his body either, I can see that he's healthy but... Why isn't he doing anything?"
Sirius watched the pupil dilation in his eyes closely. He shrugged, gazing at the back of Harry's head.
"Maybe he's in shock?"
"Sirius," James patiently drew his hands away from Harry's back and moved to the baby's temples, swiftly covering the small, perfect shaped ears on the baby's head. His voice was still hushed when he spoke. "It's been three days, this is a one year old whose mind was wiped. He couldn't possibly be in shock."
"I don't know James... I know next to nothing about babies, especially Snape's." his eyes fixated on the dark rings under his beloved's eyes and the drooping baby. He frowned. "But I know that you need to sleep at some point, love. Put him in his crib, he's bound to sleep on his own sometime."
James's drooping eyes were suddenly blown wide as he bared his teeth at Sirius. "We just swore not to neglect him, we made an oath on our magic." James sputtered. "I can't just leave him by himself!"
Padfoot resisted the urge to roll his eyes. "We're not neglecting him, parents do that all the time." At least, his nanny did. The man thought before shaking his head.
"It's normal, okay? James, you work every day, you're an active member of the order, if anything, your toll is twice more than everyone else's, and you're falling off your feet. Come here love, let's go sleep."
After a bit of silent persuasion, the messy haired man nodded, but just as he reluctantly moved to stand, Harry's dam broke and the baby started wailing in earnest, causing James's face to crumple too.
"Great, now he's crying." James felt like crying too. He felt like he should be curled on the floor and wait for it to open up. Parenting was so hard, and exhaustive, and so much work and effort and it hadn't even been three days!
It had only been three days and Harry was already dying. If they didn't adjust him soon, then /they/ might take Harry away. James did not want that to happen, because if it did…then he would never get a chance like this again. It made him feel like a horrible person, but it was true.
There were just so many things that was going wrong, and so little time for him to try to fix them.
Sirius warily reached out to steady his jelly-kneed partner. "Why don't you hand him over to me for a bit?" he asked hesitantly, mulling his lips at the pathetic wails that rose from the small child.
Yawning widely, James deftly kept the crying boy at arms-length as to not cause further agitation. "Sirius, didn't you see what happened last time?"
"Fair point." They both winced. Harry kept on sniffing.
"Alright how about this buddy; you're coming with me and..." Sirius awkwardly gestured at James but still cringed as he continued. "Your daddy, and we all sleep on our bed. Does that sound good?"
A faint smile formed on the other man's relieved face. "Yeah, see?" he propped the baby in his arms. "That's a great idea, huh? Come on Harry... Do you want something to eat before we go?"
Sirius blinked. "Are you expecting him to answer?" James looked startled at the question. Sirius frantically waved his hands as he tried to explain. "I mean, he's really been quiet these past few days."
Time stopped. James's face had gone even paler, looking as if this earthshattering issue hadn't occurred to him before. His eyes comically bulged behind his round glasses and his mouth dropped open, staring at the tiny, but quiet baby in his arms like he was a grenade.
'Oh damn,' Sirius cursed himself under his breath as his spouse's face morphed into one of utter mortification. Like it was their fault that the baby had gone mute somehow.
"But he could talk," James blurted out more to himself than Sirius. "He's fifteen months old. He talked in the office. Lily told me that he had a very impressive vocabulary for someone his age, and now he hasn't uttered a word in four days. We have to fix this. Let's try this, Harry..."
Sirius interrupted the ranting with concern. "Oh merlin. We should seriously get you to a bed. Come on."
"No Sirius, I'm fine."
"No you're not. You're rambling like a mad man. Give me the kid, or you'll drop him."
The chair next to the sink clattered and fell to the ground as James hastily drew back from the extended hands. "It's..."
Sirius cut him off with a dark scowl. "It's not fine James. You're on a verge of a mental breakdown, and in case you don't remember how that one ends…it sucks…it does. So before we let that happen, let's just take small baby steps, okay?" his black haired partner gently coaxed the fussy baby out of his arms and circled his other arm around him. His body sagged into the embrace.
"Let's just get him to sleep."
James had never been so glad to hear Sirius mention sleep before in his entire life.
"Severus." A rich melodic voice called him from behind.
The potion protégé didn't turn to face the man, he kept on staring out of the arched window into the storm that was barreling outside. There was barely anything to see, as raindrops madly platted against the charmed glass. Still, Severus found the darkness and the howling of the wind rather more pleasant than the blood soaked walls and the disgruntled heap of corpses in the other room.
