A/N Hello all! Sorry for the long wait since the last chapter. I got bogged down with Christmas and work, and then my entire household got Covid over the holidays and we're only just recovered from it. Honestly, I've been too physically worn out and mentally tired to put enough coherent thought together to write a good chapter for weeks. That body fatigue and brain fog is no joke.
Anyway, here's a little something of nothing much (entirely fluff because I don't have the stamina to write drama right now) that sets up the next chapter which finally sees Sirius and Harry going through the adoption ritual. If I haven't responded to a review, please be patient. I promise that I will now that I'm back to writing a little. Hopefully this chapter isn't too much of a meandering mess! I promise the next chapter will come much quicker!
Also, FYI, Hestia is not here to be a love interest for Sirius. He meant what he said about putting Harry first. But just like the rest of us, Sirius could use some more friends and support in his life.
**************HP*************
Sirius twirled the pint glass of lager he'd been nursing for most of the evening between his fingers as he watched his son's animated conversation a couple of tables over.
Harry's eyes were wide as he sat enraptured by whatever tall tale Galvin Gudgeon, the Cannons seeker, was telling the boy. Rolling his own eyes, Sirius couldn't help the derisive snort that came out in response to the man's exaggerated arm movements. The Chudley team had been thoroughly trounced by the Harpies, to no one's surprise. For a supposedly professional Quidditch team, the Cannons seemed to be complete pants at the sport.
Sirius had no doubt that the exceptionally clumsy seeker was weaving a most creative story of why his performance during the match had been so utterly dismal.
But his son looked happy, more so than he had for quite a while, and that was the only thing that really mattered in the end.
The doting father was sitting at the table alone at the moment, the others who had been sitting with him long gone as the hour crept closer and closer to ten o'clock. All the enthusiastic cheering during the spirited match had been quite exhausting even before they were caught up in the revelry of the teams as they invaded the tiny pub that welcomed the players and their guests home like old friends. So now, only Sirius remained behind to keep a sharp eye on his son and best mate who currently could not be parted from an audience with their sports heroes for neither love nor money.
Reserved by nature, even around other Muggles, the Grangers had been more than a little intimidated by the overtly raucous behavior of the players celebrating the match at the pub. They had chosen to go home after only a half hour or so, with Molly and Arthur not too far behind them once a wave of autographs had been kindly given. Hermione and Neville lasted a bit longer, but they were also ready to leave less than an hour later when Remus noticed Neville's growing social unease.
The kind werewolf had volunteered to take both kids by side-along back to Celestial Court after assuring the ever vigilant headmaster that he'd keep an eye on them until Sirius returned with Harry and Ron, which had ultimately left Sirius sitting on his own until the time came when he absolutely had to part his son from the fun he was having.
Looking over at them now, apparently he wasn't the only one amused by Gudgeon's delusions of grandeur. Sitting next to Harry, her face decidedly unimpressed, Hestia shook her head and then threw a glance over to Sirius who shared a smirk with her.
Harry had spent the majority of the evening trailing after Hestia like a baby duck, obviously hanging on her every word, and while Sirius was happy that his son was enjoying himself, it was a little worrying to see the usually shy boy become so quickly infatuated with the Marauders' old friend. Not that Sirius was worried about Hestia as any kind of potential danger to his child, but it was out of character for Harry to attach himself so easily to a relative stranger.
But both teams' players were in good spirits, despite the overt bragging by the untalented Cannons, especially after Sirius bought a couple of rounds of drinks for them all as a thank-you for the hospitality and their graciousness in indulging the kids. And because it was a private party, the bartender hadn't even blinked an eye about the presence in the establishment of the four teens who were all a few years short of proper.
Everyone was having a good time, Harry especially, and Sirius didn't have it in his heart to curb his son's enthusiasm, so he was prepared to hold his tongue for now.
At the moment, Harry and Ron were sitting in rapt attention with devotee-like worship as if the players were preaching the Gospel of Quidditch. The doors to the pub had been charmed shut ages ago to any newcomers once all the team players and their guests were in attendance, so their surroundings were safe enough for Sirius to be okay with Harry being there, and in truth the overly cautious father might have even agreed to let the boys stay far longer if they didn't have their evening lesson to attend.
But school came first, and as he noticed the lateness of the hour Sirius finally whistled to get his son's attention, holding up five fingers in warning when Harry turned around to look and then raising an eyebrow when it seemed the boy would protest.
Hestia noticed the signal as well, and she stood from her table and made her way over to Sirius', dropping down in the seat across from him.
"You're not leaving already, are you? We haven't had a chance to catch up yet."
It was true that Hestia had skillfully worked the room upon their arrival to ensure that the kids got to meet and chat with all the players of both teams. Sirius was obviously incredibly grateful for her efforts, especially since Harry looked like a kid who been set free in a candy store when he got to interact with some of his idols, but the fact remained that they had to leave soon.
"I'm afraid we must," he apologized sincerely, "I teach the children Astronomy every Saturday evening and it's time we returned back home for their lesson."
Hestia blinked rapidly and shook her head in wonderment, a large smile spreading across her pretty face.
"You really established your own school, didn't you?" she said in amazement. "Of course I was told about it, being in my new position, but I'm not sure I quite believed it until just this moment. It's not something I would have ever thought of the Sirius Black I knew."
Sirius shrugged and leaned back in his chair as he tapped his fingers on the table. He took another look at his son who was now animatedly telling his own story. From the enthusiasm of Harry's wild arm movements it was likely something to do with his retrieval of the Golden Egg by the looks of it, and Sirius smiled fondly at his brave boy.
"Harry is my entire world. There's nothing I wouldn't do for him."
Turning her attention in the direction that Sirius was focused on, Hestia frowned sadly at the son of her lost friends. She'd wanted to reach out to Harry so many times over the past few years, but refrained, knowing first hand how fame could make someone skittish of unknown contacts. Quidditch players got their fair share of crazy admirers, and she could only guess what kind of fan mail the wizarding world's boy savior received.
Finished with his tale, Harry must have felt their eyes burning on the back of his head as he turned towards their table and sighed. He leaned over to whisper something to Ron and then bounded over to stand in front of Sirius looking like a wishful child on Christmas Eve.
"Can we stay, just a bit longer?" he begged, his bright green eyes using every iota of persuasion they had in them. "Please. I've never had this much fun."
A pitiful remark like that would usually gut Sirius right to the core, but after several months of baptism-by-fire parenting he also knew shameless coercion when he heard it. He wanted to laugh at the boy's masterful attempt to sway his father's feelings on the subject, but unfortunately they really did need to get going.
"I already let you stay a half hour extra," Sirius reminded his son with just enough sternness in his voice to show Harry that he meant business. "Now it's time to go say your good-byes and thank-yous and collect Ron. We need to be going."
"Couldn't we do our lesson tomorrow night instead?" Harry tried as a last ditch effort. "One day isn't really going to make a difference, is it?"
Pursing his lips, Sirius pretended to think about it for a few seconds as he crossed his arms and stared down his son's puppy dog eyes.
"I suppose we could..."
Harry's face lit up like neon sign...
"...but it wouldn't change the fact that we're leaving," Sirius continued firmly, thoroughly unmoved by the enormous pout now being thrown at him. "It's almost ten o'clock already, which means that you either have your lesson tonight or you go straight to bed when we get home as usual. Your choice."
"Papa," Harry hissed, his cheeks flaming a fiery red as he hoped desperately for the ground to swallow him up.
Completely scandalized by his father basically announcing that Harry still had a bedtime in front of the cool ex-Quidditch player, the mortified boy cast a side glance at Hestia who was barely keeping a straight face. Sirius, however, wasn't going to be dissuaded, regardless of his child's whinging.
