Hermione's eyes fluttered open ten minutes after a sour-faced Theron brought Tom a small vial of silvery-blue potion.

"I wish this was poison," Theron said to him. "Fortunately for you, it's quite the opposite."

Drinking the potion soothed Tom's anxiety and the ever-present echo of heartache down to his magical core. He had gotten used to the baseline of discomfort following him since he graduated Hogwarts and hadn't felt this close to normal since his seventh year. Since the last time he held Dove properly.

"How?" he asked Theron.

"It's complicated. I sent a copy of the recipe and her brewing instructions with one of my elves to give to yours. I'm still brewing a bulk batch. She wants you to take it daily until it's not needed anymore."

If the potion hadn't restored so much of his energy, Tom would've struggled to occlude the wave of emotion that flooded him. Thankfully, he was actually able to be relieved and cheerful when Hermione's tired gaze met his, rather than getting needlessly emotional over the same witch retroactively taking care of him again.

"Tom?" Little Hermione croaked.

Flynn gave Tom a brief nod as he left to hunt down one of her nurses for some water.

"Hello, Dove," he said gently. "How are you feeling?

She groaned, squinting against the lights. He cast a quick spell to dim them.

"Head's a bit fuzzy," she said slowly. "Where are we?"

"St. Mungo's. You had a nasty fall at the quidditch match."

She blinked at him for a moment, then recognition dawned in her eyes. "Is Harry okay?"

Tom nodded. "He's down the hall being monitored for any side effects of dementor exposure, but otherwise unharmed. You, on the other hand…"

She frowned. "I don't really remember what happened after I noticed his broom was drifting away in the wind."

Tom pressed his lips together, distracting himself from the recent unpleasant memories by grabbing her hair scarf from the table beside her bed. He wandlessly set it to tie loosely against her head, willing the charms to be gentler as they fixed her hair since her scalp was likely still bruised in the back.

"You climbed one of the old viewing turrets, which separated you from the crowd and made your magical aura stand out to the dementors that attacked Harry," he said slowly. "All the water on the platform turned into ice as you were running to intercept his broom. You slipped, hit your head, and the dementors swarmed."

She stared at him in disbelief. He offered her a tight smile.

"You nearly died today," he said quietly. "Scared me half to death, even though I knew it was coming."

"I…" she faltered, swallowing dryly.

The door opened before she could try to speak again, admitting Flynn as he poured her a glass of water from a small pitcher.

"Hey, Birdie," he said gently. "Gave us a right scare, little witch. How's your head?"

"Bit sore," she muttered, thanking him when he handed her the glass. She slowly drained it.

"Theron will be back in a moment. His head still smarts and he's awfully bitter about his broken wrist, but said he'd check her motor functions himself."

"Should've done as he was told," Tom muttered.

Hermione shot him a look. "You broke Theo's dad's wrist?" she demanded.

Tom shrugged. "He argued with me about how to take care of you while you were still unconscious. I lost my temper. He's fortunate I was too focused on you to kick his arse properly or I probably would have for old time's sake."

Her disapproving stare made him sigh. " Dove, don't look at me like that. It was life or death. I'll choose your life over his wrist any day ."

Flynn chuckled, having taken up the spot of wall across from her bed after setting the water pitcher on her other bedside table. "What did we tell you, Birdie? He hates when you're cross with him."

"I'll break your wrist too," Tom said dryly, though he mirrored Hermione's smirk.

"Well, so long as he deserved it, I guess I'm not too cross," she allowed.

Tom smirked in triumph. "There's my little snake in the grass. Fuck you, Flynn."

Hermione giggled, reaffirming that she was, in fact, alright. The taint of the obscurus was out of her system, brightening her eyes and smile. His relief was all-consuming.

Tom encouraged her to carefully sit up, adjusting her pillows so she could lay against them. Before he pulled away, he brushed his thumb against her temple and silently cast obscurus ostentus , just to be safe.

Nothing happened. No trace of the parasite remained.

Tom sighed in relief, the last of his stress leaving his shoulders for the first time in days . Hermione noticed and asked what the matter was.

"How are you emotionally?" he asked her. "Feeling a bit lighter maybe?"

She frowned, pondering her response a moment before she nodded. "Yeah, actually. I guess I didn't notice how...heavy everything was getting. What changed?"

Tom hesitated for a moment. "You started to develop a type of magical abnormality called an obscurus. It's like a parasite but born from magical suppression. I removed it."

"I... oh ," she muttered. "That...sounds bad."