He felt Lucius closing up on him from behind, two other death eaters took their positions by the door. Severus assumed that they were there in case he wanted to assassinate Malfoy. Not likely, he drawled bitterly in his head, not after seeing the brutal slaughter that had just settled down.
"Lucius…or shall I call you 'my lord' now?" he was too distraught to care about the sardonic tone of his voice, and frankly, he wasn't fazed at all by all of the gore and Bellatrix's remains strewn about in the hall downstairs. For all he cared, he would gladly be the one joining her.
"Come off it." The other man waved him off, the smell of bourbon coming off him in unpleasant waves as small ice cubes crinkled in the tiny shot glass in his raised hand.
"I suppose my congratulation is not warranted either." Severus said, his pupils tightening as the sky lightened up. An earsplitting thunder tore itself from the clouds.
"You know, as well as I, that these arrangement is only temporary. Until our Lord can come back to us."
Severus couldn't stop himself, he chortled. "Of course, I would never doubt your intentions." Both were lying through their teeth, and they both knew it. He idly wondered if the guards standing by the library's door were somehow charmed to be excluded from this conversation.
Even behind masks, their faces remained stoic and their shoulders broadened. Not in the slightest bothered by the way Severus addressed their new 'lord'. Conclusion; either they were brutes and not so bright in the head, or excluded from the conversation somehow. Lucius wanted this conversation to be private, but not obviously so…why?
Severus quickly occluded the confusion in his eyes and turned his head away.
Lucius was arrogant, but not careless, and if there was anyone who could see right through his ploy it was Severus.
Well, there was Bella too…what had remained of her anyways.
"You were late tonight, I expected you by my side the moment you received the news Severus." Lucius said as he placed a hand on Snape's shoulder-the one with the bourbon.
"You know why I was late." He resisted the urge to flinch away from the cold bony grasp Lucius's fingers had on his flesh and the icy cold bottom of the bourbon glass that was digging into his shoulder. The touch was so aggravating that for less than a second Severus even considered scrubbing his skin off with acid. Alas, even the strongest of poisons could not burn off the filth his kind carried.
"I do." The blonde haired man admitted. "What did Dumbledore have to say about this?"
This isn't the dark lord, Severus reminded himself as he steeled his thoughts. Lucius, as pompous and arrogant as he was, didn't have mind reading abilities.
"The same thing that our inner people are spewing about." He sneered as another lighting stroke.
"Either the sources are the same or it's the truth." He concluded, clasping both hands behind his back and subtly brushing off Lucius's strong hold on his shoulder.
"Beaten by a bastard child." Lucius shook his head in disappointment. The glass of bourbon crinkled in his hand as he took a small swing. "How utterly…inconvenient."
Severus swallowed the bile rising his throat. "What came of the brat?" Lucius asked. Severus was a trained double agent and still struggled to keep his face devoid of any response or emotion.
His son was far away, being cared for by Potter and Black. The two people he would get to call /father/ one day. The one thing Severus salvaged and now had lost. He kept deleting these thoughts as soon as they formed. He deleted the ache and devastation and the unfairness. He had a job to do. He was keeping Harry safe.
"Classified information I'm afraid." He replied without a hitch. "Dumbledore doesn't trust me that much."
"You're lying." Lucius easily waved him off.
"All I know is that he was taken in by one of the order members." Enough truth, but not too much details. Lying was almost like second nature to Severus, even before he started working as a spy.
"Names?" the aristocrat man required coldly.
"One of the Blacks was on the list of candidates. Albus Dumbledore is surely too smart to even consider them. For his own sake more than the…kid."
He unclasped his hands and finally turned his back to the window, threading his mind to the sound of rain as a way to keep his personal thoughts locked away. Rain was always his favorite anchor for Occlumency.
"Are you orchestrating an ambush?" his voice sounded nonchalant, blank, devoid of care. Exactly the way he wanted it to. In his head however, he was raging, he was raving the palace in his mind at the thought of Lucius hurting a hair on his son's head. The two sides of him fought nail and tooth over dominance.
"They're better off dead, especially for defaming our lord and slandering our ways." Severus itched to grab the smug, slightly drunk man by his throat and throttle the life out of him, but he resisted the urge. One day, Lucius, he vowed to himself. One day.
"However, the ranks are a bit too turbulent for ordered attacks. I might decide to just set them loose…fight it out themselves until they're a bit worn out."