"Harry James..."
Father and son had a silent stand off for a few more seconds before Sirius' patience began to wane. He didn't want to be the bad guy but, unfortunately, sometimes that's what parents had to do.
"Do as you're told please, young man," he instructed with a stern frown, "or I won't say yes if we're ever asked again."
Harry looked from his father to Hestia and then back again before he finally accepted defeat. The last thing he wanted was to ruin any chance of another evening out like this one in the future.
"Yes, sir," he muttered mournfully before turning and heading back to the other table.
Sirius let out a deep sigh as he shook his head in mild annoyance, prompting Hestia to finally release the chuckle she'd been masterfully suppressing.
"Well, I never thought I'd see the day that the notorious rule breaking Sirius Black would be so strict," she said in amusement, her sapphire eyes sparkling from the firelight flickering in the mantle next to them. "And for the record, you will be asked again."
"He's a good boy, most of the time," Sirius defended his son with a small grin of his own. "And in all honestly he rarely gets the chance to have an evening of fun like this. Between his lessons and my concerns for his safely, I'm afraid we are a couple of very dull homebodies ordinarily."
"He seems like a good kid," Hestia agreed. "None of that annoying swagger that James had. Or you."
She looked at Sirius mischievously and winked to take the sting out of her words. Sirius wasn't at all bothered by them. He knew what a prat he'd been at school.
"No, he's much more quiet and kind than either of us ever was," he remarked fondly. "More like Lily that way. Although, he also has that wicked temper of hers, so I'm not totally in the clear there."
"Oh!" Hestia winced in sympathy, remembering her friend's fiery ire when riled up. "You poor bugger. I'll bet he keeps you on your toes with that."
Sirius laughed, a deep belly laugh that came naturally and felt surprisingly good. It wasn't nearly often enough that he found something truly amusing, worried as he usually was about his son and everything weighing down on him.
"He does indeed."
"So how is it that I didn't see a pretty lady by your side today?" Hestia asked casually, her eyebrow raised in a cheeky playfulness that belied the seriousness of her question. "I don't think I've ever seen you without at least two witches hanging off your arm, and Merlin knows you certainly still have the notorious Black beauty."
Sirius chuckled, rubbing a hand down the side of his face as he shook his head. He knew that to the average observer he'd regained most of his good looks that had been lost for so many years, but there was still a part of him that glanced in a mirror and saw the scraggly, emaciated prisoner of Azkaban instead of the attractive man that he really was.
"I don't have time for a love life," he stated bluntly, a small smile on his face to show that while he didn't really mind being asked, his answer was final. "Harry has already endured too many years of being shuttered aside by the adults charged with his care and it's a pattern I won't repeat. Besides, I've done more than my fair share of flirting and carousing. Enough for a lifetime, I think."
Hestia's eyebrows shot up high enough to practically brush her hairline, so surprised was she by his words. Even with everything that had happened to Sirius over the last decade or so, she wouldn't have thought that the young man she knew at school that had always left a trail of girls swooning in his wake would change his ways so easily.
"I've grown up, Hestia." Sirius shrugged, seeing that she was doubting him. "My priorities are very different, as you can well imagine. I'm a father now, first and foremost, and there will be no woman in my life at least until Harry is out on his own and doesn't need me full-time. And who knows? Maybe not even then. It's as simple as that."
There was nothing but honesty in Sirius' words and the steadfast look on his face and, despite her mild sense of disappointment in the renewal of a long ago crush, Hestia found herself to be more than a little impressed by the mature stance taken by the former Gryffindor house Romeo.
The two old acquaintances quietly regarded each other as a wave of understanding passed between them until, with a nod, Hestia accepted the truth of the matter. There would be no revival of old desires and habits and, surprisingly enough, she was comfortable with that.
"Well, I hope there's room in that new life for old friends."
Hestia smiled softy at Sirius, her offer genuine, and his handsome face broke out into a large grin.
"Always. And I would be very grateful for them."
Reaching out, Sirius took her hand in his and kissed the back of it in a very gentlemanly manner. In return, Hestia clasped his hand in both of hers for just a second with a silent but affectionate promise of friendship that, really, they both could use after so many mutual losses.
"I am glad you all joined us this evening and I'll be sure to send an owl with a date for the next get-together," she assured Sirius as she took a sip of the gillywater she'd brought over with her. "If for no other reason that to try and persuade Harry to give some of the other teams in the league a chance. James was always so meticulous about his Quidditch. I know he'd be horrified that Harry follows the Cannons. They're fun lads, but absolute rubbish on the pitch."
Sirius laughed, because he thought exactly the same thing, although he had an answer for his son's devotion to the hapless team.
"Ron's the Cannons fan," he explained with a smirk. "And with Harry being relatively new to the wizarding world, he just followed his friend's lead. I think if he gave it some real thought, he'd find another team to support."
"So it's true then?" Hestia asked in a hushed tone. "He really was raised by Lily's Muggle sister? I thought that was just a story made up by the Prophet."
Nodding, Sirius felt his teeth clench together out of habit when thinking about the Dursleys. There were far too many days when he had to really focus his anger in order to restrain himself from apparating to Surrey and doing something that would see him back in his frozen, watery prison.
"But she was an awful sort!"
Appalled, Hestia looked over at Harry again and Sirius could see a shimmer of pure rage on her face that softened into sympathy as she watched Harry don his coat in between shaking hands with the Cannons.
"Worse than you can imagine," he growled, his hands clenched around his pint glass so tight it was a wonder it didn't break from the pressure. "And that fat oaf she married was even more so. They treated Harry like a house elf when they could be bothered to acknowledge him at all."
"Lily must be spinning in her grave," Hestia hissed, her eyes narrowed. "Was there no one else to take him in our world?"
She didn't see Sirius flinch, distracted as she was by the anger radiating through her that made her far less careful than she should have been with her conversation.
"Of course he would have gone right to you, under other circumstances," she continued absently, shaking her head. "What with Marlene..."
"Even then," Sirius croaked, his voice suddenly dry and making him take a sip of the lager he hadn't wanted in the first place to help choke down the huge lump that had formed in his throat. "I was always first in line."
"Well, sure, that makes sense," Hestia reasoned, her attention still more affixed on Harry and not on the man across the table from her. "You already had your own home by then, didn't you, and since it was more or less a foregone conclusion that you and Marlene would end up together eventually anyway, James and Lily probably just assumed..."
She stopped suddenly, finally realizing what she was saying. Sirius was looking decidedly pale and uncomfortable and Hestia had a moment of internal horror as she replayed her words in her head.
"Oh, Sirius. I'm truly sorry," she apologized sincerely. "I was just rambling nonsense. My great big gob is always getting me into trouble."
"Don't worry about it." Sirius shook his head, raising a hand in the air to stop her from apologizing again when it looked like she would. "Really. It's fine."
The ensuing silence between them was awkward to say the least, with Hestia trying to dislodge her foot from her mouth and Sirius pulling out his money pouch to leave a large stack of galleons on the table. One more sharp look from him had Harry finally disentangling himself from the players and tugging Ron to his feet.
"Thank you for the invitation, Hestia," he said quietly as he stood and donned his own cloak. "Harry had a marvelous time."
Despite the discomfort her last statement had put in the air, Hestia rose from her chair and reached out to hug her old friend.
"It's been lovely to see you again, Sirius."
"And you."
Although a bit more melancholy than he'd been all evening, Sirius embraced Hestia affectionately, holding on for just a few seconds before letting her go as Harry and Ron made their way over. Out of habit, Harry gravitated over to stand next to his father who immediately wrapped an arm around the boy's shoulders.
