A/N Hi all! Sorry for the long delay. Just a bit of fluff and a lot of angst leading up to the morning of the second task. Enjoy!
Thank you, as always, for your wonderful comments and helpful suggestions!
**************HP*************
The average life span of a witch or wizard tended to be much longer than the average Muggle.
Therefore it wasn't uncommon for a member of the magical community to live to an age of 130 years or more, which meant that wizards and witches also had a fair expectation that youth was a treasure you could cling to for quite a while.
Of course there were exceptions to that, just like any other life expectancy. Accidents and murders could still take the young no matter if they were magical or not.
But like a regular human lifespan, just because a wizard enjoyed more years in his lifetime, it didn't mean that he or she wouldn't eventually age, and it was usually far sooner than one would hope.
A hard reality that Ludo Bagman was now intimately familiar with.
Like many other professional sportsmen before him, Ludo thoroughly enjoyed his time in the spotlight as a nationally recognized Quidditch player. He was young and good looking. Talented and charming. Enamored witches threw themselves at him after matches he played in and wizards clamored to shake his hand.
It was a heady existence.
Sometimes fame and attention could go to a person's head however, and this was the case with the vain and pleasure seeking Ludo. To be fair, he was quite talented, so naturally he made very good money in his choice of a sports career. First as a beater with the Wimbourne Wasps and then for the English National Quidditch team.
So much so, that after a while he just began to accept that the cascade of galleons showered on him would always be there.
Quidditch was a respite for the wizarding world during the time of Voldemort's rise to power. With so much darkness beginning to surround them, wizards and witches took comfort in the pleasure of attending matches and cheering for their favorite teams. Bringing some much needed happiness to smooth over the underlying fear and uncertainty.
And Ludo's fame certainly was responsible for getting him out of a tight little spot he found himself in when that hard ass Bartemius Crouch put him on trial for allegedly passing information to Augustus Rookwood, an old friend of Ludo's father.
How was Ludo supposed to know that Rookwood was a Death Eater? Of course he wouldn't have passed information he'd overheard some of his friends at the Ministry talking about to a supporter of You-Know-Who!
Or at least that's what Ludo swore up and down to at his trial...
The truth was a little more complicated than that, like truth usually is in these kinds of circumstances. Rookwood was, after all, an Unspeakable. So he really should have been privy to a lot of the Ministry's secrets already. It wasn't Ludo's fault that other Ministry officials had begun to suspect Old Rookwood of having more nefarious loyalties and thus were planting false information to see where the trails led.
But while Crouch tried hard to drag Ludo to Azkaban, in the end he was cleared of all charges, thanks in no small part to the very enthusiastic witch on the jury who stood up to congratulate him on his latest win.
He thanked her very personally later...
However, luck only gets you so far in life and Ludo's eventual downfall had actually come about because he had an excess of swagger and a penchant for taking risks. Which unfortunately led him to develop a bit of a gambling problem since the behaviors tended to go hand-in-hand when you were talking about professional sports.
At first it wasn't that big of a deal since he still had more than enough income to pay off his losses without problem. But as time marched on and his reflexes slowed and his waist expanded, Ludo found his professional sporting career ending far sooner than he ever thought it would.
Because middle age has a bad habit of sneaking up on you when you aren't looking, and one day after too many poor swings of his bat that showcased his growing inability to play effectively when there were scores of younger and more talented candidates waiting in the wings, Ludo found himself unceremoniously sacked. After which his endorsements dried up and the interest in his public image vanished faster than a Snitch in the wind.
Only the gambling addiction remained as the former Quidditch star compensated for the loss of the spotlight with a feverish dream of hitting the really big score and retiring in the lap of luxury with a vault full of galleons and a pretty witch on each arm worshiping him.
His ultimate windfall, however, remained frustratingly elusive and it was only through the nostalgic fondness of a loyal Wasps fan who also happened to be a high ranking Ministry official that led to Ludo's gainful and embarrassingly necessary employment as the head of the Department of Magical Games and Sports. Touted as a continuing interest in the wizarding sports world by a retired professional instead of a means for survival, Ludo's larger than life personality quickly grew boorish and tiresome by those younger than himself who did not grow up on his legendary prowess, but he barely noticed the scoffing and unflattering comments whispered behind his back.
Simply because, as a Ministry department head, Ludo once again found himself in possession of a great deal of valuable information.
This time in the world of sports.
With all of his insider knowledge of players and team politics, he managed quite skillfully to navigate the dangerous waters of high stakes sports betting, and the thrill of it quickly began to replace the rush of competing himself. He also threw himself into the frenzy of promotion, and if arranging games and exhibitions meant that he was able to strategically engineer the most profitable matches, then why shouldn't he enjoy a few of the perks that came with the job?
Of course, once again he fell victim to his own hubris, and the more money he bet, the bigger the losses when his hunches turned out to be wrong. Word had traveled fast in the sporting community and information wasn't passed on to him as freely anymore after managers and players knew how they were being manipulated.
But for all of Ludo's failings, he certainly had a talent for knowing exactly what the people wanted when it came to their entertainment. Securing the Quidditch World Cup for Britain had been a master stroke that even his detractors had to credit him with. The whole country had wanted the game held on their home turf and it was incredibly euphoric during the run up to the game, only to be spoiled afterwards by the frightening specter of the dark mark hanging ominously in the sky overhead.
Britain's sporting fans needed someone positive to turn their attention to afterwards. Ludo, not being quite as daft as people suspected he was, knew this and he also knew just where to look. Harry Potter had given their country hope and happiness against evil for over a decade and Ludo was convinced that what the people wanted to see right now was the infamous Boy-Who-Lived win the TriWizard Tournament.
It also didn't hurt that Ludo had bet heavily on that being the outcome and was perfectly positioned to ensure that young Harry had all the help and motivation that he needed.
**************HP********************
Sirius looked up from the pan of ground beef he was browning on the makeshift hob that might have had the hallmark look of a Muggle appliance but was in fact heated with a magical flame. Since the purpose of it was to allow the wizard father and son to make the occasional dinner on their own without the assistance of any of the house elves at their disposal, and no regular gas fired hob functioned normally around magic, it was as good a compromise as their castle accommodation was going to get.
Across the counter of the residence's small kitchen area his quiet and pensive son was carefully slicing up tomatoes. Usually Harry enjoyed the one night a week the two of them cooked dinner together, but today the boy was clearly distracted by something weighing heavily on his mind.
When they first started the tradition of the home-cooked dinner a couple of months after moving into the Astronomy tower, Sirius had steadfastly refrained from asking his son to do any of the heavy lifting of the domestic chores involved. He couldn't forget the memory of the day during their summer together when Harry had hesitantly confided to him about all of his unhappy years toiling as the Dursleys' personal house elf.
Although Sirius did feel that it was important to stress a general idea of responsibility to his new charge and he'd assigned some basic tasks that mostly consisted of Harry caring for his own belongings as a means to earn his generous weekly allowance, the very last thing Sirius wanted to do at the beginning of their relationship was make the boy feel like he'd just traded one bad living situation for another by having him do a load of housework.
But once Harry assured his new guardian that he actually liked to cook when it could be a fun activity between the two of them and not the forced labor of an unwanted child who was rarely allowed to partake of most of the meals he prepared, they'd made it into a weekly event. Of course Harry had learned to cook without magic and he was actually pretty good at it so eventually he'd convinced his godfather to let him help with the dinner preparations in the Muggle way.
It was something they could do together.
Like a regular family.
It goes without saying that cooking without magic was beyond unusual for a wizarding household, and positively forbidden for a pure-blood, but Sirius himself didn't mind cooking the occasional meal in the Muggle style. In fact, he usually preferred it since it reminded him of some of the happier times in his younger life.
