Chapter 5: The Best Of Both Worlds
Sirius watched the scene with a smile on his face. Jenny had insisted yesterday that they go shopping for new clothes for Harry. As usual, he'd complied and now Jenny was reading a storybook with Harry, having dressed him in one of his new outfits.
Harry was clearly enjoying having yet another person to spoil him, and he had quickly learned how to impress Jenny: language. New words, new phrases, all eagerly presented to her for approval.
"And the wolf said, 'I'll huff, and I'll puff, and I'll…"
"Blow your house down!" Harry shrieked happily. He giggled as Jenny tickled him and said,
"That's right, Harry. Aren't you the smartest two-year-old in the whole world?"
There came a knock at the door. "I'll get that," Sirius said to Jenny. He went to the entranceway and opened the door to see Felicity. "What are you doing here?" he asked bluntly.
Felicity tossed her hair and tried to slide past him into the house. "I came to see you."
"Why?"
"Because," Felicity answered silkily. "Can't a girl go see a body anymore?"
"I'm not buying it, Felicity," Sirius said. "What are you really here for?"
Felicity sighed. "Listen, Sirius," she replied. "I was a bit immature last time we were together. I should've realized that you weren't going to give up custody."
"Yeah, well, that epiphany came about half a year too late," Sirius said coolly. "Goodbye, Felicity."
"It's never too late," Felicity persisted.
"Yes, it can be, and it is," he said. "Goodbye."
"Sirius, is something wrong?" Jenny asked, appearing at his side suddenly. She looked at Felicity suspiciously and only relaxed slightly when Sirius put a reassuring hand on the small of her back.
"No, Felicity was just leaving," Sirius said with a warning glare at Felicity, who was getting a very nasty look in her eyes.
"May I ask where you finished school?" she asked Jenny, and Sirius' heart stopped.
"University?" Jenny asked. "Brighton."
"Really?" Felicity said, turning to Sirius. "Sirius, I didn't think you dated out of our kind."
"Felicity, leave now," Sirius said tightly.
"Of course, I suppose it helps when they don't have the faintest idea who they're dating," Felicity continued maliciously. "I'll leave." And she did, leaving Jenny looking at Sirius suspiciously.
"Damn it, Felicity…" Sirius muttered, running a hand through his hair. "I'm not done all the bleeding paperwork yet."
"Sirius, what's going on?" Jenny asked.
Sirius muttered another curse under his breath and sighed. "Come back into the sitting room, Jenny."
***
"You're a what?" Jenny said disbelievingly. "Sirius, this isn't the time for jokes."
"Really wish I was joking, Jenny, sweet," Sirius said. "But it's the truth. Born and bred, pureblood wizard."
"Magic isn't real, Sirius," Jenny started to say, when Sirius took out his wand and levitated Harry's blanket in the air, leaving the tail low enough to Harry to chase delightedly around the room as he directed it. "Good Lord… And Harry, too?"
"Well, technically he's halfblood, but yeah, he's a wizard too. And a damn good one too, once he starts school." He smiled and swung Harry up onto one hip when the little boy crashed into his legs.
"School for the exceptionally gifted, huh?" Jenny said dryly. "That was some cover story. Nobody would have believed her otherwise."
"The very exceptionally gifted Muggleborns, any way."
"Muggleborns?"
"People who come from non-magic families, like Lily. Don't ask me why they call non-magic people 'Muggles', because I haven't the faintest idea why."
"So then what makes Harry halfblood?" Jenny asked.
"He's got Muggle grandparents. You don't qualify as pureblood until it's been magic for three generations. And even then, we've got some families like my parents that think you're only properly pureblood if it's been centuries, even millennia since non-magic blood came in."
"Are you serious?" Jenny asked in disbelief.
Sirius nodded. "Remember when I told you I got kicked out at 16?" He sighed. "Had a bit of a disagreement with my parents. I wasn't the son they expected. I didn't care about purity of blood, I didn't get into the right dormitory house…"
"There's a right and a wrong dormitory?" Jenny questioned, taking Harry from him.