Hestia couldn't miss the way Harry unconsciously leaned into Sirius, clearly completely at ease around him. As tragic as everything that had happened to both of them was, it seemed to have at least finally ended on a more positive note now that James and Lily's son was with Sirius as he should have been from the start.
"Ready to go boys?"
Sirius looked first to Harry and then to Ron, getting them both to nod even though he could tell that neither one of them wanted to leave. Not that he blamed them. At their age, he would have loved the idea of hanging out in a pub with a bunch of Quidditch players as well instead of going to late night class.
"Then thank Miss Jones for everything. She's been very kind to us."
Suddenly uneasy, the boys mumbled their thanks to Hestia's quiet amusement. They were still at that awkward age when being reminded of their manners in front of a pretty woman had them blushing and fidgeting where they stood.
"It was my pleasure, gentlemen," Hestia laughed, sparing them actual words. "Sirius, I hope we can get everyone together again soon?"
Harry turned to his father, a look of hopeful pleading on his face and Sirius smiled at his son and nodded.
"We'd love that, Hestia."
Beaming, Harry then turned back to Hestia and smiled shyly at her.
"Thanks. For telling me stories about my Mum."
To both Sirius' and Hestia's surprise, Harry leaned forward and gave Hestia a quick peck on the cheek before hurriedly moving back to press against the safe and solid support of Sirius' broad chest. Since Harry wasn't one to normally initiate physical contact with anyone except his father, it was a bit shocking to see him acting so familiar around the woman he'd only just met.
Sirius could only assume that Hestia had made quite an impression on his son and that was something he had mixed feelings about, although he wasn't quite sure why.
As for Hestia, she couldn't help but notice the way Harry instinctively sought Sirius out for protection, even though she knew from the reports of the Tournament so far that the young boy in front of her had nerves of steel when the situation required it. There was just something that felt so right about seeing James Potter's little twin side-by-side with Sirius Black again. A slight righting of the wrongs in the universe after the last war.
It somehow touched her in a way that she hadn't anticipated.
After another quick good-night to Hestia from Sirius, he firmly ushered the dawdling boys out of the pub, waving as they left, and then a moment later he took them both by the hand and turned on the spot and they were gone with a quiet pop.
*************HP**************
Sirius' bachelor flat in the Westminster area of London, just a short stroll from the British Ministry headquarters in Whitehall, wasn't quite what Harry had been expecting. Tumbling out of the large gray stone fireplace, he skidded to a halt in the middle of a flat that looked more like something straight out of an old James Bond movie than anything that Harry would have expected a young wizard to own.
So far during his time living with Sirius, everything Harry had seen of the decor preferences of the Black family had tended more towards the upscale, traditional and ornate, so when the the floo spit them out into the center of a very modern looking living room, it took the boy a moment to adjust to his surroundings.
Dark wood paneling, exceptionally common in the seventies, covered the walls of the large room dominated by two enormous gold leather sofas and four padded arm chairs in the same material but with slightly higher backs. Everything about the furniture and accessories was all linear with sharp angles in design. Lots of tans and browns complimenting the gold, with occasional flashes of red accents as well as some truly unique pieces of art on the wall with bold geometrical themes.
It was bizarre looking to Harry's younger eyes, but was also somehow exceptionally cool at the same time.
But perhaps what was most surprising to him was the actual size of the flat.
When Sirius had described it as a bachelor flat, Harry had somehow pictured something small and decidedly masculine (i.e. basic and mismatched) that would have sufficed for Sirius alone as a place to sleep after a long day of doing auror work or maybe somewhere to bring back a girl for the night. Not this massive place that someone had obviously put a lot of thought and money into designing.
After all, Harry might only be fourteen, but he knew enough about London to know that real estate in this kind of neighborhood would be terribly expensive, and a flat of that size had to have cost a small fortune, even almost two decades ago.
Because as long as Harry could remember, Uncle Vernon often rambled on at length about his superior fiduciary wisdom in parking his little family in their nice house in the suburbs instead of forcing them to live in a cramped flat in London proper for ten times the cost of the neat little semi-attached house at Number Four Privet Drive.
And although Sirius came from a wealthy family, he'd also been estranged from them and only eighteen years old at the time when he bought the flat, so really the last thing Harry expected was to be taken on a tour of a sprawling and nicely appointed seventh floor penthouse with a large open floor plan, four decent sized bedrooms and two and a half baths, as well as a wraparound outdoor terrace that gave the occupants quite the view of Westminster.
Sirius smiled at his son's confusion as the boy looked around in wonderment. There were still times when Harry could be awed by the display of wealth common in most pure-blood families.
"I would have bought something much smaller, myself," he confirmed with a chuckle as he playfully tousled Harry's hair, "but your Potter grandparents wouldn't hear of it. They wanted to give me a substantial graduation present, knowing that I wouldn't be getting anything from my own parents. It's traditional in our world for well-to-do pure-bloods to buy the eldest son and heir a home of his own until he inherits the family estate. Since we all assumed that I wouldn't get any of the Black properties, it was important to Mum and Dad that I have something nice."
Harry smiled, liking the idea of his grandparents making sure that their adopted son wasn't slighted just because his blood family were awful people.
"Besides," Sirius continued, "it was all but certain that your Dad and the others were going to move in here with me anyway, at least until your parents got married, so I really did need all the room, and eventually Dad and I compromised on splitting the cost of this place fifty-fifty. By then I already had Uncle Alphard's gold and I wanted to contribute to the purchase."
Harry nodded as he slowly gravitated back towards one of the bedrooms where he'd seen photos of his own very young parents scattered about on the nightstand and dresser. It was fairly obvious to him that this was the room that James had claimed for himself.
"Everything's so square," the boy remarked with a grin, running his hand reverently along the smooth surface of the blonde oak footboard.
"Yeah, that was the style then," Sirius shrugged with a laugh. "Thank Merlin I wasn't left to my own devices, or who knows what this place would have looked like."
He gave Harry an impish grin and waggled his eyebrows. Harry knew that his father was only taking the mickey since Sirius, having been raised in a wealthy pure-blood home, had a natural elegant air about himself. It was unlikely that he'd own a flat that was disheveled, even at a young age.
"Mum was born a Black as well, so she had quite a large chunk of the family fortune of her own given to her as a wedding present. Even though she married a Potter, who were known to be very friendly with Muggles," Sirius snickered as he looked around at the furnishings fondly. "All that mattered was that the Potters were still pure-bloods and wealthy, so her marriage was accepted by the Blacks, and she insisted on using some of her inheritance to pay for all the decorating here as a way to stick it in my parents' eyes for disowning me. She and your Mum picked out everything and I wasn't allowed a say in any of it. I knew better than to protest."
"My grandmother sounds scary," Harry laughed as the two of them flopped down together to sit on the bed.
"Terrifying," Sirius agreed, the giant smile on his face in contrast to his comment. "You did not want to get on that woman's bad side, trust me. It was better to just agree to whatever she wanted and then get out of her way. This place wasn't so bad in her eye. At least it was in a fashionable building. But you should have seen the battle over the cottage in Godric's Hollow. Mum was appalled that James wanted that instead of something a little more grand. But Lily fell in love with it, and James was in love with Lily, and that, as they say, was that."
Now Harry laughed out loud over the image of his fiery redheaded mother going toe-to-toe with her mother-in-law over a house. Sirius had often told him that he got his stubbornness from Lily.
"So wait," Harry stopped suddenly, a thought occurring to him, "does that mean that the house in Godric's Hollow wasn't the main family house?"
In all honestly, the boy had never really thought about where his grandparents lived. He'd always just accepted that the Potters lived in Godric's Hollow. But now, hearing about the tradition to buy the eldest son a home of his own, he suddenly wondered about the house his father had grown up in.
