Christmas, 1983
"Uncle Filly!" Harry yelled in delight, running up to the half-goblin with his arms open for a hug.
Flitwick laughed and hugged the young child, who was well over halfway to being as tall as him.
"Professor! We weren't expecting you yet." Sirius smiled as he approached the fireplace that Flitwick just came out of.
"Oh Sirius, I believe I told you two years ago to stop calling me Professor."
"And I believe I told you two years ago that I'll only stop calling you Professor when you stop teaching."
"That, my dear boy, will never happen."
"Then I suppose we're at an impasse." Sirius smirked as Harry tugged on his robes. He scooped Harry up and the boy began playing with his godfather's hair. "Come on in, Alice just got Neville up from a nap, and Gellert and I are working on dinner."
"That's the part I was counting on." Flitwick teased. "I have to say, I greatly missed Gellert's cooking all these years."
"It still surprises me that he married your sister." Sirius admitted as they made their way to the kitchen. "Is it rude to say I didn't think you were that old?"
"Only to Gellert." Flitwick laughed, and Sirius joined him. "It's alright, my boy. Goblins and even half-goblins have a longer lifespan than wizards, of course, but Jules was quite a bit older than I was. I was… unplanned."
If Sirius had been drinking anything, he would have spat it out. "Ah… Unplanned? I can't say I know many people who were unplanned other than Remus."
"Oh, you'd be surprised!" Flitwick stated. "Purebloods may always intend to reproduce, but sometimes it happens a bit sooner than expected. Have you every thought about the not-so-large gap between Augusta and her husband's wedding anniversary and Frank's birthday?"
"Sir!" Sirius blurted, becoming flushed. "I didn't really want to think about it."
"I'm just saying…" Flitwick shrugged as they entered the kitchen.
"What are you saying, Filly?" Gellert asked playfully, looking rather unthreatening in Augusta's watermelon-patterned kitchen apron. "It better not be anything about me, unless it's how amazing I am."
"Gel, you're unbelievable, as always." Flitwick chuckled.
"Filius!" Augusta swept into the room with a smile, bending down to give a hug to the Charms professor. "We weren't expecting you so early!"
"Apologies, Augusta. I figured I would come to visit a bit before everyone else got here."
"Everyone else?" Augusta turned to Sirius with a raised eyebrow. "I thought only Filius and the Lovegoods were coming."
"Well…" Sirius looked sheepish. "We may or may not have a few more guests on our list?"
"Sirius Orion, how many people are you inviting into my house for Christmas dinner without telling me?" Augusta lectured.
"Merlin, Augusta, you are simply stunning when you are angry." Gellert noted from the sidelines. He rested his chin on his hand, elbow on the counter. "Are you certain you wouldn't like to go for a drink at the Cauldron? We could go up to the rooms afterwards and – "
"Not now, Gellert." Sirius cut him off, looking flushed again.
"Not ever, Gellert." Augusta added, rolling her eyes with an uncharacteristic giggle. "As I tell you every time you ask."
"I'm a man known for my stubbornness." Gellert shrugged, returning to the cooking.
"That's an understatement." Flitwick piped in.
The group laughed, including Harry in Sirius' arms even though he understood nothing of the conversation; he was simply amused by everyone else laughing.
After a few more minutes of catching up, Sirius handed Harry off to Augusta and shooed her and Flitwick out of the kitchen so that he and Gellert could finish dinner.
"So, Augusta," Flitwick started, playing with Harry's toes and making him giggle as they walked into the lounge. "Does Gel really try to ask you to get drinks with him often?"
"Oh, just playfully." Augusta waved his question off. "I know he doesn't mean it. He talks about Juliet so often I think he may forget she's gone sometimes."
Flitwick smiled sadly as they sat down. "Sometimes I do too."
"What was she like, Filius? Your sister?" Augusta let Harry down on the floor, and he began wandering around the room, picking up different things and examining them or asking their names.
"Ah, Jules was a wonderful woman. Half-goblin, like me, but we were not full siblings. We had the same father, but a different mother."