"Well, historically, the Hogwarts – that's the magic school here – houses have been fairly steady in the types of people they get. My family was almost completely Slytherin – that's the nasty house, turns out the most Dark wizards than any of the others. And I got Sorted into their mortal enemies' house, Gryffindor."
"Good Lord…" Jenny muttered again. "So what was the woman going on about, don't know who I'm dating?"
Sirius sighed. "Well, I told you that Harry's parents were killed. What I didn't tell you was that the Dark wizard who killed James and Lily tried to kill Harry as well, but couldn't and then disappeared off the face of the Earth. Harry was an overnight celebrity. That's where his scar came from, the night James and Lily were killed. I expect Felicity realized all of a sudden how advantageous it would be to date the godfather of Harry Potter."
"Who is she, any way?" Jenny asked, but she was interrupted by the front door banging open.
Sirius swore softly and stepped in front of her as no less than five strangers in robes and cloaks came in. "Just wait," he said quickly to the newcomers. "I'm almost done the paperwork, something came up unexpectedly and I had to tell her sooner than I'd planned."
"Where's the paperwork?" one woman asked.
"In the study, down the hall," Sirius replied, allowing one of the men to disarm him and holding his arms up for him to pat down. "Inside the writing desk in the corner. It's marked 'Ministry'."
"Good Lord…" Jenny repeated, watching the whole scene unfold. "This night can't possibly get any weirder."
"Oh, believe me, miss, this is nothing," one man said dryly. "We see far weirder on a nightly basis."
"All right, found the permits," the woman said, coming back. "Just got one last page left to complete?"
"Yeah," Sirius replied. "I can finish it now, if you'd like. I'm sorry to have pulled you away for no good reason."
"That's quite all right, Black," the woman replied. "Dedalus Diggle and Alastor Moody have been keeping us hopping around the country all night. It was nice to see somebody different."
"Merlin," Sirius muttered. "I think they both went nutty in the war."
"What came up, exactly?" another man asked briskly.
"Had a malicious ex-girlfriend drop by and make insinuations that I had to explain," Sirius replied with a sigh, pocketing his wand again and taking Harry back from Jenny.
"Who?" the man asked. "She can get charged with breaking the Statute of Secrecy. We have paperwork, all of our world knows better than to do something like that."
"Felicity Raughman," Sirius said.
"Oh, Merlin, not her again."
"Listen, Black, you don't need to do all the paper tonight," the woman said. "Just make sure it's back at the department within the week."
"All right, thanks," Sirius said.
***
"Merlin, I hate paperwork…" Sirius muttered to himself as he leafed through the book once more. "Where was the damn page, I had it marked…"
Jenny laughed softly from across the table, watching him while she rocked Harry. "Got in a little over your head?"
"You have no idea how much paperwork you entail," Sirius said darkly.
"But am I worth it?" she asked coyly.
"I won't know until it's done," Sirius replied shortly. "If it ever gets done."
"Oh, it'll get done," Jenny said. "You ought to see my office sometime, now that's paperwork to be done."
Sirius mumbled something unintelligible under his breath, and Jenny laughed again as she stood up. "I'll be right back, I'm just putting Harry to bed," she said. "I find it fascinating that you can actually write with a quill and parchment."
"I find it equally fascinating that you can use that crazy pen thing," Sirius retorted.
***
"So teach me," Jenny said into his ear as she returned. Sirius glowered at her momentarily, but then sighed and set down his quill. "I'm sorry, you're fascinating."
"Apparently," Sirius said wryly. "C'mere, then. What do you want to know?"
"Everything," Jenny replied.
***
"I thought all women were supposed to be scum," Remus said with a slight laugh as he rolled Harry's rubber ball across the back lawn to him, while Sirius was watching them.
"I can't help it. I'm a glutton for punishment," Sirius said. "Honest, Remus, I think it's not 'all women are scum', it's 'Sarah and Felicity are scum'." He sighed. "I can barely imagine how I ever lived without her." He trailed off. "Y'know, I think we might've been a little too hard on James about Lily. Remember? In seventh year, when we kept ragging on him about being addicted?"
