AN: Happy new year, I guess? I really wanted to update as a Christmas gift, but you can see how well that worked out. This is too late to swing even for Orthodox Christmas, and still a bit too early for Chinese New Year. Oh well.

A quick recap of what happened recently: Pettigrew was caught and imprisoned, and Sirius is awaiting a trial with the news information.

This is probably not the best sort fo chapter to get you back into the swing of things, but, once again, oh well.

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The Christmas Eve was spent in the usual, traditional visit to Godric's Hollow. Mrs. Bagshot seemed even worse than last year, and they did not stay for long. It seemed to Harry she had some trouble remembering who he was.

Christmas Day was rather more cheerful, and even more fun with Wynn this time than it was the last. He still seemed a little more interested in the wrapping paper than in the actual gifts, but at least he was capable of appreciating the toys now, and recognizing what they were. He got enough of them to almost drown in them, and it made Harry fleetingly think of Dudley, something he hadn't done for while. He sort of idly wondered how his cousin was, and if he was still as much of a bully as before.

Probably, he supposed.

He felt a little guilty about comparing Wynn to him, and thought about what made the difference between the way Dudley was spoiled and the way Wynn was raised. He'd certainly never seen Wynn kick his mother, and imagined the boy would be very sternly reprimanded if he every tried anything like that, which was a sharp contrast to Aunt Petunia, who used to tell stories about toddler Dudley kicking her like treasured family reminiscence.

He also thought about Alexandra frequently implying Harry tended to spoil Wynn. Did she think Harry's approach would make him more like Dudley? The thought was horrifying, and Harry did his best to forget it by focusing back on the Christmas tree and the presents.

His own haul was very impressive as well, of course. He got the usual mix of clothes, displayers, comics and books. There was no crowning gift this time, but Harry wasn't surprised. He got Firebolt in the summer. As far as he was concerned, that was enough of a gift for all the years to come.

There was the usual selection from his friends, too, some sweets and then a few bigger gifts: a joke wand from Ron – it was impressive, Harry had never seen anything like that – and a book about best racing brooms throughout history from Neville, some interesting-looking book the name of which told him nothing from Draco, a duelling sheath for his wand from Daphne – did she know something? - and even a comics issue from Sophie, which made him a little nervous regarding how much she'd spent on it. He hoped it hadn't been too much.

This Christmas was also special because Alexandra did as she had done with Wynn two years ago and made a projection of Edric in the air to be with them as they unwrapped his presents, so Harry could see his new cousin for the first time. He was surprised to see what difference three months made – Wynn had still looked a little strange when he saw him like this, but Edric simply looked like a normal baby.

"Well, he should," Alexandra commented. "He's to be born any day now."

Harry supposed that made sense.

Wynn, when he noticed the projection, was fascinated. He clearly wanted to play with it, but he kept falling through, to his great frustration, and in the end Alduin had to distract him with conjuring soap bubbles from his wand to stop any danger of crying.

It was, all in all, a perfect morning.

Harry didn't want to potentially ruin it for his cousin, so he waited till Boxing Day and then, after their daily training, as they were leaving the room, he asked Alduin: "What happened between you and my father's friends?"

Alduin stopped and gave him a surprised look. "What do you mean?"

"Well, both Lupin and Sirius seemed to have some problem with you," Harry replied a little hesitantly. "So I wondered why."

"Nothing happened, exactly," Alduin said slowly. "It has more to do with my relationship with your father. Come to the drawing room, we should probably sit down for this."

Harry followed him, feeling a little nervous after that pronouncement. Alduin stayed silent until they reached the room, seemingly deep in thought.

"Your father, as you've probably gathered, was very different from me," he then began. "He took almost entirely after his own father. His relationship with his mother was a little strained as a result, but he got on amazingly with my mother, his aunt. Because of that, he spent a lot of time at Travers Manor when we were little. But because we were so different, we never got along. Looking back, I rather suspect James was jealous of the attention I got from my mother, but I could be wrong. At any rate, the older we were, the more difficult it was for us to get along. By the time he left for Hogwarts, it was...strained. He kept pranking me and preparing traps for me, ones I never found funny in the least, and I kept going to my parents to complain about it, which he considered the basest form of betrayal.

