Author's note:
On the whole, I've received great constructive feedback on this fic, as well as good ideas for storylines. I appreciate those who take the time out of their day to leave comments, and they bring a smile to my face.
That being said, I've also received feedback that is in no way constructive, and usually left by someone who either has no account or doesn't wish to log in. While I am not opposed to "guest" reviews in and of themselves, I find it particularly distasteful when they're associated with rude remarks.
Let me be clear. I have zero intention of changing key tenants of this fic. In particular, the format of this work MEANT to be character based story of Harry being raised by Sirius (and, to a lesser extent, Remus) while still struggling with the BLATANT abuse and neglect the Dursleys inflicted upon him for most of his life up until that point. This will not change simply because someone tells me to add more action. If this type of fic isn't your cup of tea, the back button is available regardless of whether you're using a computer or other electronic device. There are hundreds of thousands of works on this site alone that may meet your needs as a reader, and if mine is not one of them, then so be it.
Still with me? Good. Onto the next chapter...
Only a few days passed between Sirius's letter to Andromeda and her delighted response. Of course, she asked if they could visit her and her family instead, which surprised no one. Sirius was in a good mood the entire morning, but Harry could not contain his uneasiness. He'd enjoyed playing with Neville, but the idea of meeting a new witch and her daughter who was over twice Harry's age gave him a stomachache.
"Say, I haven't looked at your old family photo album in some time," Remus noted that evening, just an hour or so after the letter arrived. "Shall we take a look at your family?"
Sirius glanced at Harry's excited face for just a second before agreeing. "That's a good idea." To Harry, he explained, "Puppy, my family, like yours, comes from a very long line of witches and wizards. We kept very careful records, you see, because we wanted...well, for those who came after us to know about their great great great great grandparents."
"Do you have pictures from that far back?" Harry asked, feeling rather awed.
He'd known that his aunt and uncle kept family photos-and he had not appeared in any one of them-both shown off around the house, and in a similar book. Harry hadn't been allowed to touch it, but he had glimpsed at it when they went through it. In addition to Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon and cousin Dudley, Aunt Marge sometimes appeared, as well as older people he supposed were Dudley's grandparents.
"Not pictures in the sense you're thinking of, puppy," Sirius explained. "Those only came about in the last couple of hundred years. Before then, rich families like mine and yours hired someone to paint your portrait. They were very skilled, and with magic, they could make you look much better than you did. I reckon they could have made your cousin, Dudley, look like a regular boy, and not an enormous pig."
Harry giggled. "Could they have made me look like I had blond or red hair?"
"Certainly, if you'd asked them to," Remus spoke up. "Of all requests, I expect that would have been an easy one."
"Do you want blond or red hair?" Sirius asked, smiling.
Harry shrugged. "I dunno. I just wondered."
Sirius hugged him before moving to one of the chests of drawers from where he removed a very big book. "Let's have a seat," he offered, and after Harry took a comfortable spot in his lap, and Remus sat by his side, he carefully opened the front page. A beautiful red haired woman and man with the same hair as Harry's looked back at him. They were waving and smiling-completely unlike muggle photos. Harry gasped.
"Sirius!" He glanced at his godfather's smiling face. "They're-they're moving!"
"Yes, we do that in wizard pictures," Sirius explained, with a laughed. "Neat, isn't it?"
Harry nodded, peering closer and staring. "Who are they?"
"Those are your parents," Sirius explained, his voice soft. He wrapped his arms around Harry, as Remus took over holding the book. "See your mummy's green eyes? They look just like yours. And your daddy's black hair? You have that. In fact," he added, glancing at Harry, and then at the picture, "I expect that you looked already exactly like your daddy did when he was your age. Moony? Let's see if we can't find a picture that far back..."
Remus sifted through the pages until he found one of children. "Ah ha! There's your mummy and daddy when they were five, just like you are now." He gave Harry a careful look. "Hmm, I'd say you look exactly like your daddy, but with your mummy's eyes."
Harry stared at the photos, then down at himself. Perhaps, Remus was right. Before he'd begun wearing robes, he still would have thought they looked similar, but especially now, they looked like the same person. It was a bit strange, almost like looking into a mirror, but it made him feel happy all the same.
"Do most boys and girls look exactly like their mummy and daddy?" Harry asked, almost shyly.
"Some do," Sirius replied. "Others look more like a mix of both. It just depends on the child."
"Who do you two look like?"
Sirius frowned, just a bit. "Well, I expect I look more like my father than my mother, but my parents looked similar to each other." He frowned again, just for a moment. "Remus, what about you?"
Remus chuckled. "I certainly take after my father's side of the family, although my mum used to say I had her nose. When I was a small child, she'd place her hands just around my nose, like this-" He placed his hands around Harry's nose. "-And say, 'Remus, my boy, you have my nose, and I'm going to take it back!' Then, she'd pretend to snatch it from me. Oh, it never hurt," he added, with a grin, "but sometimes, she'd tickle me, and we'd roll around on the floor for a bit, while I tried to 'take' my nose back from her."
Harry giggled. "Would my daddy have done that, if he were here?"
"I'm sure." Sirius squeezed his shoulders. "But we can play that game, even if we don't have identical noses."
