A/N: Sirius's POV
I pressed my lips to Arista's forehead as we sat on the floor, watching Aludra and Lyra play together. Aludra was more than a year old, strange as it was to think about, and the twins were three months. Finding out Amy was pregnant with Aludra felt like a world away, a lifetime ago when we were still young and naïve and the world was ours to conquer. Nothing made me feel more vulnerable than watch my little girls and their innocent interactions and knowing that someday, somehow, I would let them down.
The key was to let them down in some small way, nothing that couldn't be put right.
I set Arista down, watching my clever little girl sort through the blocks, pushing them into piles by color. Although she could not form the words, I knew she could tell the colors apart, and she obviously had a mind for organization. That probably came from her mother, because I knew perfectly well it had nothing to do with me.
Lyra was looking around at everything around her, taking in everything in the room. She would gurgle when she noticed a change from her last visual exploration of the room.
Aldura, though, was the one who continued to amaze me every day. I had seen the twins' stage of growth before, when Aludra was their age, but I had never before really observed a child Aludra's age. She wasn't just walking, but she could walk unaided for about fifteen minutes at a time, twenty minutes sometimes, before she would stumble or tire. Lily had mentioned on her last visit that if our house had any stairs, Aludra would have been able to crawl up them. I almost wanted to build her a mini-staircase in her room just to watch her try this task.
Aludra was sitting a corner, making many different colors of line on a bit of parchment with crayons Lily had James buy her. I'd had to clean crayon off the walls several times already, so I wasn't sure if I was exactly thankful about Lily buying the crayons, but Aludra seemed to really enjoy them. As long as the twins didn't grab them, everything was fine. The twins seemed to think they ought to be edible.
The twins thought everything ought to be edible. Not that I thought they weren't on to something there, but I knew better in my years of experience. Not all items were made of candy.
Unfortunately.
Lyra began to make cooing sounds wiggling her fingers at me, and I scooped her up.
She was our quiet child. She didn't cry nearly as often as her sister, and hardly anything ever upset her. I knew that had to come from her mother, who couldn't have been anything but an easy child.
"Hello, darling," I said as she curled her fingers into my shirts. Her chubby little cheeks were so endearing, and she continued to coo at me like I could understand hr. I listened attentively. Someday, I hoped that my daughters would come to me with all sorts of problems and questions and concerns. I could help them learn spells, teach them how to prank, give them the ever-important advice that boys were, in fact, infested with cooties and were best to be avoided entirely. And it all started with listening to every non-word they said here and now, cooing and gurgling and smiling at me.
"Is that so," I said, kissing her forehead. The black, fine hairs on her head were so soft, like her velvety skin. I wanted to hold her in a tight, smothering hug, but it might hurt her, so I refrained. Sometimes I forgot my children weren't just very adorable, very heavy, very loud stuffed animals, and I wanted to cuddle them all the time. Amy sought to remind me frequently, concerned I would crush them in my enthusiasm.
Lyra giggled as I bounced her a little on my knee, and Aludra began scribbling vigorously with her crayons.
Trouble was brewing, however, because little Arista had run out of blocks to sort, and she kept digging for more in the bag and found none. In growing frustration and distress she began to cry.
With so many small children, crying was a chain reaction. Arista's cries caused Lyra distress, and she began to cry, and then Aludra, aware that something was wrong, joined in, very much disturbed by the sound of her sisters crying.
It was almost enough to make me cry. I hated to have my little girls upset, and all three of them at once was terrifying.
"Calm down, love," I said, getting onto the ground and messing up the piles Arista had made. Almost like someone flipped a switch, she began to re-sort the existing blocks.
Rocking eventually calmed Lyra down, and I wiped the tears off Aludra's cheeks, sitting down beside her, looking at her scribbled crayon masterpiece.
"It's beautiful, princess," I said, kissing the top of her head as I rocked Lyra, who was calming once more. "Just like you."
"Fank you, Daddy," she said, pulling my face close enough to kiss my cheek.
Too fucking precious, my beautiful little girl, I thought, pulling Lyra out of Aludra's space when she started to reach for her sister's hair.
Still struggling with her "th" sound, but one thing at a time. Sometimes genius needed to be tempered. Annunciation, cute as mistakes could be, was a critical thing for my children to master. Spells could be disastrously wrong if there were annunciation issues. I'd seen a few desks catch on fire in Charms from such problems.
Once all the children had calmed down once more, I sat on the floor with Lyra again, letting her play with my hair, clutching it, trying to put it in her mouth, smiling at me when I made faces at her. She didn't giggle nearly as much as her sisters did, but I didn't mind. She smiled more than the other two combined.