"Then at Hogwarts, he became friends with Sirius. Sirius was..." Alduin gave a deep sigh. "Well, in his situation at home, he wasn't unlike Theodore Nott. His mother hardly allowed him to go anywhere, and he was only allowed to see perfectly pure-blooded, Slytherin-affiliated children. I think I saw him once or twice at some event, but he was a legend. Everyone knew about all the trouble his family had with him. So hearing James became friendly with him was...it was a shock, to me. James' mother was beside herself. And James got even worse, because now he was older and had cooler friends – in his mind, at least."

Harry frowned. "But, I mean, I though the Blacks and the Potters were pretty closely related in that generation…? Isn't that how I'm connected to Draco?"

Alduin sighed. "Yes. Walburga, Sirius' mother, was your grandfather's first cousin and your grandmother's second cousin. But your grandfather hated her with a passion – the dislike me and James had for each other had nothing on that. They never saw each other except at big parties, where they avoided each other for all they were worth. Your grandmother didn't have a problem with Walburga, exactly, not at first anyway, but they were never particularly friendly and so after she married your father, all relations ceased there too, effectively. They had no reason to be thrilled about the friendship because of Sirius being Walburga's son."

"So my father stayed friends with Black even though everyone around him warned him against it?" Harry asked. He supposed he couldn't entirely blame him – it's not like he'd stop talking to Neville if Alduin told him to – but still...

Alduin laughed a little, not very cheerfully. "That was your father in a nutshell. But not everyone warned him. Your grandfather, given his dislike of Walburga, sympathised with Sirius even from the stories he heard and always liked him. And your grandmother's resistance only lasted till the first summer Sirius visited Potter Manor, and she overheard him talking about his situation at home."

"What do you mean?" Harry asked curiously.

Alduin took a deep breath. "To put it plainly, Sirius' mother was abusive and his father was a coward who never stood up to her. He had a terrible childhood. None of us knew, of course, until James found out and made sure his parents heard. His mother didn't believe it at first, but...she was the 'tough but fair' kind of person, and she would never dismiss something like that without verifying it. What she found out was enough to make her ensure that Walburga become a pariah in polite society. She also ended up agreeing that Sirius come live with them, even though she still personally disliked him."

"How do you know all this?" Harry wondered. If they were never close at all with his father...

"My mother told me, when I kept complaining about what your father and Sirius did at Hogwarts. She got what she wanted, too – me to stop complaining, to see Sirius as more damaged than exactly bad. Still...the damage is there, Harry. I...don't mean to say that people from abusive households should be avoided, but you must understand, he never really got a break. He went from that house directly into war, and then directly to Azkaban. It is tragic, yes, but that does not erase the fact that the compound damage is there."

Harry frowned. "That's no reason not to talk to him."

"I never said that," Alduin reminded him with emphasis. "I just don't want you to be disappointed...or hurt."

Harry nodded. "So there was no dramatic argument between you and my dad?"

Again, that mirthless laugh. "There were many arguments. I don't know if you'd call them dramatic. I could make excuses for Sirius, but there were none to be had for your father. I argued with him constantly, about how he acted, about his pranks, about his treatment of Professor Snape and others..."

"I don't think I've ever seen you argue with anyone," Harry observed.

"Well, Abdullah always said I didn't argue, I lectured," Alduin conceded. "It was James who shouted in turn. I went to Hogwarts just a year after your father, as you know, and soon enough I saw the way he and his friends were acting. I was hurt. Because, you see, not only James liked my mother, she liked him a lot. She saw his mistakes clearly enough and rarely took his side in our disputes, but she did always judge him mildly, and I knew it was because she loved him. Maybe I was a little jealous, too. But in any case, when I saw him acting in that way...my mother was always the moral compass in our house. To see her beloved nephew do something she would never condone angered me, and I felt I had to stop it. So I wrote to my mother. She in turn wrote to James, and James confronted me and accused me of snitching. I gave him a lecture about right and wrong in turn. That pretty much defined our relationship for the rest of our Hogwarts years."

Harry was almost afraid to ask his next question, but knew he had to. "Has he ever...treated you badly, like he did Professor Snape?"