Severus hummed, his eyes fixated on the bourbon in Lucius's hand. He should change the subject, the current one hit too close to home for his comfort. He needed at least five more hours to successfully file Harry away in a corner in his mind. It was still too raw, like a stab wound that was just sprinkled with salt.
"Killing Bellatrix was a mistake Lucius," he started, letting a touch of disapprove sip through his voice. "She was one of his most fanatic followers in the inner circle. Insane but promising. The number of people who followed /her/ in return was quite disconcerting…she would have been a great asset by our side."
Lucius let his fingers go slack around the bourbon glass. It fell and sloshed on the carpeted floor with a subdued thud. The man shook off his fingers as he angrily stared into Severus's eyes.
"She was deranged and she dared to question my loyalty. Our lord wouldn't have perished her either."
Severus smirked viciously, he crossed his arms. "You were terrified of her. Scared that she would overthrow /you/ first. I wasn't born yesterday Lucius."
"Our Lord only kept her around to do his dirty work for him. Even he was disgusted of her sometimes, I couldn't let her-" Severus, feeling too comfortable in his skin now, started to pace around the rigid man. He interrupted the rant as he came to a stop behind Lucius.
"Take your rightful place." He finished. He lowered his head next to Lucius's ear. "After all, it's such an honor to follow the dark lord's footsteps in his untimely absence." He whispered in the man's ear. "Only the most loyal are fit for the position."
Lucius whirled around in a flash, wand in hand and his grey eyes narrowed into snake slits.
"Are you questioning me?" he hissed, threateningly raising his wand.
Severus stepped back, rolling his shoulders. Mentally praising himself for getting one on Lucius Malfoy. "I'm not." he said frankly. "Are /you/? Something tells me that you aren't too keen to let go of /this/," he gestured around the room. "Whenever our lord comes back asking for it."
The other man snorted, the wand slackening in his hand. "I'd be foolish to refuse." His eyes stayed narrowed on Severus. "You should be more careful Severus, I'm starting to wonder about your loyalties."
"I'm here by your side, aren't I?"
This time, it was Lucius who loomed over Severus with a triumphant smirk. "It'd better remain this way my friend, otherwise, if our lord-"
Severus loudly cut him off and took a wide step back, his back almost colliding with the cold, rain plastered window. "/When/ our lord is resurrected, I will be the first one in line."
In line to finish him once and for all.
"I must prepare for the speech now." Lucius abruptly declared and pocketed his wand, turning and striding to his guards. "I'm glad we chatted Severus." He threw a smirk at the potion protégé over his shoulder. "You wouldn't mind taking care of the bodies in the hall on your way, would you? The house elves are regrettably squeamish about it."
Only two hours after Sirius had forcibly dragged James to bed, he was rudely awaken by a wet, slobbery hand repeatedly smacking his cheek. He groaned, batting at the chubby hand.
A tiny whine answered him and another smack landed on his chin. Black sighed, grudgingly peeling an eye open to catch the kid giving him the stink eye with his drool covered hand ready to strike again. Sirius warily fumbled his hand to shake James awake but stopped dead in his tracks as he heard the deep snores filling the room and saw his partner's mouth hanging loose in the dark, a shiny line of drool dripping down his chin.
James was, by all definition dead to the world. Sirius realized dryly. Not that Padfoot could blame him, his partner had been left alone with a tiny, uncooperative human being for more than three days, and as sleep addled as Sirius's own brain was, the task of dueling death eaters had apparently taken less toll than parenting Snape's kid.
"Okay, what do you want?" he asked the kid quietly, rubbing the sleep from his eyes. Harold narrowed his eyes, and just as quietly smacked his cheek again, almost as if he also didn't want to wake James.
Sirius clicked his tongue and reached out to restrain Harry's raised hand. "Stop that kid." He grimaced at the drool but then almost choked as the smell hit him. He almost turned over in their bed.
"Oh Merlin." He wrinkled his nose in disgust, coughing and choking quietly as he suddenly understood the dire need of the freshening charms James had hastily reapplied to the changing table earlier; how could something /so/ small be the source of that smell…merlin. He winced as he got into a sitting position. He threw a desperate glance over at his James and selfishly wished that the man would wake up on his own in a few moments if the smell got bad enough.
Harry scowled at him and pouted, his eyes glazing over with tears as the smell got worse and James remained peacefully asleep.