"Good." He looked down at more of the pictures, then realized that some of them must have been taken by muggle cameras and placed in the book by magic, because while his daddy jumped around and grinned, his mummy just stayed put, smiling.
Sirius turned the page, and Harry saw other pictures of people who couldn't possibly be his parents. "Who are they?"
"That's me," Sirius explained, pointing to a dark-haired boy in brown robes, standing besides a smaller boy in matching robes, "and my younger brother. He's not alive anymore."
"What happened to him?"
"He-well, he was one of the people who decided to follow You-Know-Who," Sirius said, haltingly, "but, sometimes, You-Know-Who would kill people who followed him. That's what happened to my brother." He then pointed to a very pretty girl with brown hair tied back in a single braid, and wearing a rather reserved smile. She curtsied prettily in the photo, her rich blue robes wider than the boys'. "Now, puppy, that's Andromeda, who you'll be meeting tomorrow. She's my cousin, my very favorite cousin, and she must be about eight or nine in this picture. Like your daddy, she married a muggle-born, Ted Tonks, although I don't have any pictures of him as a a boy in this album."
"Perhaps, we could ask if they have any to borrow," Remus suggested. "He has red hair, just like your mummy, Harry."
"Good idea," Sirius praised. He glanced down at the album, where Harry was staring at a girl a bit older than Andromeda, perhaps a bit prettier, but who was wearing a rather mean expression. "You don't need to worry about meeting her, puppy. That's Bellatrix, and even though she's Andromeda's older sister, she's nothing like her. Another one of those people who followed You-Know-Who. She's in the wizard prison, and will remain there for the rest of her life."
"She...looks mean," Harry noted.
Sirius laughed, rather darkly. "Oh, yes, even as a child, she was very mean. Made your pig cousin look like an angel, she did. But never mind about her. Come, let's see who else is there..."
They spent the next couple of hours going over the photo album, and Harry saw his parents and Sirius's favorite cousin become older until they were around the age they were now.
He also saw Ted Tonks as an adult, carrying Nymphadora Tonks as a baby. Then, she became as a small child, and finally a pretty girl a bit older than Harry's mummy and daddy in the first pictures he saw of them.
He felt a lot more at ease at the idea of meeting this new family.
"We'll travel by Floo, just as Neville and his grandmother did to get here," Sirius explained the following morning, once everyone had eaten.
"Does it hurt?" Harry asked, staring at the fireplace. He knew that fire was hot, although the Dursleys had had an electric one instead of a wood burning one.
"Too much trouble to be buying logs!" Uncle Vernon had explained, when Dudley had asked why.
"And far cleaner. I don't fancy having to clean it after every use," Aunt Petunia had pointed out, smiling fondly at her husband. "Just tap on the switch, diddlykins, and you'll feel the warmth of a fire without all the mess."
"Everyone will have it changed over in five years, you'll see!" Uncle Vernon had boasted to his wife. As though he'd made the switch instead of calling an electrician.
Well, Harry didn't know if every muggle would have an electric fireplace instead of a wood-burning one, but the way Sirius spoke, all witches and wizards needed the wood ones.
"No, Harry, it won't hurt," Remus promised. "You'll feel warm, but it won't burn you, like a flame would."
"Why?" Harry asked, uncertainly.
He half expected Sirius or Remus to answer, "Magic!"
Instead, Sirius beckoned Harry to come over where, he now saw, there was a type of bowl that came out from the fireplace. Standing on his tiptoes, he could make out the engraving of the Black name in the middle.
"Inside this bowl is Floo powder. You only need a pinch. Once I throw it into the flames, it casts a Cooling charm so that any person will feel warm, but not be burned. If you step into the fire without it, then yes, it's a regular fireplace," Sirius explained. "But witches and wizards learn from their parents or guardians never to do that. So, you see? It won't hurt."
Harry nodded. "What do I do next?"
"Well, if you were a bit older, you would say the name of the place you wanted to go. But you're small enough that I can carry you, just as Neville's grandmother carried here," Sirius said, gently. "All you have to do is be still in my arms."
"If you prefer, I can go first," Remus offered. "So Harry can see how it works, and that it doesn't hurt."
"Very good idea, Moony. Harry, would you like that?"
Harry nodded, then watched as his uncle stepped over, took a pinch of powder, and easily walked into the fireplace.
"The Tonks House!" Remus stated, a bit loudly and very clearly, and then disappeared.
"Ready?" Sirius asked, gently.
"Okay."
Sirius lifted him into his arms, then took a bit of powder. He repeated the words, and suddenly, there was spinning.
Then, it stopped, and Sirius walked out of the fireplace, and flicked off the soot from their robes.
A lovely woman wearing green robes smiled at them. "Good to see you again, Sirius. Hello, Harry. I'm Andromeda Black. It's very nice to see you again."
Author's note:
In canon, Andromeda was Sirius's favorite cousin, and Nymphadora was about eight (maybe even closer to nine) when Voldemort was defeated for the first time. Considering that the Tonks were the only blood family still living and not following Voldemort, I find it reasonable that Sirius would have been a familiar face at their house. Likewise, there's no reason to believe that Harry didn't meet them on occasion-even if he was too young to remember.
Up next-a visit with the Tonks.