As promised, Sirius took Harry to the beach and needless to say, he enjoyed himself, other than some 'unexpected events.' At one point, Sirius had been literally cornered by three very pretty witches, who were simply vying for his attention. Harry had found it very uncomfortable when they batted their eyelashes or 'innocently' ran their fingers down Sirius' arm. He had actually thought his pepperoni pizza would make a rather hasty reappearance.

One of them had repeatedly pinched and pulled Harry's cheeks and called him a 'cute little boy' before gushing about how single dads were the wonderful. His cheeks felt sore! To make things more awkward for Harry, Sirius had flirted with those ladies, reciprocating their honey sweet words with his disarmingly charming smile laced with a compliment or two.

He was relieved when the women finally left. "I'm not a cute little boy!" That was the first thing he said once they were out of earshot. His father burst out laughing, pulled Harry into a headlock and tousled his hair. "Well, I don't know about cute, but you're definitely little." Sirius teased. Harry squirmed out of the headlock and glared at the man.

"I am not little. I'm just slightly shorter than the other boys in my year." He protested, although an unwilling grin had appeared on his face. "You're probably right." Sirius replied before smirking at the boy. "Although, I have a hunch that you would still fit into that old onesie of yours. I think it's tucked away somewhere in my wardrobe." The man commented casually.

"Hey!"

"Just kidding." Sirius said, throwing his arm around his boy's shoulders. Harry knew that his father was just pulling his leg but that didn't change the face that he was indeed shorter than quite a few of his classmates. "Why can't I get taller?" He groaned, kicking the sand around him. "Don't fret about it, kiddo. You'll grow. In fact, you have grown a good deal this year and you've gained a bit of weight as well." Sirius reassured him.

"Well I don't feel any taller. If anything, I think I'm growing shorter! Ron's nearly as tall as his dad already and even Malfoy is taller than me. I'll be scrawny for the rest of my life." Harry grumbled. Sirius rolled his eyes at his son's worries and sat down on the sand, pulling Harry with him. "You'll develop grey hair even before you come of age, if you don't stop worrying so much."

"Besides, both James and Lily were amongst the shortest students in our batch. James wasn't much taller than what you are now, nor was Lily." The offhand manner, in which Sirius said the words, somehow calmed Harry. It made him feel more... normal.

"Fine. I'll stop worrying." Harry replied. Sirius grinned mischievously and pinched Harry's cheek. "Well, aren't you a cute little boy."

"DAD!"

"SURPRISE!" Harry jolted awake and stared with wide eyes. Ron, Hermione, Fred, George and Ginny were all standing in his bedroom, with huge smiles. "W-What?" His words came out like a yawn as he had been fast asleep. He put on his glasses to get a better look.

George lightly whacked him across the head. "Close your mouth, mate. You'll catch flies." All of them were grinning widely at him. Fred stepped forward and cleared his throat. "Harry Potter, we are all gathered here today at this hour so that we may bring in your birthday and be with you on this special day." He spoke in an overly dramatic and formal tone, eliciting giggles and laughs from everyone.

"Yeah, stop staring and get out of bed, lad. It's your birthday. Almost." Harry glanced at the clock on his nightstand: 11:30. Half an hour left. "Pup, do you plan to just sit there and gawk at them for the remainder of the night?" It was then that he noticed his father standing at the door. "Dad, you knew about this?"

"Of course, silly. Who else do you think planned all this?" Sirius asked with his trademark grin. Nearly bursting with elation, Harry jumped out of bed. He was at once hoisted onto the twins' shoulders. "Hey! Put me down!" He cried, but he wasn't actually serious.

"Never!"

"Dad! Help me!" Harry said, although the laughter in his voice said otherwise. "Nope, not helping. This sort of reminds me of the time when you'd somehow spilled chocolate syrup all over your head on your first birthday. Lily carried you to the bathroom and—"

"Dad! Stop embarrassing me." Harry mumbled under his breath but he knew that the animagus would hear him. "Just doing my job, son." They went down where a three-tier cake, plates and spoons and a huge pile of presents were waiting. Once the twins set (threw) Harry onto the sofa, Harry shot up towards the cake but Sirius grabbed the back of his shirt and pulled him back. "Not yet, pup. We still have twenty three minutes to go."

