Several weeks later, Harry finished Care of Magical Creatures on a high note. They were studying owl care that day, and everyone had enjoyed it. True, owls weren't magical creatures, but since wizardkind used them often, Sirius was of the opinion that the class should learn the proper way to treat them. They spent the class learning about things like broken wings and how to fix them, and what to feed owls, and how to know when they've had too many owl treats.

Harry usually hung back to talk to Sirius after class, but he couldn't because Snape had given them a huge amount of Potions homework, and Sirius had given them Defense Against the Dark Arts homework. Harry had to write one full roll of parchment describing three spells he would be likely to use in a duel—and he couldn't use Expelliarmus, because they had to be strictly offensive spells. Snape had given him three rolls of parchment on how to make an Anti-Motion Sickness Potion, because Harry's Anti-Motion Sickness Potion that day hadn't been such a winner.

So after Care of Magical Creatures class, Harry hit the library with Ron and Hermione. Of course, Hermione was the only one who was actually into studying. Harry was doing Snape's essay first because he wanted to get it over with, but his mind kept drifting. Take two spoonfuls of bat's blood and one strand of unicorn hair, then add two cups of water and put it in the cauldron and let it simmer for…how long? And at what temperature? How could anyone find this interesting? Barbara was right—it did sound like a cookbook.

Maybe Harry could switch to Sirius's essay…that would surely be easier. Or not. Harry couldn't think of any spells he would actually do, because Expelliarmus was the only one he would ever use in a duel.

"How about the Leg-Locker Curse?" Hermione suggested.

"He's not going to let me write about that," said Harry. "I've done it so many times. It has to be something new."

"Well, maybe he can give you a note to get into the Restricted Section, and you can look up some good spells in there!" Ron said excitedly.

Harry looked out the window. It was the first nice day they'd had in a long time.

"I'd like to go flying," he said wistfully. "Maybe if I just did my homework tomorrow…"

"You'll put it off until the last minute, you know," said Hermione strictly.

"Come on, Hermione, give us a break," Ron chimed in. "Our brains are all tapped out from studying. They'll be fresh tomorrow."

Hermione looked skeptical, but she could see she was going to be overruled. So she told Harry and Ron to go on without her. Harry and Ron took turns on Harry's Nimbus, and when it started to get dark, Ron went up to the dorms and Harry headed to Sirius's teacher's quarters. Mostly he just wanted to see Sirius, but he also wanted to make sure Sirius had kicked his drinking problem for real.

"Sirius! It's me!" said Harry, pounding on the door.

"It's open!" Sirius hollered, although his voice was a little muffled.

"Okay, thanks," said Harry, opening the door. "You know, you really should have assigned an easier essay, I couldn't even—"

Harry stopped talking in shock. Sirius was on the floor, a hammer held tight in his wand hand. Random slabs of plywood surrounded him, and he was hammering nails into them, seemingly at random. His hair was messy and he looked tired. He got another nail, then tried to hammer it into the board. There was a sickening thump.

"FUCK!" Sirius shouted, all the nails falling out of his mouth.

"Did you hammer your finger?" Harry asked.

"Only for the third time today," Sirius told him furiously. "Holy shit, that hurts!"

"May I ask what on Earth you're doing?" said Harry, looking around at the random boards of wood.

"I'm trying to build a crib, for the baby," Sirius explained. "But it's not going too well."

"You could build one in about two seconds with magic, Sirius," Harry pointed out. "Why don't you just do that?"

"Because this is my very first gift for the baby, and I want it to be made with love, not magic," Sirius said. "Doesn't that make it more special? Especially if the baby's mother is a Muggle?"

"You'd think," said Harry. "But if the baby tries to sleep in that crib, all the nails will puncture its skin."

"Well, aren't you just a ray of sunshine," said Sirius, grabbing three boards and trying to hammer the first two into the third (or that's what it looked like he was doing). But instead he accidentally hammered his finger again.

"OWWWW! FUCK!" Sirius shouted, nursing his finger and sticking it in his mouth. "How do Muggles do shit like this?!"

"Uncle Vernon used to do DIY home-improvement stuff on the weekends," Harry told Sirius, remembering. "But, you know, he'd use an electric power drill and stuff like that."

"I haven't got an eclectic power drill," Sirius snapped.

"Electric," Harry corrected.

"Whatever," said Sirius. "Even if I did have one, it wouldn't work at Hogwarts."

"Oh, right." Harry nodded. "I forgot about that."

Sirius's face suddenly fell.

"I'm such a failure as a father," he said, a little pitifully. "I can't build a crib for my own baby."