"If you were anyone else, it would've been worse," he said. "You would've been deeply unhappy but most people who develop this particular malady don't survive it. You would've."

"How do you know?" she asked. "You took it out."

Tom took a deep breath. "Because you're helping me change the timeline from the future. So, until today, I remembered you becoming an obscurial and surviving that nightmare."

"But...I thought changing the timeline would destroy it?"

"You found a way to stabilize it somehow," he said, his lips quirking. "Clever witch."

Her grin turned sheepish. "I'm sorry for scaring you by the way...I didn't think the dementors would get so close to the stands and Harry's already so worried about his relationship with Sirius that having to ask him for a new broom would make Harry feel awful ."

"I'm not cross," he said softly. "However, you may feel silly to learn that Sirius already bought Harry a new broom a few weeks ago and was planning to give it to him for Christmas."

Her cheeks pinkened. "Oh."

Tom lightly flicked her forehead. "You were trying to be kind, Dove. It's not like I could warn you and you did it anyway. Then I'd be displeased."

She frowned again. "Will that happen a lot? Will you want to warn me about things and not be able to?"

Tom chuckled humorlessly. "I'm almost shocked you haven't asked me this sooner. If I could tell you everything, I would, Dove. Why do you think I wrote you letters after graduation? All of a sudden I couldn't talk to you anymore, but you told me what was coming. I'd sleep easier if I could prepare you more for the future than I'm able to."

"And merlin did he whinge about not being able to talk to you anymore," Flynn chimed in, ignoring Tom's glare. "You are just as much a part of our school years as we are of yours, Birdie. It was...unsettling for all of us to suddenly not know what was going on fifty years in the future. Especially when you had told us stories about the things going on in your time — good or bad."

Hermione's expression was overcome with dread. "I have to tell younger you what happened today?"

Tom and Flynn kept their faces carefully blank.

"Dove," Tom began. "If I didn't have cause to worry about you back then , I wouldn't be able to make sure we're prepared for the things happening right now . Does that make sense?"

"Yeah… that you will be cross though…" she murmured. "And you're already worrying about your O.W.L.s. a lot."

Tom saw Flynn fidget out of the corner of his eye, and was grateful that Hermione missed the other wizard's quick half-smile before he bit the inside of his cheek to stay quiet.

"I'll be twice as cross if I catch you in a lie again," Tom said carefully, raising a brow. "I may understand your motivations now, but I didn't then."

Flynn lightly cleared his throat to get her attention and gave her a pointed look. "Leading by example would apply here, I think. He's still working out your behavior motivations for most things if memory serves. But you have to stay consistent enough for him to parse out the things he knows now because he learned them back then. Know what I mean?"

She worried her lip, glancing between them. Tom didn't need legilimency to figure out what she was afraid to say and sighed.

"Dove, I'm not going to curse you no matter how angry you make me," Tom said evenly. "You may be a Knight but you don't get their punishments."

"Oh so mine are tailored then, excellent," she muttered.

" No ," Tom said, but he was fighting a smile. "As Flynn and Abraxas love to remind us, I'm not overly fond of being outside the bounds of your good graces. Nor are you overly fond of being outside the bounds of mine . Though in this particular instance, I will make you barter for my full forgiveness, that won't be the case for most of our disagreements."

Flynn chuckled at the wide-eyed look on her face and Tom chuckled quietly.

"You'll just have to wait and see, Dove," he said. "I'm not telling."

A woman was screaming. It was a brief, faraway sound that faded quietly into nothing. The next thing Harry heard was a familiar whine, a sound that repeated inconsistently, slowly drawing his focus. He knew that whine.

His tongue stuck to the roof of his mouth as he tried to remember how to make it move. "Dad?" he said roughly. He wondered why Sirius was whining. Was something wrong?

"Harry? You're alright, love. Easy." came from above him somewhere, but Harry's eyes wouldn't stay open against the brightness around him.

"Dad?" Harry repeated, wincing against the dryness in his mouth. "I thought I heard you as Pads."

Someone turned off the lights in the room, darkening the little bit of reddish light Harry could see through his eyelids. His eyes still fought to open and watered terribly when he tried. He groaned, an unsteady hand coming up to rub his eyes.

"Water," he croaked.

"Already waiting for you, mate."

His glasses were placed in his hand. When his vision finally focused, Sirius was on his left, a sadness-stained smile on his face. He handed Harry a small glass of water that Harry returned after a few sips.

"Anything hurt at all?" Sirius asked gently, before Harry could ask what the matter was or where they were.