"Fiiiine, I'll wait. Where's Regulus?" He asked. "Right here, kiddo." Regulus was indeed there and he floated his own pile of presents towards the already large stack. His eyes widened at the sight of the total number of presents in the room. He was sure that presents were all wonderful but what mattered most was that he was amongst those he cared about.

The countdown began exactly one minute before Harry's birthday. "59, 58... 3, 2, 1! Happy Birthday!" They all gathered around him in a group hug. "Happy birthday, mate." Said Ron, playfully punching his shoulder. The twins banged Harry on the back while Hermione gave him a bear hug. Ginny wished him a shy happy birthday before her cheeks coloured and she ducked away.

"Happy Birthday, pup." A familiar arm wrapped around him, pulling him into a tight embrace. "Thanks, Dad." Both of them knew that he hadn't said 'thank you' just for the birthday wishes. He threw his arms around Sirius, hugging the man back. His father kissed him on the forehead and he didn't move away, despite the fact that his friends were probably watching. They'd tease him about it later on but it was worth it. He'd spent years dreaming about these moments. Now that he had it, he wasn't going to let go.

"What? No hug for Reg?" He laughed and pulled away, only to be drawn into another hug by Regulus. "Happy birthday, mate." He said, mussing Harry's hair. "Thanks, Reg. Can we eat the cake now?" He asked. Sirius rolled his eyes at the exaggerated tone of the boy's voice. "Yes, you can."

Everyone crowded around the birthday cake and pure happiness filled the room. "Make a wish, kiddo." His father said. Harry searched his mind for something that he wanted; but nothing came up. He already had everything he wanted. He was the luckiest boy in world. Nevertheless, he smiled and blew out the candles.

Becky and Dobby made quick work of cutting out huge slices of cake for everyone. Next up were the presents. Each Weasley had given Harry a gift; one from Hermione and even the house elves had given him presents. The rest of the huge pile was from Sirius and Regulus. Finally, at around one thirty, all the kids went upstairs to the guest rooms and within no time, all of them were out like a light. Only Harry was awake. He knew that his dad would come by to say goodnight and he was right.

"Hey, pup." The man smiled and moved to sit down next to Harry. "Today was just awesome, Dad. Thanks a lot." He said, unable to keep the grin off his face. "I'm glad you liked it." They sat quietly for a bit before Sirius broke the silence.

"Damn, kiddo, it's kind of hard to digest the fact that you're thirteen already. You're growing up way too fast, pup." Harry wanted to protest that on the contrary, it was taking too long but he kept quiet for his dad's sake. Instead, he settled for teasing the man. "Need a box of tissues, Dad?" He asked innocently. Sirius rolled his eyes and lightly swatted Harry's behind. "Brat." He said but the fondness in his tone was evident.

"Sleep now. I'm pretty sure your friends will come barging in and pull you out of bed. It'll save me some work." Sirius said with a wink. Harry laughed and lay down. "Goodnight, pup. I love you." Harry yawned and snuggled in a little more. "G'night, Dad. Love you more."

The next day was also brilliant. As Sirius had predicted, Harry's friends once again 'attacked' his room and pulled him out of bed. The first thing they did was feast on an enormous birthday breakfast. "Mate, this is absolutely brilliant. It's even better than Mum's." said Ron as he helped himself to yet another piece of bacon.

"Don't let mum hear you say that, Ronnie." George advised. Initially, they'd all planned to go for a one-day picnic but then they'd dropped the idea since there was a chance of being spotted by muggles while playing Quidditch. So, they settled on spending the day at Black Manor itself.

A little later, the twins snuck away from the rest of the friends and retreated to a quiet corner of the house. They wanted to chalk out pranks for the upcoming year. George pulled out the Marauder's map and the two of them bent over it. "We won't repeat any of the pranks. New term, new pranks."