"No," Sirius shook his head sadly. "The cottage was just a house for the newlyweds and a place to raise you for a little while. The Potter family manor was far too ornate for your Mum's taste. She didn't come from a wealthy family, you know."
Harry did know.
Although Aunt Petunia rarely talked about her own upbringing, at least while Harry was in earshot, there had been an occasional bitter remark thrown out about how her lungs were still "polluted with the black air of that filthy little town I grew up in."
As Harry had grown older, he'd begun to understand that his aunt's attraction to the fairly vile Vernon Dursley was really his position as a well earning professional husband and the sparkling clean house he provided for them to live in. A means of getting away from her impoverished childhood.
His adversity to anything abnormal probably didn't hurt either.
"So where did my grandparents live?"
Sirius' face clouded over so quickly that Harry immediately felt bad he'd even posed the question. It occurred to him sadly that he was asking about the house that had become Sirius' safe shelter from the cruelty of his own family.
"In a lovely manor house, just outside of Godric's Hollow," Sirius finally answered, his face drawn as if talking about it took a lot of energy out of him. "The Potters have lived in that area for centuries."
Of course Harry had a million questions, but he kept his mouth tightly shut as he didn't want to cause his father any more pain. Realizing that he'd allowed himself to become a bit too maudlin, Sirius sniffed and forced his thinned lips to quirk into a hint of a smile as he leaned over and dropped a kiss on Harry's head.
"It was a very happy place," he continued, ignoring the wrenching pain in his chest. "Beautiful and elegant, just like your Grandmother. Light and airy and far removed from the dark formality of my own childhood. Impressive, but homey and comfortable. A completely different world."
"Sounds nice," Harry said wistfully, keeping his head bowed as he plucked at the fabric of his jeans.
"It was."
Wrapping an arm around his son's shoulders, Sirius pulled Harry closer, drawing much needed strength from the mere act of having the boy safe and sound next to him.
"Of course it belongs to you now," he told Harry, smiling at the surprised look on the boy's face. "Along with all of the other properties that have been passed down the Potter family line."
"I own properties?" Harry's eyes went wide as he processed the information.
Sirius inwardly swore at the question. The fact that Harry's heritage had been kept from him all these years infuriated him greatly, and Albus' flimsy excuse that it was better that Harry grew up away from the magical world no longer held any water when it meant that the boy had been kept woefully in the dark about things he should always have known.
"Yes," he responded after a fashion. His teeth were gritted tightly in agitation as he struggled to keep his temper under control. He really did want to strangle Albus. "Don't you remember when we talked about how you would inherit the rest of your father's estate when you were of age?"
Harry nodded, remembering the conversation in more or less general details, but his mind still reeling over this unexpected turn of events.
"Well, yeah. But I just thought it was a bit more gold, or something like that."
With a sad smile, Sirius gave his son a quick squeeze and shook his head.
"No kiddo. While it's true that you already have access to the estate's liquid assets like the gold in your vault, the Potter family has been wealthy for many generations and they always had a reasonable portfolio of properties and other investments. The goblins at Gringott's have been caring for them as part of a service they provide for their vault holders. As your guardian, I can request a summary of the holdings and maybe a tour if you'd like?"
"Yeah," Harry nodded again, his eyes clouded with more than a bit of sadness over never knowing any of his Potter relatives. "I'd like that sometime."
Sirius hummed in agreement as he drew Harry a bit closer. For a few minutes the two of them sat comfortably in silence as Harry took in a longer look of his surroundings. The bedroom was very tidy, but there were small bits and pieces of the former occupant's personality scattered around. James was obviously a Quidditch fan, considering the stack of sports magazines on the night table as well as the display of Ballycastle Bats pennants on the wall across from the bed. Photographs tastefully spread out on several of the flat surfaces. The young smiling faces of their subjects beaming at the two quiet wizards who were taking it all in.
"Dad was really a Bats fan, wasn't he?"
With a soft chuckle, Sirius let his eyes travel up to the wall of pennants as he remembered being dragged to all the games, no matter what else was going on in their crazy lives. James had made a tradition of purchasing a souvenir of each win.
"Absolute nutter," he said fondly. "I think under other circumstances he would have liked to try out for a place on the team, but he became quite responsible after school. Once I decided to enter the auror training program, he never thought about doing anything else."
Thinking about how likely he was to do the same with Ron, Harry nodded in understanding. They might bicker on occasion, but Ron's friendship meant everything to him considering how many times the other boy had openly shown his loyalty. Harry would always want to be around to have Ron's back as well, especially in troubling times.
"Were you happy here?"
Harry's question changing the subject was asked softly, his face upturned to look at Sirius with a spark of concern in the vivid green eyes.
It took a moment for Sirius to answer, a myriad of thoughts crossing his face as he scanned the bedroom. Central on the highboy next to the door was a photo of James and Sirius on the day that they graduated from training and were celebrating the assignment of their first mission together. They looked so young and confident, their arms slung around each other's shoulders as they toasted with glasses of firewhiskey.
They'd looked a lot different when they got home after the mission, once they'd seen some true horrors, but at the moment the photo was taken it seemed like they were the kings of the world.
Sirius remembered all the late nights after arrests and patrols. The danger and fear around ever corner. The down-to-the-bone cold of hunting Death Eaters in the middle of winter. He and James had seen some of their team members and mates cut down in their prime, while the two of them made it back to the flat, safe and sound because they seemed to have a sixth sense about where the other one was at all times and they'd saved each other's lives over and over again.
Then there were the happier days of taking time off to mentally and physically recover. When Remus and Peter would make a point to be around so the four of them could just hang out and relax like in their school days. Drinking too much and listening to music or going round the pub for a few pints and to flirt with the Muggle girls who never could figure out just what made the Marauders so much different from every other bloke they knew.
Not James, of course. He was already wholly besotted with Lily by then. But she would go with them and drink them all under the table. Most of the time Marlene would be there too, and the two girls would cajole other girls to join their group for Remus and Peter who were both too shy to do it themselves. They'd all invariably end up at the flat and the less said about that, the better.
Someday, when Harry was much, much older, Sirius might consider telling him in general terms about just how much fun this flat had seen.
"I was very happy here," he said at last, prompting a wide smile to spread across his son's face.
But too much time in this room, surrounded by James' ghost, was growing more painful for him by the minute, so Sirius stood and held his hand out.
"Now we have some work to do," he decided as he pulled Harry to his feet. "There's all kinds of things from our school years that we kept here. Shall we go sort what to keep and what to throw?"
With one last look around the room, Harry nodded and allowed himself to be tugged back out to the living room.
**************HP*************
After spending the afternoon rummaging through drawers and cupboards filled with items that each had a story that went along with them, Sirius' nerves were just about shot. So he decided to get them out of there for the rest of the evening.
They started with a trip to Chinatown for a delicious dinner at a noodle house that Sirius had loved and was amazingly still open after all these years and then spent a couple of hours at the cinema for a rather disappointing showing of a movie called Highlander III: The Sorcerer, which might have sounded interesting to a couple of wizards but had really been just bloody awful.
So it was already quite late by the time they meandered their way back to the flat.
Harry had been tucked into bed almost two hours ago, but the strangeness of the dark room was impeding his sleep. Although he'd been the one to plead with Sirius to spend the night in the flat, the boy was regretting that idea by the time Big Ben chimed midnight in the distance.
Initially he'd been thrilled by the prospect of spending the night sleeping in his Dad's old room, surrounded by many of his things, but Harry had been far too excited to think about how the shadows filling the room would stir up rambling thoughts and ghosts of the past. His unsettled and curious mind was bursting with a million questions of what life had been like for the Marauders in the days when they were all still friends, young and seemingly invulnerable.
