clvii. freedom and other vices

Remus watched Sirius Black down his third shot of Ogden's Old Firewhiskey and raised a disapproving brow.

"Don't give me that, Moony," Sirius sighed as smoke wafted from his mouth and he rubbed at his lower lip. Color flushed his thin cheeks, and his eyes glittered as dark as river stones in the candlelight. Around them, the Leaky Cauldron was crowded and warm, and no one took notice of the two wizards sitting in a dim corner enjoying their drinks. News of Sirius' acquittal hadn't yet had time to circulate through the community, and so he kept a low profile, sitting in the back, letting Remus get up and fetch their rounds.

"I've been dying for a drink all week, but there isn't a bloody drop in the whole house." He exhaled a pale, yellow flame and swallowed it, patting his chest. "I must have looked in every room of the house, turned over every cupboard, closet, chest, and vase. Not a drop."

Remus hummed. "I assume Albus and Snape had everything removed when Harriet arrived. They're good girls, but it's probably best not to leave booze out for them to find."

Mentioning the Potions Master deepened the lines in Sirius' face, and he poured himself another Firewhiskey. Remus knew he should let the issue lie, but he'd always been too curious for his own good. It'd only been a handful of days, but he couldn't believe neither of the two wizards had killed the other yet. He had a bet with Minerva that Snape would crack first, but she was adamant that it would be Sirius.

"How has it been? With Snape in the house?"

Sirius scoffed. "He's not there during the day, and at night he either closes himself in that old lab downstairs or paces in his bloody room. He keeps me up with that fucking pacing. And don't start, Remus; I've already had my ear talked off by Dumbledore about getting along with the big-nosed git."

Remus grinned and sipped his gillywater.

"Still don't understand why he gets a say in everything. I'm Harriet's godfather, so where does he get off, saying he'll take her out of the house?"

"Dumbledore? Sirius, the Headmaster explained how the situation is delicate with Harriet, didn't he?"

Grumbling, the Animagus snuffed the flame on his drink, stroking his singed thumb against his forefinger. "'Course he did. But now that I'm free, I asked why the guardianship couldn't be transferred over to me, and Dumbledore said he's afraid Gaunt will step in and complicate things. And that's another thing—Gaunt, and that—that freak they have for a Defense professor? When I went into Azkaban, You-Know-Who was bloody dead—and now the whole world's upside down, with Dumbledore telling me Harriet's the Girl Who Lived and Frank and Alice's boy is some kind of decoy and the great Dark Twat is still alive—."

"Please keep your voice down," Remus said. He glanced about the other booths, but most were empty and if they weren't, the other patrons stayed interested in their own tankards rather than their conversation.

Sirius exhaled and rubbed at his face. Remus had experienced a similar sense of disbelief when Headmaster Dumbledore took him aside and explained the tenuous nature of Harriet Potter and Wizarding society as a whole. He'd spent so long among the Muggles, ignoring everything and anything that would remind him of Sirius or James or Lily—that he hadn't witnessed the smaller, less critical changes or the way the world they salvaged from Voldemort's clutches had dissolved back into the wreckage.

"I don't understand why Dumbledore doesn't kick that—that Slytherin arsehole out of the school. Isn't his bloody job?"

"Because he can't," Remus said, lowering his eyes. "He explained it to me more in-depth when he employed me as the History professor. The Headmaster can recommend a member of staff for termination and, in normal circumstances, the Board of Governors would take the Headmaster's recommendation and confirm the dismissal, but the Board as it is now is often at odd ends with Headmaster Dumbledore." Remus brushed his fingers through the condensation gathering on his glass. "His previous attempts to remove him have been less than successful."

"Well, obviously." Sirius sniffed and took another drink. "The Board of Governors has always been filled with a bunch of cowardly toffs. Of course, it used to be a bunch of cowardly toffs afraid of Dumbledore, but ah, times changes."

"I can understand your frustration—."

"Can you? Everything—everyone—has moved on. It's all different, and I don't know anything anymore. I spent twelve years in there, Moony, and I can't—. So little of it remains. I remember almost none of it, just pieces—like the color of the wall or the texture of the stone. There should be more there, but it's—." He exhaled, eyes shut.