"This time, we need to succeed in every one of them. Last year wasn't quite as we had planned. Some of our pranks backfired and not once, not once did we succeed in tricking Professor Black. We need to get every one of them this year." George stated with conviction. "Let's start with Minnie."

"See, every Tuesday, Mcgonagall goes for her rounds to make sure that the students are following rules and stuff. When she reaches the fourth portrait from the stairs, where—"

"Actually, this year, she'll be making her rounds every Thursday." A voice casually said and both of them turned around to see Sirius smirking at them. "Uh... hi, Professor." Fred began rather awkwardly. Although Sirius wasn't a professor anymore, they'd gotten used to addressing him as such.

Sirius knew as well as the two boys that had their mother been here instead, they would have landed themselves in major trouble. But no one enjoyed a good prank like Sirius Black. "Secondly, it annoys her more if the dung bombs hit her in the face than on top of her head." He continued nonchalantly. "So, you might want to position everything accordingly."

"Professor, how in the world do you know so much about pranks?" Sirius leaned against the wall and shrugged. "Let's just say that I have a few tricks up my sleeve."

Fred and George shared a glance before looking back at Sirius. They could get some serious information here. "Professor Black, you are our favourite professor. We've never enjoyed learning this much until you started teaching. That's the reason we never tried to play a prank on you. Would you be so kind as to share some more details with us?"

Sirius rolled his eyes at them. "Right. What actually happened was that you'll tried many a time and it backfired. I distinctly remember every single time you two tried to prank me and failed." He said. "You knew?" George asked as surprise washed over their faces. Sirius gave them his trademark smirk. "Of course I did. Who else changed the arrangements so that they'd backfire?"

Instead of getting upset over the fact that they'd been pranked, they were genuinely impressed. A person had to be exceptionally good in order to trick Fred and George Weasley. "How did you do it?"

"A prankster never reveals his secrets. Let's just say I've been in this profession long before you were born. I'm surprised you two boys haven't figured it out yet." He said. "Figured out what?"

"The Marauders' Map? The ones who created it? Goodness, you are slow." He said. There was a minute of silence before it dawned on them. "No way. No bloody way." Fred's eyes widened in an almost comical manner. "Finally! I thought you'd never get it!" Sirius exclaimed, grinning widely. "So that's what you meant when you said you knew them well? You are really one of them?"

"Absolutely."

"You are?" George asked, his voice filled with something akin to awe. "I'm Padfoot." Sirius said with a casual one-shouldered shrug. Both the boys let out an excited shout. "We've found you!" Fred said, pretending to wipe a tear away.

They glanced at one another and got down on their knees in front of Sirius, grinning like maniacs. "Please, O Great One, teach us to be half as great as you and your companions. We solemnly swear to carry forward this legacy and the walls of Hogwarts shall never know a dull moment." Said George.

Sirius burst out laughing at their theatrics. He liked the Weasley twins; they were the fun sort. "Get up, you two. I don't mind lending a trick or two." He said. Grinning excitedly, they got up. "So who are the others? And please, don't tell us that it's a story for another day." Said Fred, recollecting the last time they'd spoken about the Marauders map.

Fred and George couldn't believe their luck. They were standing before a Marauder— the Marauder. They'd spent years thinking about what their role models would be like. Now they'd actually met one of them. It was too good to be true.

"Fine, I'll tell you. We were the best of friends, more like brothers. The fou– three of us were thick as thieves. If you go and ask Minnie, she'll confidently tell you that my best friend and I are responsible for every single grey hair she possesses." Said Sirius with a nostalgic smile.

He distinctly remembered Minerva's words: I swear, , Mr. Potter; I hold you both guilty for the increasing number of grey hair on my head.

"Freddie, we've finally found someone— the one who troubled old Minnie more than ourselves. So who were the rest of the Marauders?" George repeated his question excitedly. Sirius finally took mercy on the two boys and divulged the great secret. "Well, as you'll now know, I'm Padfoot. You've met Remus Lupin, haven't you?"