"Uh," Harry stammered, taking a quick mental inventory. "Mostly just out of it and cold, I think. Nothing hurts exactly but I still feel like I got hit by a bus."

A murmured warming charm was cast on his blankets. Harry shivered as he burrowed into the stiff cotton. Sirius's expression tightened.

"Cold I can fix. Your nurses gave me potions for the rest. Once you're feeling warmer, I'll have you take your first one," Sirius said. "Do you remember what happened?"

He'd been chasing the snitch in the clouds. Draco had only followed him so far, yelling over the wind that they were going to get struck by lightning if they didn't fly lower. The snitch had made a sharp turn deeper into the clouds. Harry followed it.

Then the woman started screaming.

"Chasing the snitch and…some woman was screaming? I think she yelled my name at one point, but I'm not sure."

Sirius's eyes widened in muted horror. "Oh, Harry. You remember that then?"

"Remember what?" Harry asked.

Sirius put his head in his hands for a moment, aggressively rubbing his eyes, which had started to redden. "When dementors suck up enough of your happiness to start sucking your soul out, it also draws out your most painful memories. I…I assume what you remembered hearing was your mother that night."

Harry shifted awkwardly, not wanting to dwell on that particular thought. "Oh," he said lamely. He couldn't think of anything better to say and he was realizing, belatedly, that he'd called Sirius 'Dad' out loud as he'd woken up. Hopefully, Sirius hadn't noticed, especially since Harry hadn't been brave enough to write him about the idea yet.

"We're at St. Mungo's, by the way. Your friend Theo's father is one of Riddle's blokes and head of the ward, so you're under the best care I could hope for, at least. But I think we have a few things we need to talk about…"

Harry didn't like how unreadable Sirius's expression had become.

"Is there anything you'd like to tell me before I say more?" Sirius asked. His voice wasn't unkind or accusatory, but Harry still felt like he'd been caught somehow. Like Sirius knew far more than Harry was comfortable thinking about.

"I, um," Harry muttered. He didn't want to have this conversation now, or ever really, even if Hermione thought he had nothing to be worried about. But face to face, he didn't want to lie to Sirius either... "I had an idea for something to do to solidify that we're a family now?"

Sirius's lip quirked upward slightly. "Yeah? Would it have anything to do with that new word you're using in my direction?"

Harry nodded, grateful for the covers he'd pulled up, as the action let him hide most of his face except for his eyes. His cheeks were burning with embarrassment. Of course Sirius had noticed his slip up.

"Harry, you're allowed to address me however you like within reason," Sirius said. "I'm not setting out to overwrite James's memory, and I think you know that, but I also understand that you haven't had a proper parental figure in your life until now. You don't remember anyone filling those roles for you. Regardless of whether you call me Sirius forever or Dad or Padfoot or Dogfather—"

Harry snorted softly, making Sirius grin.

"—I'm going to hold onto my responsibilities as your godfather, as your friend, and as someone who chooses to love you."

Sirius reached out to gently brush some of Harry's fringe off his forehead.

"Being able to love and look out for you again makes being free worth it, Harry. You're my son, blood notwithstanding. If calling me Dad makes you happy and gives you peace, then I will bear the disappointment of you missing the most obvious paternal moniker for me, which is Dadfoot ."

Harry snickered. "Dadfoot and just Dad, I think," he said shyly.

Sirius hummed, amused and eyes twinkling. "That's a much more entertaining way to sign my letters, isn't it? With love, Dadfoot ."

Still chuckling, Harry said, "Your turn."

Sirius's smile fell slightly. "I hate to spoil the mood," he said gently. "However, when I received two letters, one from you and one from Hermione, and they were essentially the same letter written twice, I was inspired to develop unhappy questions."

Harry felt goosebumps rise around his neck, remembering his last letter home.

Sirius raised a brow, the rest of his expression blank once again. " Hi, Sirius, I'm well. Boggart lessons were dreadful. My boggart wasn't a big deal but theirs was. I don't know what to do and I'm worried about them. Can you help at all? Love, my two favorite kiddos. "

Harry stared at him, waiting for a question. He definitely didn't want to discuss his boggart or even think about it.

"I would appreciate it if you would tell me what your boggart was," Sirius said. "You don't have to, but if you're having nightmares about it, then we're not just going to let it fester, alright?"