"Which side –"
"– was the goblin? Our mothers. They were sisters." Flitwick stated.
Augusta looked shocked. "So your father…"
"Oh, no, he didn't have an affair or anything. You see, Juliet's mother was a spectator at a goblin battle for honour – that's Uncle Frank's wand holster, Harry – when it went horribly wrong and several goblins were killed in the crossfire. She was one of them. Juliet was 28 when it happened – not very old at all to a half-goblin."
"I'm so sorry to hear that." Augusta said sincerely.
"My father was devastated. He was lost in his grief, and so was her sister. One night they got very drunk together to cope and…" Flitwick shrugged with a sarcastic smile. "Out I came nine months later."
"How did the family treat you – put that down, Harry – being conceived like that?"
"Oh, I was adored by the family, especially on my mother's side. I was made the heir, you see, being a male. There hadn't been a male born into that family for three generations. It had become a matriarchal family, but those didn't hold up well in goblin society back then and they had been shunned. I brought the family back their honour. Juliet should have resented me for it, but she never did. She was the most supportive person in my life. She even took me shopping for my Hogwarts supplies every year."
"How did she die? Gellert never talks about it and I've never wanted to ask."
Flitwick's face became dark. "I had been told for years that it was Gellert himself who killed her. I had such a hard time believing it, because Gellert had adored my sister the way any good man adores his wife. He doted on her hand-and-foot, he praised everything she did, and he never resented her for taking over half a decade to conceive him a child despite how badly he wanted to carry on his family name. I never thought he could ever do anything to hurt her, but that's what Albus told me."
"Albus told you that?"
He nodded. "In reality, it was either Aurors or some of the blood supremacists who used to follow Albus who killed her. Gellert never hurt her."
Augusta barely looked shocked this time, and had completely stopped taking notice of the toddler running around the lounge except to stop him playing with fragile things. "Gellert told me Albus had killed his son and daughter-in-law, but he never mentioned any of this. It wouldn't have surprised me if Albus himself had killed Juliet."
Flitwick shook his head. "Albus didn't touch her. But Gellert blames himself, as well as Albus, for Juliet's death. It happened shortly before Gellert was imprisoned, and was one of the charges brought against him, even though it was the reason Gellert had confronted Albus in the first place. The murder of Juliet Flitwick… Nobody knew she was his wife except myself and Albus. The wizarding world back then shunned half-breeds, and shunned even harder people who married them. Their children were considered abominations."
"I remember the whispers people had when you became the Charms professor." Augusta reminisced. "It was just awful."
"I have no doubt. Wizards and witches were so horrid back then that Ivan's very existence was kept hush from our world. He never went to Hogwarts, though Gellert and Juliet taught him many things. Eventually he went to live with goblin relatives. I couldn't take him in myself. I was too young and too unreliable, since I had only just graduated Hogwarts a year earlier and I was travelling abroad. Travelling and working with our goblin family was how, eventually, Ivan met Burga the Half-Gobliness, daughter of Griphook and his late wife. I think she had been a half-blood witch, but neither Ivan nor I had ever met her, and Burga was about a decade older than Ivan anyways."
"And Ivan and Burga… they're Lily's real parents?"
"Yes. Albus killed them while Gellert was in Nurmengard, while Lily was still a baby."
Augusta stayed silent for a moment. She was about to ask more questions, but they were interrupted by Xenophilius and Pandora walking into the room and declaring their presence with loud greetings. Luna – who had insisted on walking by herself – toddled in behind them and ran straight for Harry, who had been spinning Alice's favourite globe as fast as his little three-year-old hands could. She slapped her hands down on the globe to stop it spinning, and both toddlers giggled like madmen.
"Oh, we have wonderful news to share at dinner!" Pandora smiled brightly as they plopped down onto the couch opposite Augusta and Filius. "I hope everyone is here soon."
"Alright, who is this 'everyone'?" Augusta insisted. "Sirius told me last week that since it wasn't his house, he was only inviting Gellert, Filius, and you three."
