Chapter three

Sirius rubs his face tiredly and looks up when he feels Harry's gaze on him. It is a concerned look and Harry looks like he wants to say something.

"Everything okay?" Sirius asks because having Harry is one thing but Hermione accompanying him seems fishy. Harry smiles at him reassuringly however.

"Course it is," Harry replies and near the stove, Hermione pours their coffee in large mugs and for a minute there is a comfortable silence while she tinkers around to prepare their coffee just right. She places Sirius and Harry's coffee mugs in front of them. Sirius smiles at them as he blows over his coffee before taking a sip.

"It's good to have you here," Sirius tells him in a low voice and Harry nods.

"Yeah, it's been a while." It's the way he says it that has Sirius pausing and looking at his godson closely. He sets his mug down.

"Harry? Is everything alright?" Is it one of the sprogs? He worries but then Harry tells him that everything is fine at home. Then he immediately thinks about Teddy; he hasn't talked to him at all. Ever since Teddy has hit his growth spurt, being around him has been…hard to say in the least. He remembers things best left somewhere in his heart and not drudged up but with Teddy looking so much like Remus, it confuses him, muddles his thoughts and sometimes—no, he isn't even going to think about that.

"I'm worried about you, Sirius," Harry finally tells him.

"Me? Harry, why in Merlin's name would you worry about me? I'm not the one with a trouble-maker for a son," he tells, referring to young James Sirius of course; he is truly shaping up to be just like his namesakes. But Harry does not crack a smile and that tells Sirius that his godson is very serious about this. "Hey, don't hold out on me, kid."

"It's just that we—I think you've been working too hard, Sirius," he says.

"Working hard?" Sirius asks. "Are we talking about my shop—"

"No, Sirius," Harry says quickly. "It's just…you—everything." He sighs and takes off his glasses. "This isn't coming out right. I knew I should have let Ginny handle this."

"Ginny?" Sirius says, alarmed suddenly as he looks at the two friends. "You were talking about me?" He tries to keep his voice neutral but the idea that they had been discussing him like some sort of a head—case is just maddening.

"It's not like that," Hermione replies with a determined look. "I think you're working too hard to avoid dealing with everything that happened before—coming back and finding out that Remus wasn't there anymore—" Sirius slams his mug down harder than necessary.

"I'm not talking about this," he says stonily but it doesn't deter Hermione and she looks at him fiercely.

"This-Sirius, this is what I mean. You're working yourself to the bone, you're always busy—"

"Oh?!" Sirius turns a dark look at Hermione, "am I not allowed having a life of my own now?" Harry is looking back and forth between them.

"Of course you are," Hermione rectifies immediately, "but you need to get over it, Sirius."

"Hermione," Harry says softly but Sirius has had enough and he pushes his chair back.

"I'm going back to my office. Make sure you close the door when you leave," he says and Hermione starts to say something but she must have seen the anger on his face because she stops. He leaves the kitchen; anger, the burning sense of betrayal and buried hurt weighing heavily on his heart.

'Get over it.' Fucking 'get over it.' she says, he thinks harshly as he closes the door to his office and sits down on his chair shakily. Sirius doesn't think he will ever forget the despair, hollowness and the unimaginable, agonising pain that had consumed him when he had woken up in St. Mungo's and kept asking for Remus again and again until Harry had broken it to him that Sirius is half a year too late and that Remus is dead.

The knock at his door startles him and Sirius makes sure he looks as cool as possible before telling whoever it is to 'Come in'. Harry's messy head peeks around the corner as he opens the door and he looks like a teenager again; Hermione isn't with him. Good. Sirius motions for him to take a seat.

"Sirius, I'm really sorry about that back there. I didn't think she—" Sirius raises an eyebrow, "—okay, but I didn't know how to stop her." Sirius makes a non-committal sound as if he hadn't just been fighting his own demons for a while in here.

"She shouldn't have said that," Harry says softly and Sirius looks down at the table.

"No, she shouldn't have." And then, "she doesn't know what it was like." It's the first time he has let anything from then slip out but Harry takes it in stride with minimal reaction.

"I know you don't want to hear this, Sirius—" but Harry will tell him anyway, "—but you're my godfather, Sirius. You're like the only thing close to a father I ever had. Will have," he adds and Sirius looks at his godson; he looks terribly worried.