Remus stopped what he was doing and looked at Sirius. "You love her," he said simply. Sirius paused for a moment and then nodded. "Well, then, by all means, don't let me stand in the way of your gluttony."
"Remus!" Harry ordered, chucking his ball at Remus' head to get his attention.
Remus and Sirius both laughed and returned their attention to the little boy.
***
Jenny's jaw dropped as the reality of what Sirius had just asked sunk in. "Are – Are – Are you serious?"
"Would I ask if I wasn't?" Sirius said, starting to feel a little anxious. Too much, too soon? He had been dating Jenny longer than James had been with Lily when he'd proposed, but was it maybe different when one wasn't living in a war zone?
"Am I going to make more paperwork for you if I say 'yes'?" Jenny asked, wrapping her arms around his neck.
"No, not really," Sirius admitted in relief when she laughed and kissed him.
***
"Sirius, really," Jenny laughed, prying Harry off of him. "You can't hide behind the little boy forever. Eventually you have to meet my family. I promise they're nicer than yours."
"That's not hard to do," Sirius muttered darkly.
"Oh, calm down," Jenny said, knocking at the front door. "You'll both be fine. Lisa's boys are Harry's age, he'll have a blast. And I swear nobody bites. Well, Dennis has apparently started to, but he's teething, we can hardly blame him."
Sirius sighed. "The things I go through for you," he grumbled good-naturedly when the door opened and an older woman greeted them with a broad smile and a hug for Jenny.
"Come in, come in," she said breathlessly. "Lisa and Michael and the boys have just arrived. You must be Sirius." Sirius nodded silently, taking Harry back from Jenny when his godson showed the first signs of upset at the volume. Any loud voice or noise tended to make him uneasy.
"Aunt Mae, Aunt Mae, you're smothering them," Jenny said quickly, squeezing Sirius' arm briefly in reassurance. "Let Sirius and Harry have some air. They're hardly used to being here yet."
"Ah, so this is the Sirius and Harry we've heard so much about," said another older woman as she appeared from the doorway to the kitchen. "Mae, you want to come help Lisa and I in the kitchen a moment?"
A young man maybe a little older than Sirius came out from the sitting room, with a boy just a little younger than Harry trailing behind him. "You're Sirius, then?" he asked, grinning when Sirius nodded. "Michael Creevey, I'm Lisa's husband. Welcome to the circus."
"Daddy, up!" the boy whined, tugging at his trousers. Michael laughed and swung the toddler up onto a hip. The little boy, intrigued by the appearance of an eye-level potential playmate, reached out his hand to Harry. Harry, in response, burrowed himself deeper into Sirius' shoulder, almost trembling with fright.
"Colin, no," Michael scolded gently, as Sirius tried to calm Harry to no avail – he wasn't keen on this whole crowd-of-strangers thing and he wasn't about to let up. "I take it your boy's a little cranky today?"
Sirius sighed. "He's not used to new people and places. Especially in combination, and multiple new people. Crowds frighten him."
"Surely he's used to lots of people, though, if he's been in daycare?" Michael questioned.
Sirius looked at him momentarily and tried to remember what he could and couldn't say. "I work from home, so he's never been in daycare," he replied finally, letting Harry settle his head against his shoulder. He had been lucky – the work he did with the Ministry could easily be done from home, he could only imagine the nightmare it would've been to try and find somewhere safe for Harry to stay otherwise.
***
Jenny's family all peppered him with curious questions throughout dinner, while Harry still resolutely refused to move an inch from his security in Sirius' arms. He wouldn't even go to Jenny when she tried to take him from Sirius, bursting into his usual tears and clinging to Sirius desperately.
"Is he always like this?" Lisa asked with a frown, watching Sirius soothe Harry once more.
"Just around larger groups," Sirius replied distractedly. "He's all right until it reaches about three people. Then he starts panicking."
"Is there any reason why, or is it just his personality?" Isobel, Jenny's mother, asked.
Sirius sighed. "For the first few weeks, maybe months, after James and Lily died, we used to get mobbed whenever we went out. I expect that's probably what's gotten him so frightened." He declined to mention any details, or that they still got mobbed every time.