"Not every guy is handy, Sirius," Harry said, placing one hand on Sirius's shoulder. "Especially if they've used magic all their lives."

"I could build a crib in about two seconds using magic," Sirius told him sadly. "But I want the gift to be handmade. Like I said, it's just more special that way."

"Well, there's got to be some way you could build it," said Harry. "Hmm…oh, I know! Why don't you ask Barbara's dad to help you? He's a Muggle, I bet he's done a ton of DIY projects."

"I can't ask Barbara's father to help me, are you nuts?"

"Why can't you ask him?"

"Remember the fate of Barbara's last boyfriend?" Sirius said dryly.

"But that was Jackson," Harry reminded him. "He deserved it."

"No, he deserved worse," Sirius corrected. "If I ever meet him, I'll hex him into next Tuesday."

"That aside," said Harry, exasperated, "why can't you ask Mr. Raffelovich to help you with the crib?"

"He doesn't like me, remember?" said Sirius. "When we were at dinner he gave me crap about not having a job, and he's a cop, so I don't know how to tell him I was in prison for a decade. I'm sure he thinks I'm going to do what Jackson did and break his daughter's heart, and he's made it clear that if I break her heart, he'll break my jaw."

"But how can he think that?" said Harry. "She's, like, how many weeks along now?"

"Sixteen." Sirius sighed. "But maybe he thinks that once she gets really pregnant, like so much that she can hardly do anything for herself, I won't be willing to do stuff like tie her shoes for her, or buy her food, or give her a backrub…I am willing to do all that, everything, but after the whole fiasco with Jackson, how is he ever going to think I'm any different? I'll just turn up at their door—'Hey there! I'm the guy who's screwing your daughter!' That'll go down real well."

"Then this is the perfect opportunity to bond with him," Harry insisted, "especially because you'll never finish that crib on your own. And get him a ship-in-a-bottle."

"Why?" Sirius raised an eyebrow.

"Older men love crap like that," Harry told him knowingly. "I saw it on TV."

…

Sirius went away for the weekend, taking the piteous "crib" with him in his enchanted pockets. When he came back on Sunday evening, he looked ecstatic.

"How did it go?" Harry asked, beaming.

"It went great! We actually got along really well—and look!" Sirius pulled the crib out of his pocket. It truly was a beauty. It wasn't made of the flimsy plywood Sirius had procured, but rather real wood that looked like tree trunks, polished to a smooth, shining finish. There were four huge tree trunks as the main supporting beams, then the bars and handle too—low enough that you could place a baby in, but high enough so that the baby couldn't fall out. There was a beautiful satin mattress, too, white with yellow moons and stars, and a red blanket.

"That's great, Sirius!" Harry told him sincerely. "I love it! But where did you get that wood?"

"Well, Robert's father lives in the country on a farm, and he let us cut down some trees," Sirius explained. "Then the three of us built the crib. Barbara's grandfather had a whole garage full of DIY stuff, he had a drill and a saw and all kinds of things. And you know…after talking to Robert…he's not really a bad guy. I could kind of see where he was coming from with the job thing, too."

"You could?" Harry asked in disbelief.

"Well, sure." Sirius shrugged. "I mean, he really loves Barbara, and he's not going to be around forever. He just wants to make sure she's well taken care of. I'm sure if I have a daughter, I'll feel the same way. He gave me a lot of advice about being a father—after all, he's been one for twenty-five years now. Barbara just turned twenty-five last February. He and his father told me all these great stories about when Barbara was a little girl."

"Did you convince him you weren't another Jackson?"

"I think so," said Sirius. "I told him what I thought of Jackson, and he agreed with me. We decided that if we ever saw Jackson again, we could take turns beating him to a pulp. And when it comes to taking care of Barbara, I didn't give him a chance to ask—I told him about how I would love nothing more than to cater to her every need, and that since she was having the baby, the least I could do, as the father, would be to make her lot a little easier until the baby is born, since pregnancy is hard. Then Robert told me that while Barbara's mother was pregnant sometimes she wouldn't be able to get up off the toilet by herself, and I still said I'd help Barbara no matter what. So that seemed to convince him."

"If taking your pregnant girlfriend to the toilet and back isn't loyalty, what is?" said Harry, even though personally, he thought that may be a little beyond the call of duty.

"Thanks, Harry," said Sirius. "It was really great, like I said. He loved the ship-in-a-bottle, and it was just like a bonding day…the sort of thing I never had with my father."

"Now you get to start over again with Mr. Raffelovich," said Harry. Sirius put his arm around Harry's shoulders, and they stood back to look at the beautiful crib—a crib made with love, not magic.