Author's note: Told you it wouldn't be long! I wrote this on my very last day of being fifteen! I'm sixteen now, but I wrote this a few days ago. Hope you enjoy this chapter too!

Chapter 7: The Evening Without Emerald.

"Lunch? Well, you can have anything you want." Sirius said with a chuckle. "But going back to our talk-"

"Can I have fish fingers, please? With waffles?" Harry interrupted quickly.

"Well, of course you may." Sirius answered. "But going back to what I was saying about Em-"

"May I have it now, please? Only I'm really hungry."

"We only ate breakfast an hour and a half ago." Sirius frowned, successfully distracted.

"Really hungry." Harry repeated.

"Of course you can. I suppose you can always have a snack if you get hungry later as you're eating so early." Sirius agreed, wondering how on earth he was supposed to get back into the talk now he had been side-tracked.

He realised with a start that Harry had already tore off towards the kitchen and he quickly hurried after him lest the boy had tried to start cooking without him and burnt himself.

"I've set the table." Harry announced.

"Good boy, I'd better get cooking then, hadn't I?"

Harry agreed enthusiastically. Giggling as he watched Sirius mess around, pretending to drop the fish finger box.

"You won't burn it, will you, Sirius?" Harry asked innocently as Sirius slipped the fish fingers and waffles into the oven. "Only Remus says-"

"I do not burn anything, Remus is just jealous of my culinary talent!"

"You burnt breakfast." Harry reminded him.

"I did not! That's just…that's just how I like it!" Sirius defended himself hotly.

"You like it black?"

"As black as my name!"

"I don't like my fish fingers black." Harry said seriously, before breaking into giggles as Sirius started to tickle him.

"I'll give you burnt!" Sirius threatened as his fingers scrabbled under the boy's arms making him roll around the floor in laugher.

"Si-ree-us!" Harry squealed.

"Yeeees?"

"Let me up!"

"I'm sorry, I didn't catch that. Did you say you want tickled more?" Sirius teased.

"Noooo!"

"Say 'Sirius is the best cook in the whole world.'"

"Si-ree-us is the w-w-worst (stop it!) cook in the whole wo-" Harry broke off as another enthusiastic tickling had him dissolve into laughter again.

"Worst? Worst!"

"Sii-ree-us!"

"Are you begging for mercy?"

"Noo, it's just Sirius; my…my…fish fingers!"

Sirius spun around to see black smoke billowing out of the fridge. He rushed over and switched the oven off, before opening it and grabbing the tray inside. Which quickly set off a torrent of swear words as Sirius' bare hand paid the price of that.

"They're um, a new type."

"A black sort?"

"Absolutely, I'm sure this is exactly how they are supposed to be."

"Burnt?"

"Well-cooked."

"Burnt!" Harry repeated.

"They're black for a Black. After all, that's what you are now…in here." Sirius lay a hand on Harry's chest and looked at him seriously. "And I'm so glad you are."

"Me too." Harry whispered, gazing up at his godfather.

It was Sirius who broke eye-contact first.

"Let's see what we can do with these then," he muttered, seemingly embarrassed by his emotional display.

"Not a lot." Harry joked.

But Sirius just smirked and, with a wave of his wand, restored them to their proper, golden (properly cooked) glory.

"There." Sirius was obviously satisfied with his work.

Harry's mouth dropped open. "Why didn't you do that with breakfast?"

"Ah, I like to make ole Moony suffer."

Harry burst into giggles.

"Now you eat those before they get cold, after all that trouble and time I spent slaving at the stove." Sirius joked.

Harry dived into a seat and began to shove the meal into his mouth causing Sirius to remind the boy that he did have teeth which he was supposed to chew with. Harry did attempt to reply but sprayed Sirius with so much food that he gestured to him to keep quiet.

"Afterwards I'll take you out somewhere if you want." Sirius offered. "To the park, maybe?"