"Alright. Fine." He scooped up the demanding baby with bated breath and hastily jumped off their bed, stilling immediately as the bed loudly screeched under their weight. Sirius's widened eyes met Harry's and then they both glanced at James's snoring figure.
Still asleep then, the curly haired man thought in relief and stood on the tip of his toes. Harry remained blissfully silent as they made their way out of the dark room and didn't spare James a second glance. Almost as if the kid himself was relieved by the fact that he was /finally/ away from the crazy man he had spent three days with.
"Come on, he couldn't have been that bad kid." He mumbled to the grumpy baby as he padded to their guest room, where James had set up the changing table before. He kept his chin up and breathed mostly through his mouth to avoid the smell. He had never spent much time around kids, but he had no idea they smelled so profoundly /bad/.
Unlike the first time he had attempted holding Harold, the kid was either too spent or desperate enough that he didn't put up a fight even as Sirius set him down on the changing table.
"No wonder it smells awful, it's like a dungbomb exploded in there." Sirius tells the quiet wriggling child as he clumsily taped the clean diaper. Harry was too busy giving him the cold shoulder and munching on his drool covered fist to reply.
He scooped Harry up and headed downstairs to their kitchen instead of the bedroom; he had barely eaten a thing in the past three days on mission, and he felt too guilty to ask James for anything when he arrived. He decided that a simple midnight sandwich would have to do if he wanted to stave off starvation.
As he set Harry on the table and moved about their kitchen he noticed the kid quietly babbling to his fist and paused, listening to the kid. He didn't know why, but the fact that Snape's spawn hadn't uttered a single word must have had more to it than the kid's natural giving-the-cold-shoulder attitude.
Maybe James's concerns weren't that far off the point, he quietly mused.
He took the bread out of the pantry and set the knife on the furthest counter away from the babbling child as he wrestled a bit with the pickle jar; they had some leftover ham, some roast beef, and a bit ketchup. Not his favorite choice for a meal, as he abhorred ketchup with pickles in general, but he was hungry enough to include both and suck it up.
"You see kid?" Sirius turned to Harry, ketchup in hand. "You've worn him out so much that I might get poisoned now. You're to blame if I died tonight, so keep up the good act."
Harry pretended (or at least, Sirius thought) that he didn't notice nor heard the grumpy man as he moved around him to fetch a plate.
He put all of the ingredients in front of Harry and collapsed in a nearby chair, cringing as the plate clattered on the table. Harry paused momentarily to give him an unimpressed glare and went back to zoning out.
"Well sorry for being a human being kid." He bitterly mumbled under his breath, reaching for the bread. "Not all of us can go on hunger strikes and act badass about it."
The kid grunted, but didn't turn to face the man. Sirius rolled his eyes and fetched a table spoon to sort out the ketchup. He eyed his options with a careful eye.
He hummed. "Ham and roast beef, could be two separate sandwiches…but meh." He shrugged. "Let's get creative tonight." He was never a cook to begin with, and he never had much to do with sandwiches while growing up, seeing as pure blood etiquette whirred its ugly nose away at anything less than a graceful meal that required at least three forks and a carving knife.
If Sirius was being brutally honest with himself, without James's all thumbs cooking, he would have probably starved to the death in a dark alley somewhere. Not many people could be trusted to handle food these days.
"Never, ever, eat what I give you kid." Sirius said as he mashed his collapsing sandwich together, and grimaced at the unappetizing sight. "We don't want our savoir dying of food poisoning." Harry's head snapped to his face as he said this and Sirius raised both eyebrows at the sudden rapt attention he was receiving.
"Okay…" he said slowly, and brought the jaw aching sandwich close to take a bite. Harry complained loudly as he opened his mouth.
Sirius lowered the sandwich with a sigh. "What?"
Harry whined louder, his eyes solely on Sirius's hands, or rather, the bulging sandwich in them. Padfoot's eyebrows shot higher.
"Is…anything wrong with it?"
Harry ignored him altogether but smacked his lips as his eyes remained on Sirius's hands. Realization dawned on the exhausted man; he might not have spent much time with kids, but he knew a hungry baby when he saw one. The look he could bet James hadn't seen on Harry ever since he offered him food.
"You're hungry, aren't you little fella?" Sirius asked, warily extending one hand in his pocket to grab his wand. Harry brought his fist back in his mouth as a response and not even once took his eyes off the sandwich.
Flicking his wrist and muttering a quick 'Accio', Sirius retrieved the cold milk bottle James had left near the sink. He warmed it up and scooted closer to the drooling child.
