If you have any suggestions/feedback for this story, I hope you'll leave a review. The later chapters haven't been set in stone, so a lot of things are still up in the air.
Alma's house was near the western edge of the island, quite a long walk from the little muggle village around the harbor. A ferry sailed from the mainland to the harbor every day, and that was the only muggle means of reaching the island. It was extremely isolated, and Sirius knew that was the main reason why Alma chosen it as a home for her brood. Most of the shore was rocky and steep, but one spot near their house was a pleasant, sandy beach. Alma gave Sirius the picnic basket to carry while they walked there, and the rest of her children introduced themselves to him.
Enoch, the sulky teenage boy, was the one who could create Inferius. Olive, who was about the same age, had flaming red hair just like a Weasley, which was appropriate, since her peculiarity was fire. "Do you want to see my peculiarity?" Hugh, a younger boy, asked him, and without warning, he opened his mouth wide, startling Sirius when a swarm of bees flew out from inside his stomach.
The littlest girl, Claire, told Sirius her name, but when he asked, "And what's your peculiarity?" she just ducked her head and moved closer to Alma.
Alma took her hand and prompted her, "Claire, I'm sure you remember what the polite thing to say is. Use your words."
Claire raised her head to look at Sirius and said, "I prefer not to say, thank you," then looked to Miss Peregrine, who smiled and nodded approvingly.
Sirius blinked, puzzled, but he said simply, "Well, that's fair enough." The girl looked quite normal, and he wondered what her peculiarity might be. He hoped it wasn't some other sort of dark magic, like Legilimency. That might be even worse than creating Inferius. He thought of Snape and had to suppress a shudder.
"What's your peculiarity, Sirius?" one of the children asked, distracting him, but another one cried, "No, don't tell us! Let's try to guess it!"
The children made dozens of excited guesses as they walked down the steep path to the beach. Could Sirius control the weather? Could he fly? Could he walk through walls? When the guesses started getting ridiculous – "Can you crack nuts in your teeth like a squirrel?" Claire asked – he decided that they could use some help.
"I'll give you a hint," he said, and he smiled at Alma over their heads. He still didn't understand why she let her children believe that she was an ymbryne, not a witch, but he would show her that he could play along with her cover story. "My peculiarity is like Miss Peregrine's."
"Are you a time-traveler?" Olive asked.
"No, not that one, her other peculiarity."
"You can turn into a bird!" Bronwyn cried, but Emma corrected her, "Bronwyn, only girl peculiars can turn into birds, remember?"
"What sort of animal are you, Sirius?" Millard asked.
"I'll show you," he grinned.
They had reached the beach now. The children were already dressed to go swimming, but Sirius pulled off his shoes and shirt nonchalantly, as if he wasn't aware that all the children were watching him, curious. He liked having an audience. He took a few steps away from them, the sand hot under his bare feet, and transformed. He knew that his Animagus form could be frightening – a very large, very black dog with a rough coat – but Alma's children just ooh'ed and exclaimed, impressed.
He showed her children a good time. He discovered, much to his surprise, that there were still traces of a child in him. The fun-loving, trouble-making boy that he was at Hogwarts had been buried deep down in him during his years in Azkaban, but now, that boy seemed to float back up to the surface – and he was still as eager to have fun as he ever was. He swam and splashed in the waves with Alma's children and made up games for them to play. He transformed from a human to a dog and back again so many times that he lost count, for the children found his "peculiarity," as they believed it to be, endlessly fascinating.
"Isn't it funny," Emma said at one point, "that you dog-paddle when you're a dog but not when you're human?"
Sirius had never thought much about peculiars before; he wasn't prejudiced against him, like so many witches and wizards, but he'd never found them very interesting, either. But as he spent time with these children, he discovered that peculiars were fascinating too, in their own way. Emma's peculiarity was air, which allowed her to stay underwater for as long as she liked. Hugh ran out of the water and up the beach a few times to let his bees out over a patch of clover that Fiona grew for him.
Sirius was large enough as a dog to let the littlest children ride on his back, and he was strong enough as a man to pick most of them up and throw them into the water, which they loved. He first time he threw Bronwyn, she came up laughing and said, "Ooh, that was fun! Shall I do it to you now, Sirius?"
He thought that she was joking, but he should've known better. Bronwyn's peculiarity, he discovered, was super strength. When he laughed and said, "Yeah, Bronwyn, you do it to me," she grabbed him around his legs and flung him upwards with ease. Her arms were too short for her to throw him very high, but it was high enough that he flailed his arms and legs through the air like a prat until he crashed back down in the surf. Alma, watching them from the sand, tried not to smile, but a few of her children laughed so hard that they fell over.
To get back at them, he transformed again and paddled back to the shore, where he planted his paws on the sand and shook his coat dry, which sent them running away shrieking. "Now we're going to smell like wet dog," Horace said, brushing the dog hair off him, but he was laughing.
Occasionally while they swam, Sirius stood up in the water and looked around – at the deep blue waves crested with white foam, at the hills of the island dotted with sheep – and for really the first time since escaping from Azkaban, he felt free. Maybe it was being here in the time-loop, a world away from Grimmauld Place and the war against Voldemort. Maybe it was the children. He had been jealous of them at first, for having Alma all to themselves, but they were good kids, and he couldn't hold onto his envy.
Or maybe it was Alma. Sirius caught her eyeing his bare chest appreciatively at one point, and he knew that she was hungry for him. She would never complain, but she had to get lonely, taking care of eleven children by herself. Sirius knew loneliness all too well. He slipped once and called her Alma instead of Miss Peregrine, and she called him Padfoot the first time she saw him as a dog, but otherwise, they controlled themselves very well. Her children had no idea that they were old lovers, no idea that Sirius was counting down the hours until tonight, when they were all asleep and he could have Alma to himself.
Sirius felt years younger, playing with the children on the beach. Their fun was only interrupted twice. The first time was when Hugh got a sharp swimmer's cramp in his leg and floundered hard in the waves, nearly going under. Sirius picked him up and handed him off to Alma on the sand, Hugh wincing and repeating ow ow ow the whole time. But he stopped as soon as Alma rubbed his leg and said gently, "You're all right, Hugh. Come sit with me and rest for a minute." The second time was when Claire got sand in her eyes and cried from the sting of it. But she stopped when Alma put an arm around her and said, "I know it hurts, Claire, but open your eyes and I can get that sand out for you."
Watching her with them, Sirius thought back to the long rounds that he'd argued with Molly Weasley. The two of them were always butting heads over Harry; Sirius wanted him to be told more about what was happening, but Molly thought he should be told nothing. "Meaning I'm irresponsible?" "Meaning you've been known to act rashly, Sirius." Remembering those words, Sirius sighed. Maybe Molly was right. Certainly, Sirius knew how to give these peculiar children a fun time, but when they needed anything other than fun, he didn't have the faintest idea of what to do, except give them back to Alma, who, it seemed, could soothe whatever troubled them.
He knew that he had changed during those long years in Azkaban, but now, he realized that she had changed, too. She had developed such a way with children, such a devotion to this odd brood of peculiar boys and girls. They filled up her days so completely that Sirius felt that cold certainty again that there was no room left in Alma's life for him.