During the afternoon and evening, Harry had relentlessly peppered his Papa with inquiry after inquiry until Sirius was practically at his wits end. So the boy had been a little bit resentful when Sirius, who'd grown more and more short tempered as the evening went on, put him to bed as soon as they returned from their outing.
Now he tossed and turned, unable to turn his brain off as his roving eyes once again wandered around the room. He'd taken a general mental inventory of everything earlier in the day, but apparently it hadn't been enough time to really look. There was something long forgotten that was nagging at him and keeping him awake, and if Harry didn't know that he'd get scolded for being out of bed and rooting through the boxes they'd already packed back up, that's exactly what he'd be doing right now.
But despite his impatience, he wasn't insensitive enough to not recognize that it had been a rough day on Sirius, and of course it would be. It was the first time in thirteen plus years that he'd been back in his old flat and Harry knew that it couldn't have been easy on his father to be confronted with all the memories the place would still be ringing with.
Harry was beginning to realize that if he was unsettled by just the idea of what the flat had meant to the Marauders, he couldn't begin to imagine how that compared to what Sirius was feeling right now.
It was that thought, plus being in the bed that his Dad had slept in, that was keeping Harry awake and uneasy.
Intellectually, he knew that Dobby had done a fine job this past week of cleaning the flat top to bottom, ridding it of the years of neglect and abandonment. Everything was fresh and sparkling, devoid of even the tiniest particle of dust, but underneath the floral laundry detergent smell, Harry could swear that he was detecting a very faint scent to the bedclothes that his sense memory stubbornly zoned in on.
It was enough to disconcert the boy who was finding himself struggling with faint flashes of a smiling bespectacled face and a hauntingly familiar deep voice softly humming a long forgotten lullaby that was lurking just around the edges of Harry's tired mind.
Try as he might to convince himself that it was just an overactive imagination, there was a part of him that somehow instinctively knew that he was remembering his Dad. For all of Dobby's efforts, a tiny fragment of James Potter's essence was still clinging to the sheets that smelled faintly woodsy and nothing was going to persude Harry from thinking that it was somehow perfect for a man who identified heavily with a stag. Clearly some kind of preferred cologne that had been so prevalent in one-year-old Harry's life that he still remembered it now as he lay curled up in James' bed.
With the forgotten scent now swirling around in the air, Harry felt an ache in the pit of his belly that he couldn't seem to soothe away, no matter how much he rubbed it. Along with being assaulted by a mishmash of emotions that had him smiling one second and ready to burst into tears the next.
Once upon a time, Harry would have suffered in silence, knowing that the ache he was feeling was from missing his Dad, but then he remembered that he wasn't alone anymore, and comfort was only as far away as the next room.
He'd never get to sleep feeling so out of sorts, and he had a sneaking suspicion that Sirius might just be feeling that way too.
Making up his mind, he threw the covers off and climbed out of the bed to head to the door. As he softly made his way in the darkness, he suddenly smelled a hint of smoke and his eyebrows narrowed in concern. It wasn't the kind of smoke that came from a crackling fire in the hearth or even the distinctive scent of floo fire, but more like the acrid smoke of a Muggle cigarette.
Thinking that maybe they had an unexpected guest, Harry carefully turned the knob and opened the bedroom door and peered out of it. Down the hall came a quiet melody of a strumming guitar, the cigarette smoke getting more pungent now that there wasn't a door impeding the drifting tendrils of its cloud. Hand on his wand holster, Harry very cautiously crept towards the music, a little wary of what he might find in the living room.
'So, so you think you can tell Heaven from Hell, blue skies from pain. Can you tell a green field from a cold steel rail? A smile from a veil? Do you think you can tell?'
The slow rock music sounded vaguely familiar, although Harry couldn't name it off the top of his head. Neither of the Dursleys had been big fans of music in the house, and even Dudley was forced to use headphones, so it must have been something he'd heard on one of the rare occasions he was allowed to go somewhere out in public with them.
'And did they get you to trade your heroes for ghosts? Hot ashes for trees? Hot air for a cool breeze? Cold comfort for change? And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage?'
By the time the lyrics paused for another instrumental break of strumming guitar, Harry had finally tiptoed all the way to the living room where he was surprised to only see Sirius sitting on a sofa, his back to Harry. In one hand the man held a crystal tumbler of dark amber liquid that looked like it came from a bottle of Muggle whisky that sat half empty on the coffee table in front of him next to the photo of Sirius and James of the day they finished their auror training.
But it was the cigarette in Sirius' other hand that was worrying the boy.
He'd never known his father to smoke, and truthfully, seeing the cigarette dangling from Sirius' long fingers made Harry realize that the day had obviously been quite a bit harder on his Papa than the boy had realized. Suddenly he was feeling pretty guilty about his insistence on making Sirius spend the night at the flat when it clearly bothered him.
'How I wish, how I wish you were here. We're just two lost souls swimming in a fish bowl, year after year, Running over the same old ground. What have you found? The same old fears. Wish you were here.'
His guard now down a little, Harry finally heard some of the lyrics of the song Sirius was listening to and the ache in his belly grew more painful as he stood in the shadows, reluctant to intrude on his father while he was clearly struggling with his own painful memories. Across the room, a vinyl record was spinning on an old electric turntable that Sirius had shown Harry earlier.
It had never occurred to the boy before that a couple of pure-blood wizards like James and Sirius would have listened to Muggle music as teenagers, but then again both of Harry's fathers were far from the normal pure-bloods. One only had to see Sirius' motorbike to understand that.
As the lyrics ended, paving the way for another instrumental solo, Sirius's hand shook as he swallowed a large swig of whisky. The ice cubes in the drink tinkled loudly against the glass as he leaned his head back, lifting the cigarette to his mouth and taking in a deep drag. Harry could see that Sirius' eyes were tightly closed, and when he exhaled a steady stream of smoke it was almost appeared as if his entire body deflated from the exertion of trying and failing to force out a physical pain.
Harry wanted nothing more than to go over and comfort Sirius, but after catching a glimpse of the raw pain on his father's face, he couldn't help feeling like he was wrongfully intruding on a private moment that maybe Sirius would have preferred he didn't see. Feeling self-conscious, he was about to turn around and head silently back to his room when a loud sob burst out of Sirius' chest and Harry stopped in his tracks as he couldn't bear his father's suffering a moment longer.
Turning back around, the boy tentatively stepped into the center of the room and cleared his throat.
"Papa?"
Immediately Sirius' eyes snapped open and Harry winced when he saw how red they were. Apparently his father had been in here alone and upset for quite some time already.
Realizing how he must look to his son, Sirius guiltily stubbed out his cigarette in a dark brown glass ashtray on the side table next to him and then wiped a hand down his face, brushing away the evidence of his tears. In the background, an eclectic guitar melody that sounded like something right out of a sci-fi movie warbled on and Sirius flicked his wand in the direction of the turntable and lowered the volume almost all the way down.
"What are you doing up, kiddo?" he asked, sitting up and attempting to regain his very lost composure in front of his son. "Did you have a bad dream?"
Harry shook his head as he shivered a little in his thin pajamas and wrapped his arms around his torso for warmth.
"Just couldn't sleep," Harry admitted quietly.
Another flick of Sirius' wand made the last embers of a fire below the mantle roar to life again before he held his arm out to his son.
"C'mon over. It's gotten a little chilly in here, I know."
Needing the warmth and the comfort, Harry didn't hesitate to curl up on the sofa next to his father. Sirius conjured a thick blanket that he wrapped around the boy, holding Harry close with one arm as he drained his whisky glass and then discarded it next to the dying embers of the cigarette.
"I didn't know you smoked."
Sirius grimaced from his son's observation.
He hadn't ever wanted Harry to see him with a cigarette in his hand.