At their nod, he continued. "He's Moony. Another friend of ours was Wormtail. And lastly, my best friend James Potter was Prongs." The bitter edge in Sirius' voice when he'd spoken of the traitor warned the twins that it was an 'off limits' topic. They were far more concerned with something else altogether. "So Harry is the son of a Marauder and the godson of another? That lucky little..."

Sirius couldn't help but chuckle at their reaction. "And he never thought it was necessary to tell us? He had better watch out." Fred said and George agreed wholeheartedly. "If you both are going to go after Harry, I think I'm going to have to change my mind about teaching you new pranks. He is my boy after all." Sirius mused out loud with a smirk.

Their vehement protest filled the room almost immediately. "Who said anything about Harry? He's like our baby brother. We said we'd watch out for him. You must've misheard us, Professor." George said.

"Brilliant. I see no harm in educating you boys." He said, looking excited himself. "When do we start?" They asked, eyes gleaming at the prospect of learning from the great Marauder and prankster extraordinaire, Sirius Black.

"Well, for starters, you can work on undoing those stink sap balloons and slime cobwebs in my room. I must say, it was a rather poor attempt to prank me." He paused for a minute and shook his head in mock exasperation. "My, my. We do have our work cut out for us." He said with a grin and walked away, leaving two very awed and impressed boys behind.

Later that evening, once all the Weasleys and Hermione had gone back home, the occupants of the Manor received a surprise visit from Remus. It had been quite some time since the werewolf had come over. Nearly two months.

Remus received quite the shock when he stepped out of the floo and into the living room. He had sent an owl to Sirius earlier during the day, telling him that he would drop by. He hadn't expected to find Regulus Black, Sirius' supposedly 'dead' brother sitting and reading a magazine.

"R-Regulus?" His voice betrayed his shock. "Oh, hello, Lupin. Come, sit down. Good to see you." While Remus had never actually known Regulus, he remembered his behaviour quite well. Whenever Regulus had met either him or James, he'd always been very cold towards them. "I thought you were—"

"Dead? Oh well, but I'm not. It's great, isn't it? It's a long story." The man said with a smirk.

At that precise moment, Sirius came downstairs, followed by Harry. He looked at the duo and smiled warmly. That boy would follow Sirius anywhere. He had a feeling that if Sirius asked the child to jump off a cliff, he'd do it without question.

"Long time no see, mate." Said Sirius casually as he sat down on the sofa. Remus winced at the undertone. He'd been off the grid for two months and hadn't responded to any letters. He'd explain things later. But first he turned to the birthday boy. "Happy birthday, Harry." He said, offering his hand. Harry stood up and accepted the hand with a large grin. He'd clearly had a wonderful birthday. Remus pulled out a wrapped parcel from his robe pocket and handed it to him.

"I'm sorry I didn't visit for so long, Harry. But, I had to leave since it was some really urgent work." Remus explained. "It's alright, Remus. I had a great summer with Dad and Reg." Harry replied, immediately forgiving him.

Sirius, ever observant, noticed the look on Remus' face. He wanted to say something but not in front of Harry. "Pup, why don't you go and run yourself a bath?" He suggested. Then, on a teasing note he continued: "You've done nothing but bum around all day, playing Quidditch and all. You'll start attracting flies if you don't get cleaned up."

"Haha." Harry replied. "Fine, I'll go. And I don't smell." He stated. "Come down quickly or there'll be no dinner left." Sirius added jokingly. "Yes, mum." Harry mumbled, although he was grinning on the inside. There was a major part of him that relished the feeling of being fussed over.

"I heard that, young man." He turned around and met Sirius' amused expression. "Alright, alright. I'm going." He dragged the last word out and went up to his room, mumbling something about super-powerful Dads.