"Hey there champ," he held the bottle close to Harry's face. "Do you want that milk now?"
But Harry's eyes didn't budge away from the sandwich even when Sirius handed the bottle to him.
"Don't tell me you want /that/." Sirius grimaced as he gestured at the dismantled mess that was once a sandwich. Harry's eyes glossed over and his bottom lip quivered as he tore his gaze away and met Sirius's eyes.
The man's heart melted on the spot as his eyes widened. Frantically setting the bottle away, he risked a quick glance above to ensure that James was still asleep and then stared back at the baby. "Alright, so you want it. That's cool kid, please don't cry!" in a desperate attempt to quieten the increasing sobs Sirius reached out and tickled Harry's tummy.
Harry went rigid and stared at Sirius with an open mouth. His face morphing into shock as the tears were kept at bay.
Sirius cautiously tickled the baby's tummy again and cocked his head with a grin as Harry gave out a small giggle that seemed more because of the unexpectedness than genuine mirth.
"So you like that, don't you?" Harry grabbed his fingers with his drool covered hand, but Black couldn't find it in himself to be mad and did the next best thing he could come up with. He pressed his lips together and blew a raspberry. Again, Harry drew back in shock, before smacking his lips together, trying to imitate Sirius.
Glad that the kid was distracted, he picked up Harry and put the small baby on his lap before tearing off a small piece of his sandwich, keeping his other hand firmly around the boy's stomach. The child whimpered but opened his mouth obediently.
"Can you even chew that?" he asked worriedly as he tore another piece, he dipped it in the ketchup jar and held it up to the baby.
Harry sniffled as he ate, but as far as Sirius could tell, he didn't seem to have any problems with chomping the food. Now, he only had to hope that he hadn't poisoned the kid for real, or James would kill him. He blew another raspberry at the thought, causing Harold to look up at him with wonder shining in his eyes.
The first real expression Sirius had seen on the boy ever since they brought him home. As little as it was, it was still progress, he supposed.
"I had one rule kid," he muttered to Harry as he held up a small chunk of ham. Harry turned his head away and Sirius instinctively raised his wand to empty the bottle, filling it up with some water.
Harry drank and ate as if it was his first time, and the older man had to slow him down several times so the child wouldn't get sick. His own stomach coiled and groaned out in hunger, but Sirius ignored it in favor to feed Harry as much as he could.
"That's a good boy." He praised Harry as he gave him some more water. "There we go, drink it all then. Good boy." He mopped up Harry's chin with a handkerchief.
"What are you doing?" a shocked voice exclaimed from the doorway, causing both heads to snap up.
Sirius gave his partner a sheepish grin. "Midnight snack?" James rubbed his eyes and fixed his skew glasses as he stumbled into the kitchen.
James stalked into the kitchen, looking like he thought that everything was a delusion. "Is he…Sirius is he actually eating?" he rammed his glasses firmly to his eyes as he slumped down in front of them. Harry barely paused his pace, and graced James presence with a whine.
"It seems like it, yeah. He drank quite a bit too." Sirius nodded at the empty water bottle with his chin. James looked back and forth between the bottle and the baby. If Sirius wasn't busy looking just as bewildered, he would've laughed his ass off at James's comical expression.
Harry reached his hand for the pickle in Sirius's hand with a small sound. James snapped out of his trance and raised both eyebrows at the pickle.
"Are you giving him ham and pickles?" he asked indignantly, but there was no real heat behind his voice. "You do know that this is a one year old…his digestive system-"
Before he could work himself into a complete panic attack Sirius hushed him down with a wave of his hand.
"He's fine James, calm down baby."
Harry stopped like a deer caught in headlight, with his ketchup smeared lips open and his hand halfway showing pickle in his mouth. Sirius rolled his eyes at the kid. "Not you Harry, I meant baby as in…oh this is gonna get confusing."
"We're giving him junk food."
"He's eating James. That's all that matters." Sirius firmly corrected him.
James lowered his head in his hands. "Other parents give their kids veggies and chicken broth and milk…here we are, after three days, feeding a one year old ham and pickles coated in expired ketchup. I shudder to think what Lily has to say right now."
Sirius scratched his chin as he looked down at Harry.
"We're terrific parents James. See? The kid is already self-sufficient."
James blankly stared as Harry cleaned off his mouth with Sirius's night shirt and then emptied the remaining water in his bottle on the man's lap.
"Yeah." James nodded faintly. "Self-sufficient."