Alduin shook his head. "No. He did pull pranks on me, of course, sometimes pretty malicious ones, but I was used to that and knew how to avoid them most of the time. You have to understand, Professor Snape was vulnerable in a way I was not. He was poor and without good friends. I was a rich pureblood with as many good friends as James had. Ginevra was even in James' year, and the best student there, and while the rest of us were younger, it was just one year and we were all relatively good at magic, while Pettigrew, out of James' friends, was decidedly not. I could hold my own in every way."

"Did you make peace after Hogwarts?" Harry asked hopefully.

Alduin shook his head. "We didn't see much of each other, to be honest. He joined Dumbledore's Order immediately, and I had my own war efforts to occupy me."

"And you said you didn't know my mother well, right?" Harry checked.

"No. I knew her from school, of course, from the prefect meetings, but apart from that, I effectively only saw her at the wedding."

Harry mused about it, but no, it simply did not make sense to him, however much he thought about it.

"What is it?" Alduin asked.

"I just...I can't understand why you took me from the Dursleys," Harry admitted a little fearfully. He didn't really think Alduin would still send him back, but still there was that little irrational voice in the back of his head saying 'what if you point out the flaw in his reasoning and he'll realize you're right?' "You disliked my father, and you didn't know my mother."

Alduin furrowed his brow. "What does that have to do with anything? I was your closest living relative on the wizarding side, and you were living in untenable conditions."

"But..."

"But what?" Alduin asked, raising his eyebrow at him. "Aunt Euphemia – your grandmother – took Sirius in simply because he was her son's friend. Do you think I would leave you in the same conditions? If nothing else, my mother would roll in her grave. But I don't think I needed her fine-tuned moral compass for that."

Harry only silently shook his head. If Zacharias Smith or Pansy had a child and he was the child's closest living relative, he wondered, would it even occur to him to take the child in?

Well, it would now.

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When Sibby brought Harry tea the morning after that conversation, she looked, in some undefinable way, more excited than usual. Harry took the beverage, and gave her a searching look. "What is it?" He asked.

"The Mistress has taken to bed," the elf replied, beaming.

Harry frowned. "What?"

"Master Edric might be born any minute now," she clarified, and Harry jumped out of bed more quickly than he ever had before, spilling the tea everywhere.

Sibby gave him a disapproving look as she cleaned the mess with one wave of her little hand.

"I promised I'd take care of Wynn!" Harry said a bit defensively.

"Master Wynn is just getting up," Sibby said patiently. "Litty is with him. But Master Harry can join them in the nursery."

Harry dressed as quickly as he could, ignoring the re-summoned tea or any thought of breakfast, and hurried to the nursery. Litty was, indeed, there, just getting Wynn dressed. Harry grinned at his cousin. "You're going to have a baby brother, Wynn!" He said. "Wee little baby brother. He'll be here any minute."

"Baby?" Wynn said tentatively as Litty finished dressing him.

"Yes, a baby!" Harry confirmed, hugging the boy to himself. "A tiny little cute one, and a friend to play with when he gets a little older! But for now, you have me, so let's have some fun with the building blocks, shall we?"

Harry tried to concentrate on Wynn, but it was hard. He kept trying too hear something, but they must have soundproofed Alexandra's room, because there was nothing until about an hour later, when Sibby popped inside the room to say: "Master Edric is born, Master Harry!"

"Can I go see him?" Harry asked immediately.

"Not yet. Master Alduin says wait an hour or so. He'll send me for Master Harry."

Harry nodded, and turned back to Wynn with a beaming smile. "Your baby brother is born!" He said.

Wynn, alas, seemed more interested in his blocks.

In the end, it was almost two hours later when Alduin popped in, looking tired, and gave Harry a wan smile. "Have you had any breakfast?" He asked.

"No," Harry said impatiently. "Can I go see Edric?"

"Yes, but you have to be very quiet. He and Alexandra are both sleeping. And promise me to have some breakfast then."

Harry only nodded, and tiptoed to Alexandra's bedroom. Setting his eyes on the baby in the crib, he realized how much difference the two weeks before he'd seen Wynn for the first time meant. Edric looked sort of squished and red, and it made Harry uncomfortably think about the actual process of childbirth.

He also looked cute and fragile, though, and Harry promised himself he would protect him just as fiercely as he tried to protect Wynn.

Without, hopefully, turning either of them into a Dudley.