Smoking was a habit that he'd gotten into solely to irritate Walburga, who found the idea of indulging in Muggle cigarettes to be very déclassé and beneath the Black heir. But now that he was the parent, Sirius didn't want his child picking it up either, and truthfully it had been years since he'd had his last fag. In fact, it was only because he'd found a half empty pack with an ever-fresh charm on it that had been hidden in the drawer of his own night table that Sirius even had one now.
"I don't really," he admitted, drawing Harry's slight form closer to his own. "I guess the memories just got to be a little too much. There are lots of them here and I suppose I underestimated just how much it would hurt coming back."
The admission took a lot out of him and Harry could actually feel the resignation thrumming through his father's chest as he laid against it. Sirius had comforted him so many times that the boy was desperate to return the favor.
"I'm sorry I asked to stay," Harry said quietly, his voice choked with guilt. "Why don't we just go home?"
Sirius leaned over and dropped a kiss on the top of Harry's head and cuddled him closer.
"No. We're not running. This place was special to all of us once, and I want it to be special again. You and I will make new memories here."
The tone of Sirius' voice was firm in its intent and Harry just nodded because he knew how his father got when he'd made his mind up about something. A part of him was glad that they weren't going to quit the flat, because he felt a strong connection to his Dad here and he didn't want to lose that. Although he would willingly walk away if that's what Sirius needed them to do.
"So what is that music you're listening to?" Harry asked, changing the subject to something a little less heavy to take the pain off of Sirius' face.
Sirius drew in an exaggerated gasp of horror as he pulled away and cocked an eyebrow at his son, making Harry smile a bit.
"You don't know who Pink Floyd is?" he asked incredulously. "What is the British education system teaching you children before you come to Hogwarts?"
Harry managed to laugh at his father's overreaction before shrugging helplessly. "I've heard of Pink Floyd, but I'm not sure I've actually heard their music before."
Sirius effected a dramatic half faint, throwing himself against the back of the sofa and lifting a hand to cover his eyes.
"Merlin, it's worse than I thought!" he cried in distress. "Next you'll be telling me that you've never listened to The Who either!"
"Well..."
Harry scrunched up his nose and shrugged again, prompting Sirius to get up from the sofa with a dramatic huff and stalk across the room to the turntable. Opening the cabinet underneath, he rifled through a neat collection of vinyl albums before finding the one he was looking for.
"A-ha!"
He cried out in triumph, standing up to brandish an album cover that looked like four guys standing around a tall concrete piling in the middle of a rocky wasteland.
"It's long past time to broaden your musical education. And because it's obviously been sorely neglected, you can listen to a few songs before I send your bony bum back to bed."
Smiling widely, Harry snuggled further under the blanket while Sirius switched records and flipped the switch to start the new one. The sounds of what seemed to be some kind of old synthesizer floated out of the speakers and Sirius' face split into a huge grin as he looked over at Harry and wagged his eyebrows playfully. The boy laughed and then sat up a little when his father came back over to drop down next to him. Sirius wrapped one arm around his son and then mimicked playing the drums with the other when the heavy percussion started.
As tired as he was, Harry couldn't stop his head from bopping along with the spirited rhythm and Sirius smiled down at him, real happiness showing through the slightly bloodshot silver eyes that looked at him with so much love. As much pain as being in the flat might bring them, they still had each other and, in the end, that was really all either of them needed.
Harry listened to the music, not particularly caring for it himself, although it made him happy to see Sirius enjoy it. As he listened to his father sing along, the boy relaxed and felt his eyelids grow more and more heavy until his head was lolled on Sirius shoulder. As the songs progressed, it became clear that Sirius knew what he was doing when he picked the album.
Once the fast tempo of Baba O'Riley was over, the music got steadily lower and slower, and by the time the opening strains of Behind Blue Eyes began, Harry was fast asleep. Looking down at his son adoringly, he flicked his wand again to lower the volume almost all the way down, wanting to make sure that the faster bars in the middle of the song didn't wake the slumbering boy.
Rubbing his eyes, he let the smile he'd been forcing himself to keep plastered on his face fall as his mind once again raced with all the happy memories of when he and James, Remus and the rat had sat around the flat and listened to these very songs. They'd been so young and hopeful then. Wary of what could happen during the war they were fighting, but none of them really knowing the horrors that would soon be heaped upon them.
It probably would be easier to just sell the flat with all of its ghosts and never think of it again, but for Harry's sake, Sirius would face his demons.
This place was every bit as much of his son's history as it was of his own. In fact, Prongs often liked to joke that Harry had actually been conceived in the flat when he and Lily had it all to themselves one day while renovations were being done to the cottage in Godric's Hollow. It had eventually become a running joke, especially when the prat wouldn't share exactly whose bed they'd used, and as much as Sirius was sure the story was entirely made up, he knew that he wouldn't be sharing that particular tale with Harry any time soon.
But now as he sat with James and Lily's son in his arms, he began to feel that the memories didn't need to hurt quite as much as they used to.
Because life was moving on, Sirius and Harry with it, and as much as they'd both always miss the two incredible people who had created this amazing child asleep on Sirius' chest, at least it was getting just a little bit easier every day.
******************HP******************
Sirius woke with a start.
His heart was hammering in his chest so fast that he could hear the blood rushing in his ears and his lungs were working overtime as he sucked in large jagged gasps of breath.
Absently, he reached out a hand towards his nightstand and he pulled the drawer open and blindly rifled through the contents until he found the bag of chocolate buttons that always lived there. He grabbed at it like a drowning man and plunged his hand inside and withdrew a large fistful of the chocolate that he immediately began jamming into his mouth.
The lingering images from his nightmare were still fresh enough in his mind to make him shiver involuntarily. The last vestiges of despair as chilling down to his very soul as any encounter with a Dementer ever left him.
Because this nightmare wasn't one of his usual garden variety terrors.
It was much worse.
Tonight, Sirius had been forced to confront a world where Harry hadn't survived that night in Godric's Hollow.
Losing James and Lily was hard enough, but Sirius couldn't even begin to fathom the idea of Harry being taken as well. In his nightmare, Sirius never even summoned up the strength to escape Azkaban, because there was nothing left to live for without Harry. Instead, Sirius goes slowly mad in his grief. His fragile grip on reality growing weaker and weaker until he finally screamed himself awake.
With a mouthful of chocolate barely keeping him coherent, Sirius stumbled into his bathroom and ruthlessly twisted the tap open, cold water gushing out in a waterfall that Sirius scooped up into his hands and splashed on his wrecked and teary face. He allowed himself a couple of moments of this before his hands began to go numb, which didn't help in warding off the terrors, and he grabbed a towel from the bar to press against his still salty eyes.
He knew that Harry was right where he should be, safe and sound in his bed in their own home, but the need to see the boy with his own eyes was too powerful to ignore.
Slipping as quietly as he could from his suite, Sirius padded silently across the hall and cracked open Harry's door ever-so-slightly, peering in through the partially moonlight darkness until he could see for himself that his son was bundled up in his bed, softly snoring.
The weight of a thousand stone fell from his shoulders from being able to confirm with his own eyes that his dream had been just that. A terrible, awful dream, brought about by one of Sirius' many worries for his son's safety and well being. James had once confided in him that once you became a parent, your entire existence was focused on the health, safety and welfare of your child.
Sirius had only comprehended that in the most general of concepts at the time, but now he fully got it. It really was something that only a parent could understand.
As he stood in Harry's doorway, his heart-rate returning to something a little more normal than the mad dash it had been doing just moments earlier, Sirius felt most of the tension bleed from his shoulders. It didn't seem to matter how many precautions he took. Somehow he knew that he'd never again have a moment when he didn't worry for his son.