"Harry," he says carefully. "It's alright. I—I know I haven't been in touch as much as I should. I really am sorry." And he is, because Harry, even at this age has the most transparent expressions. Harry gives him a stare before speaking in a soft manner, as if ready to change track depending on Sirius's mood.

"Sirius, I know you didn't like what Hermione said to you, but you have to understand," Harry pauses and Sirius shifts back in his seat as if physically trying to move away from his words will stop his godson, "you have to move on, Sirius."

"No," Sirius whispers in reply before he even realises it but the idea of moving on…it's just not going to happen. Harry leans forward in his chair and reaches out to place a hand on his, just a contact.

"Sirius, I'm not telling you to get over him. You—you loved him too much to do that, and I'm not ever going to ask you to do it. But you need to move on." Sirius shakes his head.

"It's the same thing, Harry." But his godson won't leave it at that, apparently. Just like his parents.

"No, it's not, Sirius." He even smiles at Sirius a little. "No one's asking you to stop loving him. But it shouldn't stop you from seeing other people, finding someone to really have a life with."

"I have a life." Even to his own ears, Sirius realises how flimsy that sounds; his life is almost just a series of motions. Harry's look is a little too understanding but then he stands up.

"Look, I'm not telling you to do anything. Just think about it, yeah? Maybe—" He hesitates, blushing, "—maybe try dating a little, see other people…y'know?" It's the 'y'know' that cracks Sirius up and even Harry smiles at that. To be receiving permission to date around from his godson, now that's something that Sirius doesn't experience every day. Sirius feels his chest loosen just a little.

"Thanks, kid. I'll think about it," he reassures Harry who then excuses himself.

Sirius does go out after that and to be honest; it is refreshing to have men look at him when he directs his out-of-practice bedroom-eyes at them. It's good to know he hasn't lost his touch, he thinks when a long red-haired man with freckles across his nose and full lips, nearly his age buys him a drink and later on pats his thigh.

He doesn't become a serial-dater, he honestly doesn't think he has the element to pull it off at his age anymore, but finds himself feeling perhaps, a little livelier than before.

The red-head flirts with him again one night in a different bar and asks for Sirius's name as he cockily introduces himself as Jon-short for Jonathan. He reminds Sirius of himself a long time ago in the way he looks at him, determined to reel Sirius in with his charms, and he is bloody gorgeous to boot with his hair pulled back.

Sirius deems him safe and from then on has a good arrangement going on—no strings attached—and it's wonderful, because even a hundred of these men will never be Remus.

OOoooOO

A bad habit of Teddy's is, following his-err-instincts. His curiosity always gets the better of him and that is exactly how he is standing under a hot spray in one of the Quidditch shower stalls because rumour has it that the shower in here has some kind of massaging power. He doesn't know about that but whatever it is works wonders on his shoulders; they feel relaxed for the first time in months.

It is also this curiosity that has him cocking his ear when he hears somebody groaning in the adjacent stall in a way only wound up teenagers do. He grins and steps outside in a towel and locates his wand on the bench. With a smirk he unlocks the cubicle and positions himself cockily in the doorway and nudges the door open with his foot.

His eyes widen and his stance drops.

Bailey Wood. Bailey bloody Wood is staring at him, shocked, his hand wrapped around his—Teddy snaps his eyes upward as a blush creeps onto his face.

"What the fuck? Get out of here!" Teddy breaks out of his trance at that and he is about to do just that when the devil on his shoulder decides to enjoy itself a little; he is going to blame the little invisible bugger for everything.

"You do realise that this is a place where people shower, Wood." The Quidditch captain has turned to his side but Teddy does not miss the flush of his face, or maybe that's the hot water.

"And you do realise that there's this thing called privacy, Lupin, don't you?" For some strange reason Wood's annoyance sparks something in Teddy. He enters the stall with no hesitation; he is a mischief-maker after all, Wood should have expected this.

"W-what are you doing?" Wood asks when Teddy shuts the door behind him as he is turning the shower off.