Not only was it part of auror survival training to learn to do simple chores without magic, since they never knew what kind of situation they might one day find themselves in, he and James both had often helped Lily in the kitchen during those far too few years between graduation and that terrible Halloween night.
Lily, like her son eventually would, had grown up Muggle and she'd spent many enjoyable hours in the kitchen with her own mum. Carrying on the tradition of the types of meals served in the Evans household during her childhood was just one of the ways Lily found to keep herself attached to a world she still loved but no longer lived in.
She'd drag James and Sirius into the kitchen with her, firmly telling them that just because she was the girl it didn't mean that she was doing all the work alone. James was a man in love who was quick to jump when Lily beckoned and Sirius just loved them both, so he was happy to spend as much time with them as possible. The three of them, sometimes with the addition of Remus or...the rat..., spent many merry hours making meals out of whatever they could throw together to feed the Order of the Phoenix members whenever they'd gathered at either the Potter cottage in Godric's Hollow or Sirius' bachelor flat in London.
It was a brief respite of normality during a time of war and fear and chaos.
He missed it.
And them.
Somehow, carrying on the tradition with their son just seemed like something James and Lily would have wanted him to do, and any time with Harry was time well spent as far as Sirius was concerned. But he also hated to see the boy bothered, so he needed to get to the heart of whatever matter had Harry looking so upset.
"Knut for your thoughts."
At his father's voice, Harry glanced up from his work and shook his head slightly before returning to his task.
"Not worth that much."
Frowning at the fake cockiness in his son's voice, which clearly underlined an existing problem, Sirius flicked his wand to lower the flame under the bolognese sauce and wiped his hands on the dishtowel next to him.
"Let's try that again," he said gently, not wanting to get his prickly son's back up. "You know you can talk to me about anything, right? Is it the tournament?"
He watched as Harry let out a deep sigh and slowly put down his knife. The boy fiddled with the wooden tongs for their salad bowl for a few seconds before he hesitantly peeked up at his concerned father.
"Tomorrow's the thirtieth," he said quietly as he fidgeted a little. "and I think I'd like to go see my mum and dad. If that's okay?"
Harry's words caused a sharp burst of pain flare to life in Sirius' chest as he chided himself for not even thinking of it.
Merlin, how he could he have forgotten about Lily's birthday?
Because originally Sirius had planned to take Harry to the cemetery to visit with James and Lily at Christmas. Especially since he'd promised his son that they would make a concerted effort to take regular trips back to where Prongs and Lily were laid to rest. But then everything had happened with the Yule Ball and then the impromptu trip to the villa and somehow the idea had just been lost in all the chaos.
Immediately he felt like a prized shit.
It shouldn't be left up to Harry to remind Sirius that the boy had already spent far too many years deprived of even the cold comfort of visiting his parents' graves.
"Of course it's okay." Sirius came around to Harry's side of the counter and wrapped his arms around his son. "More than. Anytime you want, little one."
To his shame he felt Harry let out a relieved breath and his guilt kicked up another two notches. His son...their son...shouldn't have ever felt apprehensive about asking for something as important as that.
He couldn't help the feeling nagging at him that he'd been falling down on the job lately. With school and the tournament going on and all the concern over Harry's safety, there just weren't enough hours in the day to do everything he thought he should for his boy. He had been trying harder after being reminded by the conversation they'd had about Harry's ignorance of his grandfather's professional achievements a couple of weeks ago. Regularly making a point to include frequent anecdotes about the Potters in their daily activities whenever he could.
Each evening after Harry's homework was done and before he was sent to bed, the two of them would settle down on the cozy sofa in front of the fire in the sitting room and Sirius would tell long stories about James and his parents. Petunia had only given Harry basic information on his Evans grandparents and Sirius himself didn't know much more about them either, but he could talk about the Potters for hours.
No matter how painful it was to Sirius to have to relive the memories, he freely acknowledged that these were things that Harry had an absolute right to know, so he endured it for his son's sake and was determined that he would continue to do so.
But thinking about it now, the evening walks down memory lane also should have also reminded him to take Harry to the cemetery and the fact that they hadn't made Sirius feel very ashamed.
Holding the boy close for another few seconds, Sirius finally forced himself to let go and leaned back against the counter and watched as Harry picked his knife up again and finished his task of assembling their dinner salad.
"Your mum would be so proud of you for doing that, you know," he remarked casually as he tilted his head in the direction of the salad bowl at Harry's elbow. "It was very important to Lily that she didn't lose touch with her non-magical upbringing. She would have had you experiencing the Muggle world just as much as the wizarding one while you were growing up."
A small, hopeful smile peeked out of Harry's face as he shook the bottle of vinaigrette before pouring it on the salad.
"She would?"
"Absolutely."
Sirius smiled wistfully, the reel of happy moments dredged up by the remark playing in his mind as he moved back over to his place at the hob to finish his part of the meal. "She was the one who gave me the recipe for what we're having tonight. We made it often together."
That little piece of information made Harry's eyes light up even more. Sirius had learned that any connection, however small, was always grabbed onto with both hands by the boy who couldn't remember just how wonderful his parents were and Harry was grinning shyly with child-like merriment as he finished his task of assembling their salad.
Testing to make sure that the spaghetti noodles were cooked through, Sirius grabbed his pot holders and dumped the pasta into the waiting strainer in the small sink. While the noodles were draining, he added a last round of spices to the sauce and tossed in the huge mound of chopped bacon he had finished frying earlier as Harry came over to stand next to him and breathed in the heady scent.
"Mmmm. That's smells fantastic. I'm starving!"
Pleased to see his son's good mood returning, Sirius ran an affectionate hand over Harry's short, but still somehow messy, locks and vowed to have a careful discussion with him about keeping his worries to himself. Determined to remind the boy that he had a father now to share whatever burden he was carrying and the days of him going it alone were over. Scooping up a dollop of the sauce with a small hunk of the garlic bread he plucked off the warm loaf, Sirius offered it to his son for a taste.
"Blow. It's hot."
Harry smirked as he rolled his eyes, but he gave the saucy bread an obligatory puff of air to indulge his silly father's antics before opening his mouth to receive it. The burst of incredible flavors of tangy tomato and garlic and bacon swirled around his mouth and he groaned approvingly as his stomach rumbled in hungry anticipation. Somehow, dinners that Sirius made by hand instead of magic always tasted just a little bit better in his opinion.
"'sreallygood."
Harry's compliment was grunted enthusiastically through a full mouth without even waiting to finish swallowing completely, but his face was so adorably happy that Sirius didn't have the heart to scold him for the atrocious manners.
"I'm glad you think so. Now be a good boy and set the table, hmm?"
Grinning, Harry playfully shoved Sirius' shoulder with his own before obeying and within minutes Sirius had two plates laden with pasta covered in chunky sauce along with slices of the garlic bread that he carried over to the table while his son dished out portions of the tossed salad. As they sat down to tuck in there was a warm, relaxed atmosphere in the residence and it reminded Sirius so much of the happy times he'd spent with the Potters that it almost left him breathless.
Dragging the bowl with freshly shaved parmesan over to his plate, the hungry teen didn't hesitate to dump more than half of its contents on top of his mound of pasta, earning a smirk from his father as he shook his head indulgently. Harry gave him cheeky look in return, daring him to do something about it, as he mixed the cheese into noodles and then twirled a huge forkful before popping it into his mouth and sighing in pleasure as he chewed.
For a few moments the only sounds in the room were the two of them eating, but soon after Harry had scooped out a second helping that took the edge off his hunger he launched into the usual rundown of his school day. Swallowing the occasional bite of his own dinner, Sirius absently thought that he should really be paying full attention to his son's spirited chatter as Harry worked his way through his meal instead of allowing stray thoughts of worry creep into his head.