Another moment or two had him feeling a bit silly for being so over-protective in their well guarded home. Harry was completely safe at Celestial Court. Sirius had made sure of it. It was only his own subconscious that was messing about with him. He shook his head in the darkness, a tiny melancholy smirk on his face at his own foolishness as he turned to make his departure.
"Papa?"
Bollocks!
Wincing, Sirius turned back around to see Harry blinking at him owlishly from the mound of pillows the boy slept on. How Harry managed to get comfortable with a nest that size underneath his head, Sirius didn't know.
"Shhhh," he hushed his son, feeling enormously guilty for having been noisy enough to wake the boy. "Go back to sleep, little one. Everything's okay."
By the way Harry sat up in bed a little, the boy clearly wasn't buying it.
"Nightmare?"
Double Bollocks!
And here Sirius thought he was being so clever. He tried to never talk to his son about the nightmares he experienced on an almost daily basis, unless it was to assure Harry that he wasn't the only one plagued by troubled sleep on occasion. But he should have known better than to think that the boy didn't at least suspect that Sirius was awake more than he was asleep during the night.
It was amazing how much energy you could get from a daily morning potion regimen.
"Yeah," he admitted quietly, his face flushing in the dark from being caught out. "I'm sorry I woke you kiddo. I'm fine. Back to sleep now. You have class in the morning."
Harry frowned, even as he scooted back under the covers, but he wasn't letting Sirius get off that easily. Reaching behind him, Harry patted the side of the bed that he didn't sleep on in a clear invitation.
"Having you stay with me after a nightmare helps me sleep," the boy said drowsily as he drew the blanket back up to his neck. "It'll help you too, Papa."
Sirius couldn't help the fond smile that spread over his face at how adorable his son was. Of course Harry would want to comfort him, just like Sirius comforted Harry after a night terror.
He also couldn't deny that he'd fall back asleep much faster with his child warm and safe next to him.
"Maybe just for a bit," Sirius agreed quietly as he made his way across the room and lay down next to Harry. Immediately his son rolled over to get comfortable with his head resting on Sirius' chest. Already Sirius could feel his eyelids grow heavy as he wrapped his arms around his boy.
"Night, Papa," Harry yawned. "Pleasant dreams."
Sirius swallowed hard as he felt his eyes grow moist again.
"Pleasant dreams, little one."
They both slept deeply until the sun rose.
**********HP****************
Harry chose his timing very carefully.
He knew that they were having a Geography exam on Tuesday and he expected to do well since he found that he had a natural interest in the subject.
So he wasn't surprised when Professor Hugh passed the graded papers back shortly before dismissing them, causing Harry to break out into a huge smile. Because the Muggle subject classes were given Muggle style grades, the A at the top didn't carry the disappointment that that it would have in one of his wizarding classes and the boy decided it was the perfect time to go seek his father out in his office.
Sirius fretted constantly over the grades the children were making, especially Harry's to no one's surprise, and his son knew how much a top mark would please his father and put him in a good mood for their discussion.
Gripping the paper tightly in his hand, he racked his shoulders back and strode determinedly from the library classroom down the hall to Sirius' office. His planned argument already firmly mapped out in his head.
It was an absolutely crazy idea. Quite mad, really. But one of the things he'd been getting used to, with having an actual involved parent, was the fine art of compromise when it came to getting something he really wanted.
Hermione probably hadn't realized the stir she caused when the kids got talking one evening about Harry's godparent dilemma, casually mentioning that she herself had three of them. The Dursleys had never been particularly religious people, although they did the proper thing and attended on the really important occasions for their neighbors to see, but since Harry had never been invited to come along, he didn't realize that it wasn't uncommon in the Church of England for a baby to have more than just one of either a godfather or a godmother.
He knew enough about the Dursleys to know that Aunt Marge was Dudley's godmother, but that was really all he'd ever been told.
So Hermione's offhand remark certainly got the wheels turning in Harry's mind as he considered the possibility that both he and his father could get what they wanted.
Sirius was in his office as usual on a Tuesday. He and Remus took advantage of having no classes to teach that day to plan out their lessons for the rest of the week. It made Harry more than a little guilty to see his father constantly bent over a pile of work on his desk, knowing that it was because of him that Sirius was always so bogged down with things to do.
But Sirius was never too busy to be happy to see Harry, so when the boy knocked on the door and was invited in, Sirius looked up at him with a huge smile on his face.
"Hey, kiddo. Good day of classes?"
Harry nodded, a big grin on his face as he walked over to his father's desk and presented him with the exam paper. Seeing the high mark at the top of the paper, Sirius beamed as he got up from his desk and pulled Harry into a hug.
"I'm so proud of you, little one," he said as he gave Harry a squeeze. "You're handling your classes extremely well. Just like I knew you could."
The boy's face blushed deep crimson from the enthusiastic praise, but he was smiling. Nothing made him happier than to have Sirius be proud of him.
Sirius held him close for another few seconds before releasing and retaking his seat at his desk. Knowing that he was always welcome in the office, Harry dropped into one of the padded chairs across from his father.
"I've been thinking about the adoption ceremony."
Harry's announcement had Sirius looking back up, a quick look of anxiety on his face that he just barely managed to suppress, but not before Harry caught a glimpse of it.
"What about it? You still want to go through with it, don't you?"
"Definitely!" Harry rushed to assure his father. Nothing was going to make him happier than to legally be Sirius' son. "It's not about the actual adoption. I've just been thinking about the problem with godparents for me."
"Oh."
Sirius relaxed slightly, leaning back into his chair as he folded his hands together on his desk to give his son his full attention. He'd be lying if he didn't admit that his heart might have skipped a beat or two just now."
"It's just," Harry started nervously, his hands beginning to fidget on the arms of the chair, "Hermione mentioned that she had three godparents, not just two. So I thought that, maybe, I could do the same?"
"Three?"
Pursing his lips into a frown, Sirius took a deep breath as he tried to formulate a reasonable response to his son's suggestion. He didn't want to make Harry feel bad about Sirius' own lack of close connections and he didn't want to pressure the boy into anything either.
"Yeah," Harry plowed on, forcing himself to draw on his reserve of Gryffindor courage. "Hermione says that it's pretty common to have three, and I thought that it might make things better that way for us."
Sirius got up from his chair and came around the desk to sit on the edge close to his son.
"It's okay with me if you wanted to have a hundred godparents, little one," he said gently as he reached out to affectionately brush Harry's cheek with tips of his fingers, "but that doesn't change the fact that we really don't know that many people that I would trust with you. Did you have anyone specific in mind?"
Inwardly, Sirius was wincing. He suspected that this conversation was leading to another debate over asking the Weasleys to stand for Harry. At this point, however, the beleaguered father was willing to consider it, if that's what Harry really wanted. Somehow, he'd make it work, despite the potential for conflict he saw brewing between him and Molly.
"Well," Harry hedged, looking up at Sirius through his growing fringe, "the way I figure it, I have three parents, not two. So, really, I should have a godparent that represents each one of my parents."
"Okaaay..." Sirius tentatively agreed, his raised eyebrows prompting his son to continue.
Emboldened, Harry sat up a little straighter and managed to look Sirius directly in the eye as he rushed to continue before he lost his nerve.
"So we already decided on Remus, and I think, since he was one of my Dad's best friends, Remus could represent him."
Pleased, Sirius nodded his agreement and smiled at his son. He knew with his whole heart that both Remus and James would be pleased by that designation in Harry's life.
"And," Harry went on, his cheeks coloring a little, "I know that you'd really like Andromeda to be my godmother, so I decided that if you could forgive her, then I should be able to forgive her too. She can represent you."