A knock at the door startled Lyra, who looked around, blinking like she expected to see someone standing there next to us. I stood, cradling her in my arms, checking the peephole.
"What did you give your wife for the first Valentine's Day you tried to woo her?" Sirius asked, grinning.
"Bloody hell, don't remind me," James groaned through the door. "Four dozen lilies and a singing card that proposed."
Sniggering, I opened the door, letting Harry in with James.
"How are the girls?" James asked, swapping babies with me so I could hold my godson. Lyra immediately reached for James's glasses, and Harry blinked up at me with placid green eyes.
"I guess it was too much to hope for that your child would have Lily's hair," I teased.
"Well, at least he has her eyes," James said solemnly. "From what Lily keeps telling me about genetics, you're lucky Aludra has Amy's hair."
"Different with brown and black, but yeah," I said. "Lily was telling me about that, too. Not complaining. I got very lucky with my princess. She's perfect."
Aludra scooped up her crayon drawing and brought it over to James for approval.
"What's this?" James said, adjusting his glasses, as Lyra kept trying to pull them off. "Oh, my, did you draw this yourself?"
"Yeah," she said, grinning up at him proudly.
"A masterpiece," James said, and he went to hand it back, but she shook her head, pushing it back at him. "For me?" he asked.
I was a bit jealous, admittedly. Usually she gifted her pictures to me, but I supposed that someday Harry would gift things to me, so fair was only fair.
She nodded, still grinning.
"Well, thank you very much," James said, tapping her head. "I'll make certain Lily puts it in a very prominent place. Center of the fridge, maybe."
I knew she was about to ask for another piece of parchment so I got up to get her one and set it down at her coloring spot. She seemed content, thanking me and kissing my cheek again. I set Harry down by Arista, watching him mess up her blocks, then watching her put them right again.
"What's it supposed to be?" James hissed at me over Lyra's head as she started to suck on his shirt.
"Dunno," I chuckled. "Harry's a little anarchist down there."
James grinned, shrinking the picture to put it in his pocket.
"D'you think he's pranking her?"
"Of course he is."
Amy would have rolled her eyes at that, and Lily might have as well, but as far as we were concerned our children were born to be little Marauders. Never mind that their mothers were practical, mostly orderly people. Prankster genes were probably dominant.
"Could you imagine if Harry dated one of your daughters," James said, grinning mischievously."
"Too bad there's only one of him," I said thoughtfully. "We could control him. Can't control other people's sons. Think you can make Lily have a few more boys?"
James sighed, pulling Lyra's hand away from his glasses again, and said, "Mate, I'm trying. I really am. I think she doesn't want to have another right away, and with the way the war is I don't blame her. But still, I'm really hoping for at least a couple more kids, maybe one more from Amy."
I rolled my eyes. He was still thinking of a Quidditch team. I was tempted to suggest that he and Lily have three more so we had a reserve, but I figured Lily wouldn't thank me for putting ideas in his head.
Arista was finally growing frustrated with Harry, so I hurriedly scooped up my godson before my daughter had another meltdown, and James set Lyra down to placidly watch and lightly interact with her sister.
"She's very keen on those blocks," James said, grinning. "I don't know that I've seen any of your children fixate like that."
"She's got a gift for organization," I sighed, both proud and bewildered. What if my little girl ended up being a Prefect? I'd have to have Lyra date Harry, then. Always important to arrange the life of the least responsible one.
"I wouldn't worry about it too much," James said reassuringly. "Lyra's definitely the responsible one. Arista being organized just means she's less likely to get caught."
Well, he did have a point there. Remus joined in on pranks and was a Prefect, but he had a talent for pranking, if not quite as strong as mine and James's. Perhaps Arista would not be responsible, per se, but craftier.
Maybe she could date Harry after all.
The children played until they were exhausted. James got Aludra a quick snack as I put the other three to bed in the nursery. Aludra, then, had to be wrangled to bed. This was an affair, as she didn't want to take a nap, despite the fact that she was clearly exhausted. I coaxed her out of the kitchen, gave her a bit of fruit, and then scooped her up when she took the fruit and carried her, crying, to her bedroom.
"You need to sleep, princess," I said gently. "Uncle James will still be here when you wake up. If you take a good nap, I'll give you an ice lolly later."
She liked this plan, and she rolled from my arms into her bed, allowing me to tuck her in.
James was waiting in the kitchen when I got back, and he'd already put the kettle on. I stretched my arms and groaned, thinking how much stronger my arms had gotten, carrying children around constantly whenever I was home. I hadn't noticed if Amy had grown any stronger, but I was sure she had.
"Got any more of those biscuits, mate?" James asked as he poured the tea.