He only half heard the story of a potion gone wrong. That Finnegan boy, who was just as likely to blow them all up as brew a potion correctly, had apparently failed to stir the correct number of times after adding the newt spleen and it resulted in a sentient mixture that escaped the cauldron and proceeded to chase the accident prone boy around the room while Snape fought to contain the mess.
Harry was very animated, waving his fork-less hand around to emphasize certain more exciting parts of the tale as he shared the very graphic descriptions of the resulting chaos while gobbling down the rest of his pasta. Although Sirius was smiling at the carefree tone of his son's voice and the absolute disregard for polite table manners, he couldn't help the bittersweet thought that it hadn't really been such a long time since a very shy and tentative Harry cautiously helped himself to food at their table.
Always treading carefully, as if he'd be harshly reprimanded if he dared take enough to sate the hunger of a growing boy.
From the stories Sirius had eventually been told of the Dursleys' willingness to withhold food if Harry stepped out of line, it wasn't much of a stretch to believe that Harry probably had, in fact, been punished for taking more than what they thought he should be allowed, although he still refused to talk about it in any kind of detail and his father wasn't going to push.
Sirius could easily guess that the trauma of years being an unwanted intruder in his own home, grudgingly given just enough to eat to ward off official trouble from any nosy neighbor who might comment on a malnourished child, had been hard for the boy to mentally overcome in the beginning.
It also made him more understanding of a lot of Harry's unorthodox eating habits and self-effacing behaviors that upset Sirius greatly.
So now watching his son not give a second thought to tucking in to as much as he wanted was something that Sirius enjoyed seeing, since it was another clear sign that Harry felt comfortable and secure in their home.
Harry was no longer shy about grabbing food and snacks like he had been early in the summer. Almost acting like he was afraid to get caught with his hand in the proverbial cookie jar. Merlin only knew what that beast Vernon did if Harry dared to take anything more than what was meagerly given.
It took every ounce of restraint Sirius had in him to keep from chucking the Dursleys into a malfunctioning vanishing cabinet and letting the chips fall where they may.
Because Harry had been malnourished by his so called family.
Maybe not all the time, but enough to interfere with his development since some children just needed more food as they grew than others. James had a voracious appetite during his formative years, not unlike Harry's friend Ron, and Lily, tiny little powerhouse that she was, could eat from sun up to sundown and never gain an ounce.
With the two of them for parents, Sirius didn't doubt for a second that Harry would have had a healthy appetite. But having guardians who deprived him while they fed their own child like a pig to slaughter, it was no mystery as to why Harry was quite a bit smaller than his male peers.
Harry was sensitive about his height too. He also tended to downplay his worries, but one too many deceptively offhanded comments about being shorter than his friends had Sirius finally dragging his son to two very fancy pediatric healers who assured the small boy that he would, in fact, catch up to his peers in height if he maintained a better diet and supplement regimen. He just needed to be patient.
He wouldn't match the growth rate of the other boys in his year any time soon, that was a fact, but Sirius promised to get him there eventually and Harry trusted his father, because Sirius never lied to him.
It helped enormously to regularly remind the insecure child that James had been a slow starter too who had finally shot up to a quite respectable height later than the other boys. Probably because it was the easiest and far less painful way to get Harry to accept his current diminutive stature by blaming genetics instead of the relatives who had treated him so horribly.
What Sirius didn't mention was that Harry wouldn't grow quite as quickly as James had.
Sometimes, a parent had to pick his battles.
But right now, all Sirius could think about was the upcoming danger to his smaller than average child. Compared to the other three champions, Harry looked like a little brother playing tag-a-long, and in this case, there wasn't anything cute about that.
It made Sirius need a drink.
Badly.
While his son was happily eating his weight in pasta and laughing about little Malfoy standing on his desk and squealing like a girl while Severus chased the malevolent potion, Sirius opened a bottle of a mild red wine he'd taken a fancy to recently and poured himself a glass. A split second break in Harry's story telling had him noticing that his son stopped slurping up noodles and rambling long enough to look at the bottle with coveting eyes.
Sirius found himself a little taken aback by the boy's sudden interest. It wasn't as if Harry had ever really asked to have some of the adult beverages that Sirius and Remus both regularly enjoyed with their evening meals. Not even as a joke.
Aside from the time he'd been allowed a small shot of Firewhisky after the first task, which he didn't actually enjoy, the boy never gave off the slightest hint that he'd like to try any of it.
This was another thing that Sirius realized he needed to start considering. As much as he would prefer that his son remain a child forever, Harry was beginning to grow up in maturity, if not in height, and in their world most magical families allowed their offspring to experience alcohol far earlier than their Muggle counterparts.
The Potters were a rare exception because they doted and fussed over their only son so much. Sirius knew that James' parents would have happily kept him a small child forever and treated him as such, so he didn't begin his experiments with alcohol until the age of thirteen. Back in their third year, Edgar Bones, a fellow Gryffindor that roomed with the Marauders, had nicked a few bottles from his dad's liquor cabinet the day he left for school that he was more than happy to share with his mates on the first day of the new term.
Sirius, with a couple of years of practice already, held his own with no problem, knowing when to stop, and Remus and even Wormtail managed to finish off the evening without looking too green around the gills. James, however, ignored the warnings his friends gave him and completely overindulged. He'd spent hours afterwards painting the common room, their dorm and especially the boys' bathroom with sick.
Eventually Sirius and Remus were worried enough to drag James to the hospital wing where he was promptly diagnosed with alcohol poisoning. Madam Pomfrey poured potions down his throat for a full day while James' frantic mother sat vigil by his bed. Once he was pronounced completely cured, Mrs. Potter, who had been terrified over the chance she might lose her only child to a bout of stupidity, marched James into Poppy's private office and gave him the only smacking he ever received from her.
James was horrified and he never drank to excess again.
Because Sirius was raised in a proper pure-blood home, he had been allowed a glass of watered down wine with his dinner for the first time on his eleventh birthday in preparation to be groomed as his father's heir, and then for every dinner after until he ran away.
Back then, Orion still held out hope that his obstinate son would buck up once he was sorted in Slytherin house and there would be no more of this nonsense about the boy's disdain for blood purity. Many families considered age eleven as a milestone event for their well bred children and a round of parties were held for the lucky members of the noble and ancient houses prior to the start of their formal education.
There was a lot of casual drinking done at these affairs and it wouldn't due for the snooty and well bred young witches and wizards to get too far into their cups.
While Sirius was adamant that Harry would never be subjected to that kind of social nonsense, he did actually believe that it was better that the forbidden appeal of spirits be tempered by allowing the occasional indulgence at home. If Harry was served at home where Sirius could monitor his intake, it would be less tempting to get smashed in the dorm and repeat James' mistake.
Giving it some real thought, he decided that what he was drinking tonight was a good vintage to introduce Harry to alcohol with and now was as good a time as any. Pursing his lips while his silver eyes danced in mischief, Sirius summoned a second wine glass from the cabinet and filled it halfway before sliding it over to his son. The gesture caused Harry's eyebrows to rise up well into his forehead as he looked at his father as if the man had gone barmy.
"For me?"
Smirking, Sirius nodded and took a sip from his own glass. "Yes, Harry. It's really for you. But not often and never without my permission. Am I understood?"
"Yes, sir," Harry agreed instantly before his father had time to take it back. Not believing his luck, he drew the glass closer and took a tentative sip.
Suppressing the urge to chuckle when Harry immediately wrinkled his nose, Sirius harked back to his own youth and his first time trying wine. He remembered thinking he was getting a glass of sweet grape juice and was unpleasantly surprised with the reality.