"Harry, you know that's not necessary," Sirius protested, only to have his son firmly shake his head.
"I'm okay with it," Harry assured his father. "Really. I don't excuse her behavior, but there's nothing that can be changed about the past. Family is important, and I'm just really starting to understand that, now that I finally have family that means everything to me."
Sirius couldn't help the burst of happiness that blossomed in his chest over his son's obvious meaning. He loved that Harry had fully accepted their relationship as family. Something that Sirius had considered the boy since the day of his birth.
But he was also skeptical about Harry's about face when it came to Andromeda, and he stared hard at his son, determined to suss out any falsehood in Harry's words. Honestly, Sirius would like Andromeda back in their lives, but only if his child was comfortable with it. He'd never force a relationship on Harry ever again.
"Let's pretend that I agree with that," Sirius said hesitantly, willing to hear the rest of out it. "That would take care of your Dad and me. So who did you have in mind for you Mum?"
Here Harry furrowed his brow worriedly as he fidgeted in his chair. Sirius was not likely to take the suggestion well, but Harry was pretty sure that it was something that he himself wanted.
"I thought...maybe...Hestia."
Some part of Sirius suspected that this was what his son had in mind, but considering how recently Hestia had come into their lives, he couldn't help but feel that this kind of sentiment was a bit premature on Harry's part.
"Oh, Harry," Sirius hedged cautiously, not wanting to accidentally pick a fight with his child, "I don't know. You barely know Hestia, and this isn't a small thing you want to ask."
"I know it's not," Harry nodded, "but really, the kid is usually too young to know the godparents under normal circumstances anyway, right? The parents pick. And you know Hestia. She's an old friend of yours too, isn't she?"
"Well, yes," Sirius agreed, "I did know her, years ago. But we've all changed a lot since then. I really know nothing about her now. Certainly not enough to trust her to have such an important part in your life."
Harry's hopeful face slowly morphed into a scowl as he realized that his father wasn't about to capitulate as easily as the boy had wanted him to.
"To be fair, you don't really know much about Andromeda anymore either," Harry pointed out, trying to keep the peevishness out of his voice. "You've only seen her a couple of times in the past thirteen years, right?"
"That's different, young man," Sirius objected. "Andromeda is my cousin. I knew her far better than I ever knew Hestia. The essentials of someone's personalty do not change that much over time."
"But I like Hestia, and she knew my Mum really well," Harry countered. "When we were at the pub the other night, she told me a bunch of things about my Mum that I didn't know before. Stuff I never learned from all of those years living with my aunt. Things even you haven't told me. Don't you think that makes her qualified to represent my Mum?"
"Lily and Hestia were friends, yes," Sirius agreed reluctantly, unwilling to concede the point. "But not best friends. They were in different years at school and barely saw each other once our lot graduated."
Frustrated, Harry let out a little huff as he raked his fingers through his messy hair, making it even more messy. He wasn't quite at the point to start a proper row with his father over this, but Sirius had to know how much Harry's talk with Hestia had affected him.
"My grandparents names were Henry and Primrose Evans, but everyone called them Harry and Rose," Harry began matter-of-fact to Sirius' stunned look. "My mum's grandmother was called Violet, and that's why Mum always carried around the rolls of Parma Violets, because they reminded her of her Gran who died the year before she went to Hogwarts. It was a tradition in the family to name the girls after flowers. If I'd been a girl I would have been..."
"Marigold," Sirius interjected, more than a bit surprised by what his son had just said, but remembering that detail clearly enough. "I knew that. I remember thinking it was such a sweet name even though I was scared to death of being godfather to a little girl."
Harry dropped his scowl long enough to send his father an amused grin. Sirius could say what he liked, but Harry could see him being even more of a doting godfather to a girl than he was with Harry, which was really saying something. The two of them shared an affectionate smile before Harry cleared his throat and pressed on before Sirius could stop him.
"Mum grew up in a town called Cokeworth, but she didn't like talking about it around you or Dad because her parents were poor and most of your friends at Hogwarts came from families with money. That's one of the reasons Aunt Petunia hated magic so much. After Mum got her letter, Grandad took extra shifts at the mill to pay for her school supplies. But he couldn't afford the high tuition for the posh school that Aunt Petunia wanted to go to at the same time."
Sirius knew that Lily came from humble means. It was one of the reasons why she and Remus got on so well. Neither he nor James had ever cared anything about the lack of wealth in the Evans family. They loved Lily for who she was, not what she had.
But it was true that Lily never talked about her home life much. Sirius hadn't known about Petunia's missed schooling.
"Petunia also resented the fact that she wasn't a witch too," Sirius contributed, making his son's eyes go wide. "Most of her animosity towards Lily was simply the fact that she wanted what Lily had, but never could. But I can also see where she would have held a grudge for not getting equal financial support from their parents as well when she'd already been denied magic."
"It almost makes me feel sorry for her," Harry said with a frown. "I'm not sure how I would have felt about having a brother or sister that got to go to Hogwarts while I had to stay at home."
"Well, you certainly wouldn't have become a bitter, petty little thing," Sirius assured his son firmly. "I may not have really known your grandparents, but I know that Lily adored them, so they had to have been good people. I'm absolutely positive that they gave Petunia all the love she ever needed. It's on her if she was jealous of your Mum and you certainly never deserved the way she treated you growing up."
Harry nodded reluctantly, not quite sure he agreed with his father entirely on the matter. There had been plenty of times when he'd been jealous of Ron for one thing or another that Harry didn't have.
"Mum had a crush on Dad since the middle of third year," he said instead, this time making Sirius' eyes go wide. "She was pretty annoyed with herself too, because she didn't want to like him, but she couldn't help it."
"I knew it!" Sirius shrieked in triumph, causing Harry to chuckle. "Remus owes me ten galleons. That prat swore up and down that Lily despised Prongs, but I caught her smiling at him too many times in double Charms when she thought we weren't looking."
He and Harry shared a laugh together for another moment before the boy became serious again. Against his better judgement, Sirius could see how much this already meant to his son and it was going to be hard to deny him.
"I like Hestia, Papa," Harry said quietly. "It's not just the stuff about Mum either. She's funny and loves Quidditch as much as I do. She let us have fun that night, but she didn't let us run crazy either. She's as nice as Mrs. Weasley, but not all bossy like her. She'd make a good mum if she had kids of her own, and didn't you say it was important for my godparents to be able to concentrate on me?"
Sirius didn't need to see the naked yearning in his son's eyes to know that he'd already lost this battle as far as his own consent was concered. But Hestia had to agree first, and Sirius wasn't sure that she would.
"Okay, kiddo," he said, holding his hand up when Harry looked like he was getting excited. "You sold me. But Hestia might not say yes. Besides the fact that she doesn't really know us very well, she's also a large part of the Tournament. She might not want to have a conflict between her personal and professional lives."
"I know that," Harry acknowledged, his lips twisted in a frown. "But we could still ask, right?"
Letting out a deep sigh, Sirius slowly nodded. He wasn't one hundred percent comfortable with the idea, but he could clearly see how much it meant to Harry.
"We can ask. But," he clarified sharply, "in a worst cast scenario, your legal custody goes to Andromeda until I'm convinced that Hestia has your best interests at heart. We'll talk about it again in a year or so, once I've had a chance to get reacquainted with her. Deal?"
Harry wrinkled his nose, not particularly liking that compromise but realizing that it was the best one he was going to get.
"Deal."
"Then I suppose we should ask Miss Jones to dinner tomorrow. What do you think?"
In response, Harry jumped up from his chair and threw his arms around his father. Sirius smiled sadly as he closed his eyes tightly and hugged his son close.
He had a sneaking suspicion that Hestia Jones was about to become a much bigger presence in their lives.