"Gellert is already here?" Xenophilius asked.
"Of course he is. He's helping Sirius prepare dinner."
"Well, then, we're nearly complete. All we need is –"
"Sirius, dear, your favourite cousin is here!" A familiar voice called out from the front door.
The shout was followed by the sounds of what could only be described as 'Sirius losing his marbles' as he scrambled out of the kitchen making happy noises, running down the hallway and into the woman's waiting arms.
The group in the lounge all got up to peek outside, and they found Andromeda Tonks having swept Sirius into a large bear hug, twirling him around.
"Andi!" Sirius yelled playfully. "Put me down!"
"Never!" She insisted with a laugh, but puts him down anyways. Ted, holding little Nymphadora, walked in behind her, and Sirius embraced them as well.
"Andromeda!" Pandora exclaimed in a singsong voice, gliding over to the woman to hug her as well. "How wonderful to see you again!"
"Dora! How's the –"
"Shh, not now!" Pandora placed a hand over Andromeda's mouth with a giggle.
"Okay, okay, sworn to Healer's secrecy." Andromeda winked.
Sirius raised an eyebrow at Pandora. "What's going on?"
"Dora, what are you hiding?" Alice came up behind Sirius with Neville in her arms, placing her free hand on her hip with a grin.
"Nothing at all, Nosy." Pandora stuck her tongue out at Sirius.
"Hey, this is my party! I get to be nosy!"
"And this is my house!" Alice declared.
"I believe this is my house!" Augusta corrected. "But I, too, want to know!"
"What are we wanting to know?" Frank asked as he and Gellert enter the hall.
"Oh, well. Since we're all standing here anyways…" Pandora sighed.
Sirius looked at the front door almost expectantly, then turned his attention back to Pandora, looking slightly crestfallen. Nobody seems to take notice except Gellert.
"I'm pregnant!" Pandora declared, throwing her hands in the air in excitement.
All the adults began cheering, and they all started congratulating Pandora and Xenophilius loudly.
The excitement and loud noises were overwhelming to little Luna, still in the lounge with Harry, and she began to cry.
Sirius was the first to react, sweeping in to scoop her up in one arm and, at Harry's insistence, Harry in the other. "I'll take them somewhere quiet."
Pandora nodded at him gratefully, and Sirius took them into the room with the fireplace.
He set Harry down on the couch and sat beside him with Luna still on his lap as she made little sniffling sounds.
After a few minutes, she calmed down enough that she and Harry began playing with the tassels on Alice's favourite throw pillows, but Sirius knew she wouldn't mind.
The thought of Pandora having another child was amazing, truly. Children were a miracle and a gift to the world. But he had been hit with a wave of emotions with the news. It had made him miss Marlene terribly, worse than he had in the last two years. He wished so much that it was her declaring her pregnancy, her by his side, her still alive…
A gentle knock on the door interrupted his thoughts.
"Sirius?" Gellert stepped into the room softly. "What's wrong, my boy?"
"I…" He knew Gellert would understand without telling him to just 'get over it'. "I just miss Marlene a lot. I wish she was here."
Gellert nodded solemnly. "I understand." Sirius had talked about his partner before, and Gellert felt so much sorrow for how much this boy had suffered in such a short life.
He sat beside Sirius, and they stared at the fireplace in silence.
Minutes passed without any conversation. They didn't need it, really. Grindelwald had all but adopted Sirius as his grandson in the last two years since Sirius managed to get him out of Nurmengard – which he still wouldn't entirely explain, just wink and say he had 'connections' – and they had grown comfortable with one another.
The moment was very rudely interrupted by a flash of the fireplace, and a figure appearing to step out of it.
Both men leaped to their feet in surprise, and both men almost nearly fainted at the sight of the familiar face.
"Hello, Sirius." Arcturus Black gave a nod to his grandson before turning to Gellert. "Gellert. I thank you for the invitation to dinner tonight. It truly is wonderful to see you again."
A/N: a consistent upload schedule? In this economy?! LOL, stay safe folks.