Clearly Harry had the same opinion, although he was also determinedly sipping at the glass and trying hard to mask his dislike, just in case his father changed his mind about letting him have it and took it back.
They were stuffed with pasta, but both of them also had a sweet tooth and home cooked dinner night always ended with a treat. Sadly, neither of them could bake worth a damn, but Sirius was more than capable of mixing up a simple chocolate pudding the Muggle way. It was as he was dishing out bowls of it with a dollop of cream that he realized the time.
"Aren't Ron and Hermione coming over to study tonight?"
With the slightest bit of hesitation, Harry scooped up a spoonful of pudding and shrugged.
"Hermione had a headache earlier. I think she's having an early night. And Ron," here Harry hesitated a few seconds and ducked his head so his father couldn't see the melancholy on his face, "he's staying in the tower tonight. It's Dean's birthday and his mum sent hampers of his favorite foods for a party in the common room."
Sirius could see that Harry was trying hard to downplay his unhappiness at not being with his friends and it hurt him more than he could admit.
It wasn't as if he didn't understand perfectly well that his son missed the social life that came with attending a boarding school for most of the year. There was a reason why kids that went to Hogwarts together developed such close bonds once they started spending more time with each other than they did with their families.
And it was probably especially true for his son who never had any friends or family back in the Muggle world to miss while he was living in Scotland.
Like Sirius himself once did, Harry had considered his Hogwarts friends and his dorm room as his family and home for three years before being given a home of his own. Sirius didn't know what he would have done if he'd had that comfort and security taken away from him at a time in his life when growing up was already stressful enough as it was.
And Harry, good boy that he was, never complained about the restrictions imposed on him because of the security threat that overshadowed every aspect of his life.
Not really.
It helped a bit that Ron and Hermione were given an open invitation to spend time in the Astronomy tower as often as they wanted to, which they did regularly. Other than that there had only been the occasional whinge that seemed to have more to do with Sirius setting firm times for study and bed, since it was something that the other students weren't subjected to, but no overt protesting about being confined to their tower residence after the first few days of moving there full-time.
Remus had felt a need to chide Sirius more than once over being too protective and making the boy feel suffocated, but Sirius simply told him that he wasn't any happier about it than Harry was, but he wasn't changing his mind any time soon either.
Fortunately, most of the time Harry was more like Lily in temperament than James. He obviously didn't like it, but he understood the reasons and he'd borne the restrictions with surprisingly good grace and maturity after the first explosion. A part of Sirius believed that his son's willingness was an attempt to make up for all the lost years of not living with Sirius, but still it had to be hard for him to be cooped up so much.
"Would you like to go?"
The words were out of Sirius' mouth before he even processed that he'd said anything at all. Allowing Harry out to wander alone through the corridors at night went against every paternal instinct he'd managed to develop and he probably would never have consciously made the offer if he had let himself think about it.
But there was another part of him struggling to rise to the surface that remembered what being a teenage boy in the castle felt like. A time when he and his three best friends ran amok with wild abandon, playing pranks and making general mischief. Skirting through the dark passages and Forbidden Forest and risking their necks being out after curfew practically every night.
That part of him was insistent on reminding the over-protective guardian that he'd somehow morphed into that while it was his job to keep Harry alive, he also needed to let the boy live occasionally too.
"Really?"
Harry's eyes practically bugged out his head at the unexpected offer. He wasn't planning on saying anything about the party until his father asked about his friends and he certainly wasn't going to ask permission to do something that he was sure would absolutely be refused.
Harry knew that his father didn't particularly like keeping him under lock and key and he had been trying very hard to not make the man feel guilty about it.
The surprised and hopeful look in his son's green eyes just about undid Sirius completely.
When had he become this monster that kept his child hidden in their ivory tower away from living a life?
Maybe he'd been able to rationalize it as a necessary evil, given the regular threats to his son's safety, but he was at least honest enough to admit that Harry probably needed a little breathing space.
"Really," he said with a sad smile. "I know it hasn't been easy on you, little one. I imagine it probably feels a lot like you're being punished when you haven't actually done anything wrong, doesn't it?"
Harry shrugged again but he didn't deny it, which only make Sirius feel even more guilty.
"You can go. Spend some time with your friends. Eat too much junk. Complain about overbearing and unreasonable parents who just don't understand you."
And Harry laughed, just like Sirius hoped he would, while Sirius forced out a small chuckle as he tried not to feel terrified. It was a hard balance when your son was being targeted by a mad person and you had no idea what to do about it.
But Sirius did know that he needed to let Harry stretch his wings a little before the tight grip he had around his son broke the fragile bones and he was never able to fly again.
That was something James would not forgive him for.
"Take your invisibility cloak and wear it between here and there and make sure you're back before curfew. Trust me when I tell you that you do not want me showing up in the common room to drag you back by your ear."
Sirius' words were semi-playful but his son knew that he meant them. Harry nodded firmly before darting into his room to grab the cloak and back out again.
"Do you want me to do the washing up first before I go?"
"Not tonight," Sirius shook his head as he continued to clear the table. "Run along before I realize what I'm doing and change my mind."
Dropping their pudding bowls into the small sink, he turned and held his arms out.
"Come here."
Harry went willingly into his father's embrace and gave the man a reassuring squeeze.
"It'll be okay, Papa. I know how to take care of myself."
"I know you do," Sirius admitted as he closed his eyes and held his son close for a few seconds before releasing him. "Okay. Off you go now. Behave yourself."
"Yes, sir," Harry promised as he draped the cloak around his shoulders and promptly vanished from the neck down. "Thank you, Papa."
Watching as Harry fully vanished under the cloak and disappeared outside their door, Sirius felt his legs give out from under him and he sank back into his chair. He pulled the wine bottle towards him only to stop himself from having another glass.
He needed to keep his wits about him until his son was safely back home again.
*****************HP*********
Sirius looked down at the order sheet in front of him and reached up to rub his temples as he felt a monstrous headache begin to form. Although he had been hoping to the contrary, Wiseacre's Wizarding Equipment currently had the normally rare item that he had inquired about in stock.
Just his luck.
But parents were supposed to make regular personal sacrifices for the benefit of their children.
At least that's what good parents did.
And Sirius wanted to be a good parent.
He knew, without hesitation, that he'd die a thousand deaths for his son. No one was getting to Harry without going through Sirius first, and Merlin help anyone stupid enough to try. Harry was Sirius' first thought in the morning and the last one at night.
So why was this so hard?
Pushing the parchment away, he got up from the table and padded quietly towards his son's bedroom. Silently he waved his hand and the door slid open with the barest whisper of noise. Across the room in the dark, Harry was curled up under his warmest comforter and fast asleep.
The two of them had returned to their residence earlier that evening after spending half an hour in the cold late January wind at the cemetery in Godric's Hollow. The pain of visiting the graves of two of the people he'd loved most in the world repeatedly stabbed at him with the sharp sting of a thousand knives, but Sirius pushed aside his own distress for Harry's sake.
He'd conjured two bouquets of ice roses for their son to place in front of each headstone and then stood back a few feet while Harry took all the time he needed to update his parents on what had been happening in his life.
Harry, although obviously struggling with his own sadness, somehow managed to keep up a steady stream of commentary while Sirius silently fought for breath and tried not to show how much he was dying inside. He told his parents about school and his friends. The wonderful Christmas he'd had and even a humorous version of his failed attempt at dating. Their brilliant vacation in the Maldives and how much he loved flying his new Firebolt Supreme.
Sirius couldn't help but notice that Harry didn't say anything about the sad or scary things going on his life. Or any of the disagreements the two of them had between them. Almost as if he were trying to protect his parents from worrying about him.