Harry nodded, despite the hollowness in his chest, and hoped that Hermione's tendency to be right extended to his godfather. "It was you sending me back to my aunt," he muttered, breaking eye contact. "It was stupid. You've never been that… hateful towards me so it shouldn't have gotten under my skin. Hermione's was worse, because Riddle doesn't even think of her as a friend so hers has merit. Mine is just...dumb."

"Fear isn't logical, Harry," Sirius said. "But for a boy with no reliable family to be anxious about the only proper parental figure in his life abandoning him…" Sirius took a deep breath. "I wish I could erase how they treated you. I wish I could punish them beyond the limits of the law and Riddle's influence. But I can't do that without losing you again. I can reassure you that you are wanted and needed in my life, and that the only way anyone is taking you from me ever again is if they can kill me before Riddle and his all-knowing Order neutralize them...but I can only help alleviate your anxiety if you talk to me, kiddo."

"I just don't want you to think I'm an annoying little kid or something," Harry grumbled. "I'm thirteen."

Sirius gave him a look. "I know what you mean, but think of it this way: I was alone in the world for just as long as you were. I need that connection with you too, especially while you're away at school. It helps me stay grounded and it just feels nice to know that you're probably up there at school missing me too, you know?"

Harry nodded. There was a foreign sort of comfort to be had when Sirius told him how much he missed him or told him ideas for things they could do together on holiday breaks. He understood that craving. "Yeah," he said softly. "That's fair. I'll try to remember that…"

Sirius smiled at him. "Do your best within reason," he said pointedly. "I'll help remind you. Now, are you warm enough to give me a cuddle? I nearly had a heart attack watching you fall out of the sky."

Harry sat up despite the brief chill from his blankets slipping down as Sirius stood from his chair to perch on the edge of the hospital bed.

Sirius pulled him close and Harry tried to fight the way his eyes started to prickle as he pressed his face into Sirius' shoulder. A hand came up and cradled the back of his head, making Harry feel impossibly small and immeasurably loved at the same time.

"I missed you," he said tightly, letting Sirius's shoulder muffle the words.

"I missed the hell out of you, love. I was going to surprise you after the game, since Riddle let me tag along to watch the match. Suppose I know why we were all there now… But still."

Harry's brows knit together and he pulled back slightly. "What do you mean? Wasn't he just there to watch Slytherin like Draco's grandfather?"

Sirius cursed. "I haven't told you yet."

Anxiety licked up Harry's spine. "Told me what?"

"She's alright," Sirius said quickly. "But Hermione's down the hall. She got attacked by dementors and hit her head. Avery said she's awake and doing excellent but they're going to monitor her for a day or two longer."

"She got attacked again ?! Can I see her?"

"I can go ask Tom or Flynn for you if you're okay for a minute?"

Harry nodded emphatically, pulling his blanket back up for the extra warmth. "Yes please."

Sirius ruffled his hair before standing with a small smile. "Stay put."

Hello Lovelies! I totally didn't intend for this chapter to be out months ago, or at the latest by Christmas, or at the latest by new years, or at the latest forever ago...

Gotta love burnout, chronic health ailments, job changes, shitty apartments, and all the other little nuggets of bullshittery that make doing more than bare-minimum survival necessities exhausting, right?

Anyway, I'm alright! I am, just exhausted often, adjusting to the new job, and getting back on my meds after a fuckmess of a year. Desperately trying to get my homestead in order so I can actually like...do creative shit I care about. Like sewing, which could be making me money if I had time to actually DO anything in that regard, rather than just constantly trying to work around my supplies and fabric stash. So I am alive and mostly well, just, as always, rather tired.

But I'm always thinking about you guys, and Diary, even when I blink out of existence for a while. Don't forget you can always reach me on my socials, don't be afraid to tag or DM me. If I don't answer quickly it's because my notifs are busted on my phone sometimes, but I'm not ignoring you. As for those who aren't on Twitter or Tumblr, I don't have a fandom instagram or anything else, mainly bc Insta is one of the socials I never vibed with, but it's something I've considered. And something I have to learn if I want to document/market my crafting shit eventually, so it's not entirely out of the realm of possibility, and if I make one, I'll add it to the list when it's available!

Twitter: MulattoKitten
Tumblr: littlemulattokitten

Anyway, I hope everyone had a pleasant holiday season! Happy 2024 and fingers crossed we can group manifest some good vibes for each other, yeah? I feel like its a good omen to start the year on a chapter with some Sirius-Harry familial fluff... ;)

Love you guys! Thank you as always for all the kudos/comments/support/etc and for holding onto this fic despite my chaotic schedule and inconsistencies. xoxoxo~