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DISCLAIMER: I own no part of the Harry Potter books, films, etc. Everything belongs to JKR/Warner Bros.

All bits from the book(s) are in bold.

The Meaning Of Family

Chapter Three

'I don't like this,' Remus said decisively, gripping the bike's handlebars like a lifeline.

'You never were any good on this thing – broomsticks either,' Sirius sighed, shaking his head. 'I'd swap places with you, but –' he looked down at Harry, but Remus, his gaze fixed on the sky ahead, couldn't see.

'It's kind of hard in midair, isn't it?' he finished for Sirius.

'Yeah,' Sirius agreed. 'Bloody hell, Moony, get a move on or we'll be here all night!'

'Well I don't want to be responsible for crashing into a helicopter!' Remus snapped.

There was a pause. After a while, Sirius said, 'Sorry, Remus,' rather quietly.

'No, no, I'm sorry,' Remus sighed. 'I shouldn't have snapped at you but… I'm just so… nervous, you know?'

'I know, mate,' Sirius murmured. 'How are we ever gonna raise a kid? I'm scared we'll do it wrong.'

Remus sighed again. 'I still can't take it in.'

Sirius knew what he was talking about, and nodded, before remembering that Remus was in front, and so couldn't see. 'Me neither.' How could Lily and James be…? How was it even possible? 'It's not fair.'

'I know, Sirius. It's not fair.'

'Where are we going anyway?'

Remus shrugged (as best he could without loosening his iron grip on the handlebars). 'I dunno. I just assumed we were going to Grimmauld Place.'

'Yeah,' said Sirius. 'Or we could go to your place.'

'My house is so small. What's wrong with yours?'

'What's right with it?' Sirius muttered darkly.

'Dunno. It's big,' Remus suggested.

'That was a rhetorical question.'

'I know.'

Sirius looked down at Harry again. Even though he was only a year old, Sirius could see traces of James in his face, in his lips and his nose and his cheekbones. He remembered receiving Lily's letter when Harry was first born. 'He looks exactly like James – even old Bathilda agrees – except for his eyes. James says he's got my eyes and I suppose he's right. They're green, like mine, anyway…'

'Poor little sod,' he whispered.

'I know,' Remus said again.

'We're gonna screw this up so badly.'

'No we're not,' Remus protested. 'We'll manage, Padfoot. You just have to have a little faith in yourself.'

'How am I supposed to have faith in myself when my own mother can't stand the sight of me?'

Remus sighed for the third time.

'Listen, Sirius, your mother called me a filthy half-breed when she first met me, I don't care much for her opinion.'

'Hey! That's my mother you're talking about!' Sirius said with mock indignation.

'Ha ha. You know she only doesn't like you 'cause you hang out with half-breeds.'

'And 'cause I was in Gryffindor, remember? And 'cause I ran away at sixteen. And because I hate Kreacher, and because my Uncle Alphard left me a load of gold in his will so she had to burn him off the Black family tapestry, remember? I think you were there…'

Remus grinned. 'Alright, Padfoot, you've made your point. Or rather, you've made my point. Your mother hates you. We're not going back to your mother's.'

'Especially since she's a minor fan of Voldemort,' Sirius added, his tone darkening.

Remus sighed again. 'Come on, Padfoot. Why don't you come back to mine?'

'Wow, cramped much?'

'I told you it was small.'

'D'you think my bike'll be okay outside?'

'Your bike will be fine, Sirius. Sit down, if you can find somewhere. The place is covered in papers and stuff.'

Sirius shifted a large pile of Defence Against the Dark Arts textbooks from the seat of an armchair to its arm, and sat down gingerly, reluctant to disturb Harry, who was still fast asleep.

'Here, I'll take him,' Remus offered, moving over to where Sirius was squatting over the armchair. He tried not to laugh at his best friend's obvious discomfort.

'No, I wanna take him!' Sirius cried, sounding remarkably like a child himself, as Remus lifted Harry from his arms.

'Sit down first, silly,' Remus told him. 'You can have him back when you're nice and comfortable, okay?'

'Stop talking to me like I'm three, alright?'

'We'll stop acting like it!'

'Sorry Moony,' Sirius said in his piteous tone, sticking out his bottom lip like a toddler and turning his sad-eyed-dog expression on Remus, who sighed. 'Can I have him back now, pleeeeeeease?'