It was quite sweet, really.
Then at the very end Harry told his parents about how much Sirius meant to him and the brilliant life he was giving Harry now, and then he thanked them so genuinely in a quivering voice for choosing Sirius to be the one to raise him in their stead, and it was all Sirius could do to not break down and weep like a baby
After that, the boy was talked out and he'd turned to Sirius with tears freezing on his cheeks and said that he was ready to go home.
They apparated back outside the Hogwarts boundaries just as a light snow was beginning to fall that dusted the pathways. Harry refused to let go of his father's hand after they landed and the two of them silently made the short trek back up to the castle. It was cold and blustery outside and damp and chilly in the corridors, so they didn't run into any of the other students or teachers who would be gathered in front of one of the many common rooms' roaring fireplaces keeping warm.
Sirius had a feeling that in his current state his son wouldn't have cared even if someone did see him clinging to his father, if the tight, desperate grip he had around Sirius' hand was any indication.
Harry's bedtime had still been two hours away and any other day he'd be fighting for every minute and restarting the long suffering argument about how he was too old for a bedtime in the first place. But by the time they reached their residence the boy was shivering and looking well and truly knackered, so Sirius sent him to take a bath and get into a pair of warm pajamas and Harry didn't utter a word of protest.
When he was done, it didn't take much coaxing to get him settled into the bed Sirius had already placed a warming charm on.
Because he suspected that Harry needed the extra comfort, even if he wasn't asking for it, Sirius grabbed the snow globe that James and Lily had made that usually sat in the middle of Harry's dresser and placed it on the nightstand closest to where their son was burrowed into his bed. With a wave of his wand Sirius illuminated the globe so that it was easier to see the small family of deer frolicking in the shower of flower petals.
Without speaking, Harry turned on his side towards the globe and gazed longingly at it. He wasn't crying, but Sirius could see it was a struggle the boy was in danger of losing. Sitting down on the bed behind his son, he leaned over and gently ran his hand up and down Harry's back and quietly sang James' drunken lullaby until Harry finally succumbed to sleep.
Someday they might both be able to visit the cemetery without feeling like their guts were being ripped out.
But not today.
Seeing that his child was still peacefully slumbering, Sirius made his way back out to the sitting room, gave the parchment another look and finally made a decision.
In the end it simply didn't matter how much this was going to hurt him. Harry deserved this, and whether or not it was going to be hard on Sirius, it didn't change the fact that his role of father came before everything else.
He had the ability to give his son a tiny glimpse of the extraordinary people he meant so much to. The ones Sirius would happily give his life for in a heartbeat if it meant that any one of them could come back.
But he couldn't, no matter how much he wanted to.
Sirius couldn't bring them back to life, not really, but he could bring them back enough in a way for Harry to see them more clearly. To hear their voices when it wasn't part of some torturous memory. He could show the boy how much his parents loved him and each other. How positively amazing his grandparents were.
For their son's sake, Sirius would shred his heart and force himself to remember so he could share those precious memories with him.
Dragging the parchment back towards him, he picked up his quill, jabbed it into the ink pot and scribbled out the order and authorized the payment from his vault. Blowing on the ink to dry it, he strode over to the nearest window and propped it open, whistled for Xerxes and waited for the magnificent black owl to arrive before fastening it onto the bird's leg and watching while he took flight into the night sky.
He could have easily waited until the morning to do it, but he knew that if he allowed himself time to sleep on it, he just might have changed his mind.
Because the simple fact was, Sirius despised the very idea of a pensieve.
The deep marble bowl with exquisite runes carved all around the edges, a priceless antique passed down through the Black family for generations, had always held pride of place in Walburga's personal sitting room throughout Sirius' childhood.
It was how she kept tabs on her husband, children and staff.
Orion, for all of his horrible temperament and abusive nature, submitted to his wife's frequent insistence on viewing his memories without fail for reasons that no one understood. Especially his eldest son. He was a powerful man in the wizarding world, but one that would always capitulate to his shrew of a wife's demands in their own home.
So there was truly no one to stop her from doing what Sirius eventually considered to be mind rape to her children either.
Both Sirius and Regulus during their early childhood years were habitually restrained by one of the house elves while their mother forcibly extracted their recent memories despite their futile struggles and tears. House elves could use their magic to completely immobilize the brothers without laying a hand on them, but Kreacher preferred to use physical brute force with Sirius, probably because Walburga never insisted on him refraining from leaving marks on her eldest child while he did it.
A constant recurring memory of Sirius' younger years was his blurry view of the ornate pressed tin ceiling in Walburga's sitting room as he was held down on the floor and tried to breath through the agony of the spectacular rainbow of bruises blossoming all over his small body. Unable to fight back in his condition, his mother would harangue him without mercy until he just gave her what she wanted.
At some point he'd decided that it was just easier to get all the pain out of the way as soon as possible.
Walburga was the real head of their small family, but no one outside of the residents of Twelve Grimmauld Place knew that. It wasn't the place of a wife in a pure-blood household to reign over her husband after all. But Sirius was pretty sure that Walburga's iron fist was responsible not just for his own torment at her hands, but what his father and the wretched house elf did to him as well.
Orion was always just a little bit quicker to decide his eldest son needed some quality time in the grove at Celestial Court after being dressed down by his wife.
In later years, Sirius tried to teach himself Occlumancy to prevent his mother's mental abuse, but she could tell that he was attempting to block her so she'd bully Orion and order Kreacher to thoroughly beat Sirius first and then leave him suffering and vulnerable before wrenching his school year memories from his mind. The mothers of the students in Slytherin liked to gossip and Sirius' scandalous sorting in Gryffindor was Walburga's biggest shame.
She never showed her son an ounce of maternal kindness, but she did make it her business to know exactly what her traitorous son was up to.
For years Sirius was beaten into submission so she could steal his memories, and then he was beaten because of what she saw in them.
It was a vicious circle.
The trauma resulting from this abhorrent pattern of invasion left a mental scar in certain areas of his magical brain and it prevented Sirius from ever mastering the art of Occlumancy. As a result, he never pursued Legilimancy either as he didn't ever want to be someone with the power to forcibly invade the mind of another.
He also swore than he'd never have a pensieve in any home of his own.
But that was all before Harry came along, and long before he became Harry's father. Life has a way of biting you in the arse sometimes and as much as Sirius found the idea of pensieves revolting, using one was going to be the only way his son could ever get to know about his wonderful parents in any kind of meaningful way.
He would do this for his child.
Because Sirius was a good parent.
******************HP**********
Harry's fingers and toes were shriveled like prunes by the time he emerged from the almost cold bathwater. He'd been lying under the surface in their large tub for close to two hours as he practiced wordlessly casting and re-casting the Bubble Head charm.
Sirius had insisted on having him practice nearly every day for almost three weeks at this point and now he could manage it quite easily.
He and Remus agreed early on that Harry's best chance would be to go into the lake using the gillyweed they brought back from their trip because it would help his less than stellar swimming abilities if he had gills and fins to help him navigate around the murky depths.
But since the lifespan of the gillyweed was dependent on the individual wizard, and there were conflicting views on use in fresh water as compared to salt water, Sirius had decreed that they weren't taking chances of Harry undergoing the entire task without a back up plan. If Harry felt the gillyweed running out, he was to immediately cast a Bubble Head charm and finish up under his own power.
At this point Harry just wanted to get the task over and done with. He was already in first place after the first task, so he wasn't exactly feeling a load of pressure, and he'd already decided that he could just do whatever he needed to in order to fulfill the magical contract with the goblet.
There was a small part of him that would like to win it, just to make his father proud, but he also wasn't planning on doing anything risky which would upset Sirius even more than he already was.