"Can't we just, play games and stuff in the house?" Harry asked hopefully, luckily this time without giving Sirius cause to hunt for the nearest umbrella as his dinner had already been wolfed down.

"You don't want to go out?" Sirius looked surprise.

"I just think it would be fun to play stuff here. I mean, you can turn into Padfoot and I can chase you like we did at the Orphanage and-"

"Hopefully, we won't break quite as many things as we did at the orphanage." Sirius interrupted.

"It was your fault, you wagged your tail too much!"

"I didn't! I swear you used accidental magic to make those vases fly at me!"

"You knocked them off with your tail!"

"No, they got in the way of my tail!"

"But you fixed them anyway, right? And so you can fix anything we, well you, break here."

"Sure."

"And we could play some board games, like we played with Remus? And we could play with my Quidditch figures?"

"Of course we can." Sirius agreed. "If you are sure you don't want to go out."

"I don't." Harry said firmly. Why would he want to go out when he had the chance of the house being empty of Emerald for the first time ever?

Sirius shook his head in confusion, when he was younger he would have done anything to get out of his stuffy old house. He raised an eyebrow when he saw Harry was staring at him expectantly.

"What?"

"Turn into Padfoot, please!"

Sirius laughed and before Harry's eyes the handsome man shrank into a shaggy black dog. Harry was still recovering from that shock, even though he had known it was going to happen it still took his breath away each time, when Padfoot pounced on him.

The two were quickly rolling around on the floor play fighting enthusiastically. Harry let out a little squeal as Padfoot over enthusiastically batted him with his paws. Sirius was back into his human form in seconds.

"Are you okay?" He asked anxiously.

"I'm fine. Carry on playing, daddy!"

Sirius froze. "W-w-what did you say?"

Harry seemed completely unaware of the bombshell he had just dropped. "Carry on playing…eh, please?"

"What was the…erm…last part?" Sirius was still ashen.

"Playing?"

"Do you remember what else you said?"

"What…what do you mean?"

"You called me…you called me…" Sirius stared into Harry's confused face and the word jammed in his throat.

"I called you what?" Harry seemed genuinely intrigued.

"It…it doesn't matter. Shall we play a game now?"

Harry brightened, forgetting all about the earlier conversation. "Can we play Doxy Chase?"

"Of course." Sirius answered, his voice shaking slightly.

All throughout the board game Sirius scrutinised Harry. If the boy was pretending he didn't know what he had said then he was a far better actor than Sirius had ever been.

"Sirius?" Harry's quiet voice broke into his thoughts.

"Hmm?"

"I've won, look, I'm at the finish." Harry didn't sound too thrilled about it, more…concerned.

"Really. Well done, Harry! That game was quick."

Harry frowned. "Sirius, it lasted nearly two hours."

Sirius laughed. "I'm not that gullible, Harry."

"Sirius, are you okay?" Harry sounded extremely worried now. "You weren't really paying much attention, you passed on nearly every question!"

Feeling slightly ill, Sirius studied his wristwatch. Two hours had passed. "Sorry, Harry, I'm not feeling that well and-"

A door banged.

"I'm back, Dad!"

"We're in the lounge." Sirius called.

He didn't see Harry's face drop.

"They have the cutest lifeguard! And- Oh, you're playing with Harry." Emerald's grin, which had been so prominent when entering the room, faded.

"I'm not playing very well, I'm afraid." Sirius sighed.

"It was fun!" Harry insisted. "Sirius turned into Padfoot," he added to Emerald, shyly.

"He used to do that all the time when I was little." Emerald sniffed. "Didn't you, Dad? Dad?"

Sirius gave himself a mental shake, Harry had no recollection of using that word. Dwelling on it would not bring back James or erase the guilt Sirius suddenly felt about replacing him. But he wasn't replacing him, he wasn't! At least, he wasn't trying to. He needed to forget about it, or at least put it to the back of his mind. He needed to concentrate on them becoming a happy family. They needed a happily ever after.