'Alright, alright,' Remus said, putting Harry gently into Sirius's eager arms. How could he resist Sirius's plaintive expression? 'Make sure you support his head.'

'Okay, Mum,' Sirius muttered, rolling his eyes.

'Hey, careful! I'll start talking about filthy half-breeds if you carry on like that!' Remus warned.

'Oh, yeah right – you'd be one to talk,' Sirius said. He paused. 'This feels so weird.'

'I know.'

'It's like, where's James? I keep expecting him to come and grab Harry off me in case I drop him or something,' he added, looking down at Harry with a melancholy expression on his face.

'Yeah, and Lily would laughing in the corner and telling him not to worry so much,' Remus said, a reminiscent half-smile on his face.

'Such a woman, James is,' said Sirius, with his bark-like laugh.

'Yeah…' Suddenly Remus didn't feel so much like laughing. 'This is going to take some getting used to,' he said quietly.

'It is,' Sirius replied after a while. He sounded kind of choked up. 'This is so weird,' he said again. 'We're parents now, Moony. Parents. I'm twenty one, I should be out getting drunk and having one-night-stands with girls with inappropriately short skirts on… Parent,' he muttered again in disbelief.

'I'm twenty one too, Padfoot,' Remus reminded him with a reluctant smile.

'Yeah, but you never went in for one-night-stands, did you? Preferred to be studying,' Sirius said mockingly.

'I don't care much for getting drunk either,' Remus said.

'It's alright,' said Sirius, with an air of self-defence. 'But you do wake up with a horrible headache in the mornings,' he conceded.

'We should put Harry to bed,' said Remus after a brief silence. 'It's been a horrible day for him.'

'To say the least. Maybe we should get to bed, too.'

There was a pause.

'Moony? Something you want to tell me?' Sirius asked suspiciously. He'd noticed that Remus looked rather embarrassed all of a sudden.

'I er... Well, I, um…' Remus stammered.

'What?'

'Well… I, erm… Ionlyhaveonebed,' Remus said very quickly.

'What?'

Remus cleared his throat, turning beetroot. 'I only have one bed.' He looked at the floor, hoping it might swallow him up. It didn't. Just his luck.

'Oh,' Sirius said. There was an awkward silence. 'Well I will… um… I'll just have to sleep on the floor.'

'Yeah, about that.'

'Your bedroom floor's covered in Defence textbooks, isn't it?' said Sirius, looking around at the mass of anti-Dark magic books and papers that covered almost every square inch of the tiny living room. Remus nodded. 'I might have known. Bloody hell, Moony! We might as well have gone to my place!'

'Well I did ask…'

Sirius sighed dramatically. 'I suppose I don't mind sharing a bed with you,' he said, trying to sound like he did. 'Just for one night,' he added quickly.

'Of course, obviously!' Remus said too fast.

'I've slept in your bed before, haven't I, Moony?' Sirius said, with a vague recollection of coming back to Hogwarts blind drunk one night in his fifth year, having been thrown out of both the Three Broomsticks and the Hog's Head and staggering into the nearest bed he could find.

'Yes, but I wasn't in it at the time,' Remus said, unknowingly adopting a rather petulant tone that Sirius sometimes used.

'I remember,' Sirius giggled. 'Help me up, Moony, I've got a baby on my lap.'

Remus gently lifted Harry from Sirius's arms and cradled him affectionately until his friend was on his feet. He then handed Harry back to Sirius, aware of how possessive Sirius could get. It was rather touching to see the love in his eyes as he looked down at Harry. Remus didn't mention this to him – Sirius probably would have vomited all over him.

He opened his eyes to the sound of raucous singing. So Padfoot, Prongs and Wormtail were back then. He sighed and jumped out of bed to see what he could do to help. From his left he heard, slightly muffled, 'NO PRONGS THASS MY FRIARWHISSKEY, IF YOU SHPILL THAT I'LL KILL YOU!' accompanied by loud giggling.

The door to the fifth year boys' dormitory was flung open and Sirius staggered in, completely wasted and clutching a half-empty bottle of Firewhiskey, accompanied by slightly-less-drunk-but-still-pretty-drunk James and Peter. So this was the result of the 'boys' night out' that Remus had tactfully declined to join, was it? Perhaps he should have gone along after all, just to keep an eye on things.

'MOONY!' Sirius yelped as though he hadn't seen his friend in years, and giggled as if Remus was the funniest thing he'd ever seen. 'Moooony! Mooooooony! Hahahahaha!'