"So I see you finally decided to visit." Sirius said, once Harry was upstairs. Remus sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose tiredly. He was just getting over his shock of Regulus being alive. "I'm sorry. I was away on a mission. It was a favour to Dumbledore. Once the term ended, he asked me if I could help him out with something."

"And you agreed." Sirius finished. He knew his werewolf friend well enough. Remus still felt like he owed Dumbledore a lot for allowing him to study at Hogwarts. "You didn't answer the floo nor did you reply to any letters. What was this mission anyway?" Sirius asked, frowning slightly.

"It was rather strange actually. He sent me to procure two objects for him. I don't know why he wanted them but I got them for him. He said that they'd been lost for decades now. He said that they needed to be destroyed, Merlin knows why."

"So what happened then?" It was Regulus who voiced the question. "Nothing much, really. The objects were quite hard to locate and so it took me a lot of time. I returned only yesterday." The man finished. "What were these objects?"

"A ring from an old pureblood family, the Gaunts and a cup of some sort. I got both of them and handed them to Dumbledore." Sirius furrowed his brows, deep in thought. Why had Dumbledore sent Remus to fetch those items? "I figured that they were probably some sort of dark objects since they gave out this sort of negative energy." The werewolf said.

Sirius had a suspicion about exactly what these objects were, but he wasn't too sure. He decided to have a word with Dumbledore the next time he met the old man.

Regulus pushed himself up and closed the file he'd been going through. It was well past one. Most of the cases were going quite well, the number of death eater attacks had drastically reduced and there were only a few lose ends left to tie up. Almost every death eater was terrified of Sirius and had gone into hiding. It was only a matter of time before they were caught as well. "I think I'll call it a night," he said to Sirius who was also reading something. "Okay. Goodnight, baby brother. Make sure you have your blankie with you, Reggie."

Rolling his eyes, he went up the stairs and passed Sirius' room and stopped in front of Harry's. Over the past month, he'd grown to care for the lad a great deal. Somehow, his brother's son had managed to wriggle his way into Regulus' heart. He found himself developing the same protective instincts that Sirius had when it came to the boy.

He frowned slightly when he noticed the light was on. Not a bright one but the sort that was emitted from a wand. He opened the door, right in time to see the light go off. He smirked and shook his head fondly. "Couldn't sleep?" He asked, coming in. The boy knew he'd been caught and opened his eyes. He sat up and gave Regulus a guilty smile.

Harry looked innocently at Regulus and shrugged. His father would've asked a similar question,but unlike Sirius, Harry found that it was easier to talk his way out of trouble with Regulus. The man was too soft. While Sirius was the father, Regulus was more like the fun uncle. The get-out-of-trouble-card. While the word 'uncle' had previously made Harry shudder, it didn't affect him now. He was finally starting to learn what an uncle was actually supposed to be like.

"The comic was interesting." He admitted sheepishly, pulling out the thin boom from underneath his pillow.

"You're supposed to be asleep, kiddo." The man said, ruffling Harry's hair. "Fine, I'll go to bed. For real." He added, when he saw Regulus' amused smile. Regulus accepted the comic that Harry handed over. The boy placed his glasses on the nightstand and snuggled in.

"Goodnight, Uncle Reg. Love you."

Smiling affectionately at the teenager, he drew the comforter over him. "I love you too, kiddo."

He closed the door and saw his brother coming up the stairs. "Uncle Reg huh?" Sirius asked as his lips quirked upward slightly. Smiling goofily, the younger man nodded. "Yeah. I think I'll hold onto that title."

"You do that." Regulus went to his own room leaving Sirius standing in the hallway. The man cast one last look at his pup and was comforted at the sight of his son safely tucked in.

Family indeed.

So, our Harry is finally a teenager. More of Draco coming up in the next chapter. I don't know when I'll update next since I'm really busy. But I'll certainly try.

So Regulus has been promoted to the status 'uncle' and he's going to be the greatest uncle ever. The twins know! That was fun to write as well. So tell me how you feel about this chapter.

Once again, I'm truly sorry about the long wait and a huge thank you to those who thought it was worth it.