He climbed out of the tub and shimmied out of his bathing trunks, dropping them carelessly on the floor before grabbing a large fluffy towel and drying off. After such a long time in the water, he sort of felt like an old manky dish sponge that was long overdue to be pitched. No amount of rubbing was going to make him feel completely dry at this point, so he tossed the towel into the dirty linen hamper and pulled on a pair of sweats and a hoodie before heading back out into the sitting room.
The residence was empty except for him. Tonight was the night of the full moon and his father and Remus were out gallivanting in the Forbidden Forest. Sirius had wanted to stay behind this time, his willingness to be away from Harry for any long period practically nonexistent as the second task drew nearer, but Harry desperately wanted some alone time so he'd physically shoved his father out the door.
After so many weeks of intense worry and stress, it was no secret that Sirius needed to run off some nervous energy before they all went insane.
Flopping down on the couch, Harry grabbed a pack of biscuits and idly munched on them as he tried again to figure out what was going to be taken from and thrown into the Black Lake for rescue. It's not as if he had a lot of possessions that were important to him.
There was his broom, for sure, and while he'd be upset if he failed the task and lost it, it wouldn't be the end of the world. Before coming to live with Sirius, the photo album that Hagrid had given him first year was probably his most precious possession, but now he had access to a ton of photos, so the album could be easily replaced too.
Maybe his snow globe?
That one would hurt. There was no replacing it.
Scrunching up his nose, Harry made a mental note to ask his father if they could vanish it back to his room at home before the task, just in case.
***********HP***********
With Harry's unaccustomed absence, Sirius was already in bad temper when his unexpected and very unwelcome visitor knocked on the door of his classroom.
A combination of worry over his son's safety and just plain irritation at seeing such terrible work had him giving Gregory Goyle's essay a 'T' for Troll as the beleaguered professor graded his fourth year class' most recent exam.
For a member of Slytherin house, with its tradition of valuing cunning, young Mr. Goyle was surprisingly daft and his fellow cohort Vincent Crabbe wasn't much better either. Neither boy was going to amount to much without the help of their families' connections, which was one of the reasons why Sirius reviled the ways of pure-blood politics.
Sirius had decided to head upstairs to his classroom in the Astronomy tower to get some necessary work done as long as his son wasn't home for the evening, but try as he might his mind kept wandering to Harry's current whereabouts and he couldn't help wondering whether or not it had been a good idea to let Harry once again join his friends.
After Harry had gone to Dean's party and come home happier than Sirius had seen him in ages, it had been hard to deny his son a few return visits to the Gryffindor common room as long as he promised to be very careful. Especially tonight when Harry's friends were throwing him a small party to wish him luck with the second task tomorrow.
He knew his son was safe at the moment since the only reason he was staying reasonably calm was because he had the map spread out in front of him while he somewhat ruthlessly graded essays. For the past two hours he'd been manically checking it every few moments to ensure that the tiny dot that represented his entire world was right where it should be.
Comforting himself with the knowledge that Harry would be back in less than half an hour for the late dinner they'd agreed on, he'd so far managed to refrain from stalking through the corridors and escorting his son back to their residence just to settle his own nerves.
The rational part of his brain, the one he desperately wanted to ignore at the moment, told him that Harry was perfectly fine with his friends, so until it was time for him to come home Sirius was going to sit at his desk and fret and attempt to understand just exactly how Gregory Goyle managed to walk and chew gum at the same time.
Deep in uneasy thoughts, a sharp rap at the halfway open door made him reflexively draw his wand and he suppressed an urge to hex the obnoxious intruder just on principle alone.
"You shouldn't sneak up on an ex-Auror, Mr. Bagman."
There was an icy undertone in Sirius' voice that should have warned his guest to back away, but unfortunately Ludo was simply too feeble minded to get the hint. Instead he laughed in that moronic way of his and pushed himself into the classroom.
"Mr. Black, a privilege to see you again!"
Sirius might have relaxed his dueling stance in an attempt to falsely appear less intimidating, but he simply didn't like this buffoon and he absolutely refused to put his wand away. Leaning back in his chair, he cocked an irritated eyebrow.
"It's a bit late in the day for visitors, Mr. Bagman. What brings you to the castle at this hour?"
Ludo, being a pseudo celebrity in their world, wasn't quite used to a less than warm reception and he belatedly realized he'd already erred in his judgement if he was being treated with such open disdain. He'd come expecting to dazzle with his notoriety, as he usually did, as well as expecting the fawning compliance that had gotten him this far in life in the first place.
Clearly he'd missed the mark.
Sirius Black might have spent twelve years under the influence of dementors, but now, looking at him up close, there was nothing about the lethal looking wizard that proclaimed him to be someone who was easily swayed.
"I wanted to catch you after school hours, of course," he smiled genially. "I know how hard the professors here at Hogwarts work and I promise I won't take up much of your time."
Sirius barely managed to avoid rolling his eyes at the garishly dressed boor. Especially since insincere flattery always rankled him.
"What can I help you with, Mr. Bagman? As you can see, I'm quite busy."
Knowing that Black came from a famously pure-blooded family, Ludo frowned at the lack of the customary social niceties, but he quickly schooled his features and decided to come right to the point before he really stuck his foot in his mouth.
"The second task is tomorrow, as I'm sure you know."
Sirius nodded slightly, the glare in his stormy gray eyes spelling out exactly just how much he thought about the tournament his under age son was being forced to participate in. Ludo, finally seeing that his quarry wasn't going to make this easy on him, decided it was better just to get right to the point.
"I'm sure by now young Harry has already worked out the egg's hint?"
Again Sirius nodded and Ludo swore silently over how completely unhelpful the man was being. Usually people were tripping over themselves to talk to him.
"Well," he continued, "we're looking for an important person to each of the champions to act as their...hostage...so to speak. I'm assuming we can count on your participation? After all, who wouldn't want to see the famous Harry Potter rescue his godfather from the dark, scary waters of the Black Lake?"
From the sound of Sirius' sudden laughter, Ludo was sure that he'd just gotten what he'd come for. Harry Potter competing in the tournament doing anything was worthy of gold changing hands.
Harry Potter, the wizarding world's most famous orphan navigating treacherous waters to save his infamous godfather?
Well, that? That was truly something special.
He'd already set up the betting spreads with the goblins for an event of that magnitude.
"Are you insane?"
Shocked out of the pleasant daydream of just how he'd spend his winnings, Ludo suddenly realized that Black's face had turned to stone.
"I'm sorry?"
"You're using people?" Sirius roared. "Who came up with such a ludicrous idea? And exactly what would make you think I would agree to something like this?"
"Mr. Black," Ludo sputtered, "I assure you that it is completely safe. Each hostage will be put into an enchanted sleep and will awaken upon breaching the water's surface. Even if the champions fail to effect the rescue, we have arrangements made with the merpeople to deliver you from harm. Young Harry-"
"Will not participate in a task that I can't oversee, Mr. Bagman," Sirius snapped as he leapt to his feet. "I'm sorry, but I'm going to have to ask you to leave now."
Ludo couldn't believe his ears.
It was imperative that Black act as Potter's hostage, or else he was in trouble so deep he'd never find his way out. Everyone knew that it was risky to engage in betting with the goblins in the first place and he'd already assured them that he could deliver the promised arrangements.
"I beg you to see reason, Mr. Black," he implored, trying to maintain as much of his dignity as he could muster. "Surely you can see how your involvement in the task will spur Harry into a magnificent showing?"
At this Sirius was around his desk in a shot and he had his hands wrapped around the front of Bagman's gaudy robes before the other man even realized he'd moved.