'Oh God,' Remus muttered as James also started mooing like a cow on amphetamines, and Peter collapsed in the doorway in a drunken heap, way beyond help of any kind.

'Mooony – that soundsss like money!' Sirius cried delightedly, like a toddler having just discovered something new. 'Have you got lotsh of money, Mooony?'

'What the hell is going on? Can you keep the noise down please?' A set of angry footsteps were heard on the stairs, followed by an angry redhead in a quilted dressing down.

'IT'S EVANS!' James yelled, as if they were all blind, pointing at the girl in the doorway. 'Quick, HIDE!'

'Hey, Evans,' Sirius said, lurching up to Lily, who was frozen in angry disbelief. 'Evans – guessh what? Jamesss Potter fancies you!' He giggled maniacally.

'SHHH!' James hissed, turning pink and hitting Sirius limply on the arm. He pointed to Lily again. 'She's there!' It was exactly like watching a pair of rowdy four year olds.

'Sorry, Lily,' Remus said, grimacing apologetically. 'They've, er… had a bit to drink.'

'I can see,' said Lily, looking in distaste at James and Sirius, who were now on the floor, prodding each other with their wands. 'Get them to bed Remus, okay?'

'I will,' he grinned as she left. James scrambled to his feet with a hopeful, 'Gimme a goodnight kiss, Evans?'

Remus heard Lily laugh. 'Fat chance, Potter!' she called.

'Come on Padfoot, bed,' Remus said firmly, trying to haul Sirius into a standing position. He crouched down, put Sirius's arm around his own shoulders, and stood up.

'Blimey, Padfoot, you weigh a bit!' Remus said in surprise, staggering a little due to the fact that Sirius's full body weight was resting entirely upon his own shoulders.

'Not as much asss your mother,' Sirius slurred. Remus rolled his eyes.

'Come on,' he said, dragging Sirius over to his bed. 'Get in.'

'No, I like this one better!' Sirius argued, lurching over to Remus's bed.

'But that's my bed!' Remus protested.

'Well I want to sleep in it,' Sirius said. 'You sleep in mine!' he added, with a sudden stroke of drunken inspiration.

'Y'know what I think?' he continued drunkenly, leaning even more heavily on Remus, who was now stooping under his weight.

'That you're too drunk to say another word?' Remus suggested hopefully.

'No. I think,' Sirius said, raising a finger and looking exactly like a university lecturer, only more drunk, 'that you shouldn't be a werewolf. Aooo! Hehe… I think you should be a were-cow!' he finished dramatically, almost angrily.

'Why?' enquired Remus, before wishing he hadn't asked.

'Because you ssound like a cow!' Sirius shouted. 'Moooony – geddit? Moo… Mooo! Moooony…!'

'Mooony…'

'Moony!'

'Wha-at, Sirius?' he groaned, rolling over and opening his eyes. Sirius really had been calling him, and now stared down at him sadly.

'I can't sleep,' he said. 'I keep thinking about Lily and James.'

Right on cue, before Remus could say anything comforting, Harry woke up and started crying. Sirius jumped and looked at him as though he might explode.

'Oh bloody hell! What do we do now?' he said nervously.

'Pick him up and rock him,' Remus said gently, reaching for the baby, but Sirius knocked his hand away.

'I'll do it, I'm his godfather,' he said stubbornly, picking Harry out of his new cot ('How d'you transfigure a coffee table into a cot?' Remus had asked disbelievingly earlier that evening. 'Dunno,' Sirius had replied, 'but I'm pretty sure it can be done.') and rocking him tenderly.

Possessive, thought Remus, but he refrained from voicing this opinion.

'There there, it's okay baby,' Sirius hazarded, looking at Remus to see if he was doing it right. His friend nodded. Sirius continued comforting Harry, and soon the latter's sobs died away, to be replaced with snuffles which gradually turned into soft snores.

'I can kind of see why people have kids now,' Sirius said once a peacefully sleeping Harry had been placed carefully back in his cot.

'I'm so glad they did,' said Remus, looking down at Harry.

'Yeah,' said Sirius, 'else we'd have nothing left of them.'

He turned, and without thinking buried his face in Remus's chest, wrapping his arms around his friend's waist. Remus reciprocated the gesture, rocking Sirius like the baby as his pain-racked sobs shook the night.