"Try it and Aludra will despise you for at least a week. She's got a surprisingly long memory and a brutally vindictive streak.
"Point taken."
We settled at the kitchen table with our tea, sitting in silence for a surprisingly long time. We always had things to say to each other, and neither of us had ever been especially fond of silence, but the children were exhausting sometimes.
"I don't know how you do it, mate," James finally said, scratching his cheek. "Just the one and I'm knackered constantly. And then you've got the Order work on top of everything."
"Well, it helps that Amy's not in the Order," I said, shrugging. "She's always here for the girls, you know?"
"She's a bloody saint, that woman. Too good for you."
"The same has been said about your wife."
"Yeah, Lily's definitely too good for you."
I rolled my eyes thinking, but never to say, that Amy was twice the woman Lily was. James and I would never agree on that, but still.
"It's harder than I expected," James said about twenty minutes later.
"What?"
"Being a father. The worrying…. Every time he gets too close to the stove I panic. Every time he looks like he's going to fall while he's sitting, I panic. Even when he sicks up I panic. There are so many ways something can hurt him." He shivered slightly. "I understand why you're always so worried. And Amy's not even out there fighting. What if something happens to Lily, Sirius? What if I have to do this on my own?"
I was surprised to hear the quiver in his voice. I stirred the remains of my tea and avoided looking at him. If he was crying, I didn't want to know.
"You wouldn't be alone," I said firmly.
He wouldn't. He would have me and Amy for anything, and Peter and Remus, and very likely the whole of the Order. Still, I knew the fear he must be feeling. It was hard enough, the thought of having to raise a child alone. Just the thought of facing life – after all I had been through, all I had seen – without Amy was unbearable. How could I have any meaning without her? If something happened to Lily, James would likely struggle just to keep himself going, much less raise a child.
Thank Merlin Amy was relatively safe, in our house, not fighting Death Eaters.
"I will say, I'll be pleased when there's no more nappies," James said, wrinkling his nose. "Lily keeps telling me that it'll get less gross the more I do it, but I think she's gone a bit off her rocker about the whole thing. Does Amy make you do the nappies?"
"I don't mind it, mate," I said, honestly, laughing. "Bothers Amy more than me. But I think it's your Animagus senses. The smell?"
James groaned, confirming, and I laughed again. The smell was strong for me as well, but it wasn't something that really bothered me. Anything I could do for his girls was something I was more than happy to do, especially as I didn't have as much time with them as I would like.
We sat in silence for a long time, both obviously having something to say but neither one of us speaking. Finally, James said, "We've actually talked about going into hiding."
I shuffled my feet under the table, swallowing, saying nothing. I had a feeling James would bring this up, but not in this way. I did wonder how serious James was about it. Of course they'd talked about it, but talking and doing are different matters.
"It doesn't make sense at the moment," James said. "Different for us, you know. If we left the fight the Order would be down two instead of one, and Alice and Frank have talked about hiding as well."
"They wouldn't," I said, incredulous. "They're Aurors!"
"Yeah, but Alice's maternity leave is up," James said, shrugging. "Lily and I are lucky; we don't have to work on top of the Order. I mean, they have Frank's mum to help out with Neville, but it's not the same as actually spending time with their son."
I could understand that. If I'd had to do a full-time job on top of the hours I put in for the Order I doubted I'd see very much of my girls. Whereas if we were to go into hiding, if I ceased Order work for the safety of my family…. The thought of spending the full night in Amy's bed every night, of playing with my girls virtually the entire day, of living without the fear that the moment they weren't in my sight they were vulnerable….
It was so tempting, and I knew that was James's whole point in bringing it up. No doubt he and Lily carefully planned how to approach the issue, as Lily would never mention it to Amy for fear of upsetting her.
"Fatherhood changes everything, Padfoot," James said, watching me with an expression so solemn it didn't seem to belong on James's face. Where was the prankster, my partner in crime, the person who didn't take anything seriously except for Quidditch and his obsession for Lily Evans?
Fatherhood really did change everything, I realized. At school the idea of changing nappies would have disgusted me, and the thought of giving up the fight and going into hiding for anything would have seemed cowardly, daft. Now it almost looked appealing.
James opened his mouth to say something else when one of the children began to cry – which set off a chorus of wailing babies. We groaned, both getting to our feet to fix whatever was bothering the kids.
It was a lot to think about, but I knew, even as I pulled Lyra out of her cot and wiped her face, making my most soothing sounds, that no matter how appealing it looked I would miss the pull of the fight too much to go into hiding so easily. James and Lily would keep pushing, and maybe someday I would give in, but I needed both halves of my life or I wouldn't feel whole.