"Stay away from my son, do you hear me?" he seethed as Ludo came far too close to wetting himself. "If I even catch you looking at him funny I will make you wish you were never born."
Ludo struggled in the other man's grasp as his face flamed red from fear and humiliation. Black was clearly just as crazy as some people said he was.
"I'm overseeing the tournament, Mr. Black," he spat out desperately as he worked to free himself from Sirius' clenched hands. "You don't want Harry on my bad side, do you?"
Sirius' vision went red and he used every spare drop of restraint he had in him to stop himself from throwing the man out of the tower window.
"Get...out!"
The enraged father ruthlessly shoved the intruder back out into the corridor and then slammed the door in his face.
Standing on the stair landing while he fought to regain his breath, Ludo paled even further as he contemplated what the goblins would do to him if he broke their deal.
Knowing that failure wasn't an option unless he wanted to disappear off the face of the Earth, he gathered his wits and swore that he'd get Black.
One way or another.
**********HP************
Even the glass of mango juice that Harry had quickly grown to love didn't improve the boy's mood over dinner.
And it wasn't just any old glass of mango juice either. After being assured by his son that the kind available locally just wasn't the same, Sirius had begun to import gallons of it specially for him from the island where they owned their villa.
Harry wasn't really fussy or spoiled about anything, so on the rare occasion he was, his father was more than happy to go out of his way to indulge his child regardless of the cost or hassle.
Right now Harry's stomach was topsy-turvy with nerves over the Second Task which would take place the next morning, and although both his father and Remus had assured him that he was well and truly prepared, Harry wasn't exactly excited over the prospect of spending an hour underwater searching for something at the bottom of the Black Lake.
If for no other reason than he didn't particularly fancy running across the Giant Squid.
"You're going to do just fine," Sirius insisted as he gently tapped the table in the direction of Harry's plate. "Now eat something. You know you won't sleep well on an empty stomach and you won't compete well tomorrow if you're exhausted.
Harry looked down at the slab of fork-tender roast and mound of potatoes swimming in gravy as if the meal had personally offended him and the sight of the rich food made a little bile rise up in his throat.
Eating was the last thing he felt like doing at the moment.
"I'm going to sick up if you make me," he protested, his nose wrinkling in a scowl as he peevishly pushed the plate away from him. "Can't I just be excused to go and enjoy my last night in the castle before my tragic, watery death tomorrow?"
The immediate silence in the room was deafening except for the sharp clatter of a fork being dropped on a plate and Harry knew even before looking up that he'd made a very big mistake.
What was meant as a half-hearted joke had obviously fallen flat with his over-protective father who already worried every minute of every day about his son's continued existence even without a potentially deadly task to complete. A tight grimace was now pinching Sirius' pale face at the mere suggestion of his beloved child's early demise and the fiery glare Harry was currently getting from Remus also made it clear to him that the werewolf was about two seconds away from reaching over the table and throttling him for his inconsiderate stupidity.
Sometimes Harry still forgot just exactly how much his father fretted about him before he opened his big mouth and made flippant comments.
Barely daring to look up into Sirius' stormy gray eyes, Harry squinted and weakly pointed across the room.
"So...corner?"
The grimace Sirius sported a moment earlier turned rapidly into a very displeased frown as the now irate father ominously crooked a finger to beckon his wayward son over.
Recognizing The Look on his father's face, Harry sighed and obediently got up from the table to reluctantly shuffle his way towards Sirius' chair. He knew that he'd stupidly crossed the thin, fragile line that was currently keeping the threads of his father's sanity intact so he quickly resigned himself to take without fuss the reprimanding smack on the arse he was sure he'd just earned.
Of course it would have been better if Remus wasn't sitting right there to watch him get it, but it wasn't as if he'd never been smacked in front of Remus before anyway and he also knew that when Sirius was well and truly put out with him, it wasn't going to matter who was in the room.
Blushing furiously, Harry averted his eyes so they didn't make contact with the angry amber orbs of the werewolf across the table and walked to his doom.
But before Harry got his naughty backside within smacking range, Sirius suddenly stood and reached out to wrap his slightly trembling arms around his mouthy kid and squeezed tight. Shocked, Harry stiffened for a split second in surprise before he relaxed.
A hug.
A hug was good.
A hug was definitely worth walking over for.
With his own stomach clenching and tied up in knots, Harry would happily take a hug or twelve right about now.
Despite Harry's age and the overall general man-ness of the residence's occupants, hugs were a regular staple in their little home. If neither Harry nor Sirius had been raised in a loveless home by horrible people, it was likely that the two of them might not have been quite as tactile as they were with each other.
But they had been and so they were.
Both of them had been deprived for years of the simple comfort of human touch that all people needed in some degree or another and most took that for granted. So hugs in the Black-Potter household were given freely and often and they wouldn't be stopping any time soon.
Not that either of them wanted to.
Harry might be a teenage boy, with all of the hormones and angst and burgeoning independence that came with the territory, but inside there was still a small, lonely boy that lived in a cupboard under the stairs that craved all the affection and stability that Sirius was trying very hard to provide.
And if anyone had a problem with that?
Too bad.
Because Sirius had never known a loving touch until he began to stay with the Potters either, so it was only right that he pass on the love they had lavished him with onto their grandson.
So tonight, with a desperation in his grip that belied just how nervous he actually was himself, Harry melted in his father's embrace as he pushed his ear against Sirius' chest and let the soothing sound of his father's beating heart calm his own jangled nerves.
The assuring thrum that comforted him with the knowledge that he had at least one very much alive parent to cling to in times of struggle.
It wasn't that he was scared of the upcoming task as far as his own survival was concerned, but it also didn't mean that he wasn't still feeling a bit resentful over being forced to compete in the stupid tournament in the first place. Anything could happen since it was common knowledge that students had died competing in the past even without a dark wizard gunning for them and he was perfectly aware of what it would do to Sirius if anything happened to Harry.
His poor father would undoubtedly die of grief shortly after Harry's untimely demise, and that wasn't any kind of exaggeration.
A person could only take so much loss before giving up on life themselves, and Sirius had already lost too many people that he loved for one lifetime.
"Don't you say things like that. Ever again. Do you understand me, young man?"
Harry swallowed hard from the heady note of desperation in his father's trembling voice. It had been his own anxiety that loosened his tongue and made him talk so glibly. A bad habit Harry had whenever he was feeling particularly overwhelmed.
Feeling truly terrible, he hugged Sirius tighter, attempting to reassure the very upset man that his occasionally insensitive son was currently safe and sound in his arms and had every intention of remaining so.
"I'm sorry, Papa."
After a moment of clinging to each other, he felt his father take in a shaky breath before releasing it slowly as he loosened his grip around Harry's shoulders. Pulling back, he tipped Harry's face up and scowled at him.
"I am not amused, Harry James. In fact, I'm cross enough that I'd probably send you straight to bed without allowing you some of your favorite dessert. Or at least I would, if you were actually eating anything."
Harry blushed deeply from Sirius' worried scolding and he lowered his head in apology before his father turned him around and sent him back to his seat with a quick swat that possibly might have been just a tad too firm to be completely playful.
Throwing a baleful glance at the full treacle tart sitting in the middle of the dining table, the kind that he'd normally devour in one go if given the chance, Harry sat down and pulled his dinner plate back towards him again, picking up his fork reluctantly. He still wasn't particularly hungry, but he'd make another attempt at eating his dinner if it made his father feel better.
"How did you like the baby unicorns in Hagrid's class today?" Remus interrupted when he saw Sirius mentally working himself up over the infinite list of things that could go wrong tomorrow.
"They're alright," Harry said gratefully, glad for the change in subject. "Most of the girls went mental. I think my left eardrum might be a bit scarred from all the squealing."