"You look like you could use a hand." Teddy replies as he looks down at Wood's member that has gone soft and licks his lip as his mouth feels suddenly dry; this is supposed to be only the stuff of his fantasies. Wood looks scared but he isn't pushing Teddy away even as the younger Gryffindor steps closer and brushes his hand along his cock in wonder; he has never actually touched someone else's cock before this and Wood looks quite fascinated by his hand. That tells Teddy something and it may be that Wood is just as willing to let him touch as he is.

So he pushes Wood and their bare chests touch. Teddy gasps at the sensation and is amazed and shocked when Wood's hands grab his face and their mouths meet in a too-slanted manner but it's alright, it's more than alright because this is Bailey Wood kissing-no-snogging him and it's the best thing that has ever happened to Teddy.

OOoooOO

Teddy doesn't do the secretive 'affairs behind closed doors' kind of thing, it's too sixteenth century for him but for the first time, he wants to be with someone and that someone is Bailey.

After that first encounter, it seemed that Wood would always have his eyes on Teddy until their gazes locked and the Captain would then look away shyly. That doesn't stop Bailey from slipping Teddy a note telling him to meet him at what time and which spot.

Teddy smiles more at everything and thinks about Bailey a lot. In fact, it ends up getting him detention from Professor McGonagall because he had been too busy thinking of the next day when they were to meet in the Room of Requirement instead of turning his mouse into a teapot and earns him a questioning look from Charles; they would have a man-to-man talk later about this.

It keeps getting better and Teddy almost forgets about the impending full moon when Bailey has his Quidditch roughened hands on him and they laugh a lot.

During a Slytherin versus Hufflepuff match, Teddy manages to convince Bailey to ditch the game and instead drags him under the bleachers and the thousands of students who are shouting and cheering. It feels like they are rooting for Teddy and Bailey.

This might just be it for him, Teddy thinks when Bay and him have tried out things that Teddy hadn't even known were possible and they lay satiated and kiss like boyfriends. He asks Bailey out properly, he isn't afraid of anybody here and why should they have to be a secret? He's told Charles about it and the git is acting like the world's biggest arse; what kind of a best friend does that make him?

But when Bailey stays seated somberly one evening, Teddy has a hard time grasping as to the real reason for their meeting then. It isn't until Bailey explains it to him that he really likes him but he wants to be out there after Hogwarts, playing with the world's best team ever that Teddy thinks it's about him leaving Hogwarts.

"That's great, Bay." Teddy laughs in relief. "Captain Bay of the Puddlemere United. It's sexy." Teddy cards his fingers through Bailey's blonde hair but he pulls away with an anguished look and spells it out for him that he cannot do so with a secret like theirs that Teddy understands then why people cry and spend weeks of depression over break-ups.

His heart feels like it will never beat without hurting again.

OOoooOO

The full moon after that leaves Teddy whining and curled on the floor as he spends most of his time whimpering. Padfoot nudges him many times but he only aches and wants to go out into the wild. He is locked up for safety reasons but he wants to be outside. He is safe now, he has taken the Wolfsbane; he can't hurt anybody now.

He walks up to the window where glittering dust is caught in the slivers of moonlight and bares his throat to howl. He howls again and again but it isn't until Padfoot comes trotting beside him and joins him that Teddy feels his pain traveling all the way from inside to the air around him.

They howl loud and louder and Teddy releases the ache in him into the moonlight as the dog echoes with him beside. When Teddy tires himself out he slumps into a ball and curls into Padfoot's body when he licks his muzzle. He is so good to Teddy.

With the sunrise, Teddy breaks to be rearranged into his human form. It leaves him exhausted beyond words. He thinks he will never be able to get up from the floor.

Sirius as always is prompt in his ministrations. What shocks Teddy is the way Sirius, instead of leaving him lying on the bed settles down beside him and wraps his arms around his torso. It's confusing Teddy, this show of affection but he is grateful to have someone to hold him.

He barely gets to see Sirius but he can feel the stubble scrape against his forehead and hazily notices what a long throat he has, the kind that makes you want to kiss and bite on and on… Sirius keeps stroking his hair and murmuring something but Teddy passes out from exhaustion, his heart still broken but strings of hope making their way into it.

AN: Here's the third chapter,I know it's taking a while for them to get together,there's more drama coming up,so stay tuned and review if you like,since reviews make the world go round. :)