Remus chuckled in amusement and even Sirius managed a small watery smile as he remembered his own first Care class with unicorns and giggly girls.
Knowing that Sirius was still annoyed with his shirty remark, Harry forced himself to choke down a bite of the roast. It was delicious and under other circumstances he would have enjoyed it heartily. As it was, he'd endure it for his father's sake if nothing else.
Slightly mollified by the sight of his son finally eating something, Sirius drew in a deep breath and reached for his wine glass and took a large sip. No one commented on how his hand shook slightly as it held the glass to his mouth.
"Your mum loved the baby unicorns," he finally said after he swallowed a mouthful of the dry red vintage. "She got detention twice for being out in the Forbidden Forest because she couldn't resist going out and looking for them. Being Muggleborn, it was fascinating to her to see that they really did exist and she thought they were just adorable."
Harry smiled. He loved hearing stories like this about his parents. Sirius and Remus could talk all day about their time at school with James and Lily and he'd never grow tired of listening.
Seeing his son's face, Sirius took another swallow of wine and silently vowed to unpack the newly arrived pensieve the day after the task. His memory of that Care class with Lily was as good a place to start as any.
"Well, it's no surprise," Remus chimed in with a soft smile of his own. "The wand that picked her had a unicorn hair core. Like mine. They're very good for Charms work. Stable and loyal."
As conversation turned to the school days of the Marauders, Harry felt himself relaxing enough to really tuck in to his dinner, and because his son was eating, Sirius began to relax as well.
By the time they were all laughing over a prank that the Marauders played on the Slytherin house team, charming all of their brooms to evade any attempts to mount them just before the final game of the season was to start, Harry had eaten half the treacle tart and was begging for just one more tale before he had to go to bed.
"Tomorrow night," Sirius promised as he got up from his chair to shoo his son towards the bathroom to wash up. "You need your rest now."
Harry grudgingly got up from his place at the table and took his plates over to the sink as his father affectionately tousled his hair.
"Really brush tonight, young man," Sirius playfully scolded. "You've got a layer of treacle coating your entire mouth."
Rolling his eyes, Harry shook his head fondly and loped off to the bathroom as Remus began to help clear the rest of the table. Once Harry had closed the door behind him, Sirius dropped his forced smile and seemed to deflate where he stood.
"He's going to be alright, Padfoot."
Turning to level a glare at his oldest friend, Sirius shook his head.
"You don't know that," he hissed more harshly than he intended. "Anything could happen tomorrow with that lunatic Bagman running the whole mess."
Remus couldn't deny that. Especially after Sirius telling him that Ludo had the remarkably bad idea of asking the youngest champion's father to be the bait in the second task.
"We will both be there," he soothed instead. "If anything goes wrong, you and I will be right there to protect him."
Sirius was hardly mollified by his friend's words, but he did take a much needed calming breath. Harry needed him to be rested and clear thinking tomorrow if he was to be of any use to his son. The last thing he should be doing was working himself up into a frenzy.
"Let's hope we're not needed."
The two of them distracted themselves with the busy work of straightening out the kitchen until Harry emerged from the bathroom freshly showered and dressed for bed. He threw his father a quick glance that Sirius understood was a request for him to follow Harry to his bedroom, so he gave Remus a quick pat on the shoulder and joined his son.
"Do you have everything we talked about for tomorrow?" Sirius asked as Harry climbed into his bed.
"Yep. It's all there so I don't have to go searching for anything in the morning," Harry answered as he pointed to his dresser where a small collection of items lay ready.
Sirius gave it a quick check and nodded in approval as he moved to sit on the edge of his son's bed.
"Looks like you're ready, then."
Harry attempted a small smile and utterly failed as his forehead scrunched up in a frown.
"I hope so."
Reaching over to smooth out the wet strands of hair away from his son's worried face, Sirius let out a deep sigh before he schooled his features into something that he hoped resembled calm confidence.
"You are an amazing young man, Harry," he said sincerely. "And an amazing wizard. There is nothing you can't do if you put your mind to it. And I will be there watching over you every moment. Nothing is going to happen to you with me around. I promise."
Harry's startling green eyes looked up at him with absolute faith and trust in them.
"I know."
Sirius' breath stuttered in his chest for split second before he leaned over and gave his son's scarred forehead a quick kiss.
"Good. Now get some sleep, young man. I'll tell you another story or two over breakfast if you look rested enough. Deal?"
"Deal," Harry grinned as put his glasses on the nightstand and slid further under his blankets. "Good night, Papa."
Sirius stood and made his way over to the door, flicking his wrist and making the lamp on Harry's nightstand go out.
"Good night, Son."
**************HP***************
For someone who had been very clear about his son needing his rest, Sirius was finding sleep absolutely elusive.
Harry had been in bed for hours and it seemed that the boy was going to sleep peacefully for a change, which was remarkable under the circumstances. And Remus had finally been too wiped out to keep Sirius company after the clocked ticked past midnight.
That had been over an hour ago and now Sirius was attempting his third try at reading the same passage in a textbook he was considering for his N.E.W.T. students next year.
Feeling just the slightest twinge of a headache, Sirius rubbed his eyes and was just about to attempt a stab at his own bed when he heard a soft crack in the room behind him. Spinning around, even as he processed the thought that his wand was on the table across the room, the last thing he saw before his world went dark was an extremely large pair of eyes.
************HP*************
Harry swore colorfully as the giant squid poked him again with one of its tentacles.
"Stop it!" he hissed as he smacked the thing away. "I've got to find my broom."
Although he was trying to swim through the water as quickly as he could, his progress was impeded by the annoying cephalopod who kept insisting on painfully stabbing him in the stomach.
"That hurts! Get off! Ouch!"
"Harry Potter must wake up, sir!"
Harry frowned, the words not making sense as he tried to see past a column of seaweed. Another sharp poke to the side only infuriated him more.
"Stop poking me!" he growled.
"Dobby must poke Harry Potter, sir! He must wake up!"
All of a sudden, Harry opened his eyes.
Daylight was streaming in through his bedroom window and he was tangled in his sheets, absently rubbing at a sore spot on his stomach. It took him another few seconds to get his bearings enough to realize that Dobby was on his bed and staring down at him worriedly.
"Harry Potter needs to hurry!" the little elf squeaked as he twisted his ears. "The second task starts in ten minutes and Harry Potter..."
"Ten minutes?" Harry practically shouted. He grabbed his watch from the night stand and realized that Dobby was right.
Bollocks!
"Papa!" he called out as he tried to leap from his bed and landed in a heap on the floor after his feet got caught in his bedding. "Papa, we're going to be late!"
Why hadn't Sirius woken him up?
"Harry Potter has to go into the lake and find his Seriously," Dobby fretted as he wrung his tiny shriveled hands.
Harry finally freed himself and was only half paying attention to the elf as he pulled off his sleep shirt and threw it in the pile of dirty clothes on the chair in the corner.
"Find my what?"
"Your Seriously, sir," Dobby said insistently. "Harry Potter has to take his Papa Seriously back from the merpeople, sir."
"What?" Harry gasped, finally understanding Dobby's distress. "Are you telling me that the merpeople have Sirius?"
Dobby's big eyes were even wider and horribly sad as he nodded.
It wasn't anything stupid, like his broom that Harry suddenly realized had been taken from him for the task.
It was his father.
Suddenly the words of the egg's song came rushing back to him as he tried to keep from screaming.
An hour long you'll have to look,
And to recover what we took,
But past an hour, the prospect's black,
Too late, it's gone, it won't come back.
And as he sunk to his knees on the floor of his bedroom, Harry's world collapsed underneath him.