"The brain often disassociates itself from trauma. It doesn't want you to process and remember the things that cause such overwhelming stress—."

Sirius interrupted with a sharp, scathing grunt but said nothing else.

"Have you considered seeing a mind healer?"

"Remus, I've been free for a handful of hours. Let me at least finish this bottle before we start in on the mind healers, yeah?"

Chastised, Remus held up a hand in surrender, because it really had only been a few hours since they departed the courtroom and the well-wishers, and if Sirius wanted a night to soak in the reality of freedom, then Remus would refrain from nagging.

But when should he bring it up? In his recollections, Sirius had never been one to accept advice without having first asked for it, and he wasn't sure how to frame the idea so Sirius wouldn't assume he thought him mad. Remus didn't think that, of course, but the other man needed to talk to somebody. Everyone in Grimmauld Place could benefit from an extended therapy session.

"Gaunt asked about her."

Blinking, Remus returned his wandering gaze to the wizard across from him. "Pardon?"

"Gaunt. Before I finally managed to get out the door, he came to give his own congratulations—the typical political posturing. He wanted to shake my hand, apologized on behalf of the 'former administration,' pontificating on how it was an uphill struggle to correct failures of his predecessors—and then he asked if I'd be meeting my daughters afterward. He buried the lead well enough, but I was raised to be the Head of the House of Black, wasn't I? Dear ol' mummy and father were gobshites, but they taught me to read between the lines."

"I'm sure Orion and Walburga would be pleased to know something of what they taught stuck with you."

Sirius gave a short, mirthless laugh. "Yeah, true. I told him in the politest way possible to get fucked."

"Sirius!"

"I asked if he didn't mind if I stopped listening to him and if he would do me the great honor of gifting me with his absence." He laughed again. "But that's part of the reason I decided it best to get out tonight. Ten Galleons says that gimlet-eyed sod by the bar who walked in five minutes after us is going to report back to Gaunt."

Remus didn't turn to see who Sirius meant, but he did shift his glass, using its reflection to see the fuzzy, dull outline of several bodies slumped in barstools, except for one form at the end, sitting up, unmoving.

"I don't get what he wants with Harriet," Sirius muttered. "According to Dumbledore, he doesn't know anything, so why bother with some half-blood orphan?"

"Something happened in her first year with the Muggle Studies instructor, Quirinus Quirrell. Harriet witnessed his death."

"Merlin's ghost."

"It was an accident, but the specifics were leaked to Gaunt through an agent he acquired at the school. Ever since he's had more than a passing interest in getting a hold of her."

Sirius scrubbed his face again, fingers ghosting over his brow and down to his mouth as he leaned in his chair. Remus sipped his drink again and then repositioned the glass, watching the vague shapes by the bar still. Sirius served himself another Firewhiskey, the bottle getting low, though he had enough sense to conjure another glass and fill it with water. The Aurors had handed him his wand—his real wand, not the one he'd filched in Knockturn Alley last year—along with his other effects, including the necessary paperwork declaring his innocence. Sirius had crumpled the lot, shrunken it, and stuffed it in a robe pocket.

"I don't have a clue what I'm going to do," Sirius sighed.

"About?"

"The girls," he said. "Yesterday, they weren't big enough to fit in my hands—and today, they're suddenly fourteen. When did that happen? Who allowed that? And I'm supposed to take care of them? Jesus Christ."

"It's a bit late for all this, isn't it?" Remus replied, sharper than intended. "You accepted being Harriet's godfather years ago, in the middle of a war. You knew what might happen. You—we—accepted what it would mean to bring Elara into this world."

"I didn't bloody well think I'd spend more than a decade in Azkaban and get thrown into a house with two strangers, did I?" He smacked the table, glasses rattling. "They hate me."

"They don't hate you."

"They hate me, Moony—or, at least, Elara does. Harriet treats me like some kind of odd, distant relative who's come round for Christmas dinner unannounced."

"She does not."

"She does! And Elara and I got into a flaming row over dishes! Dishes! That old Black crockery mum used to use on her favorite guests."

Remus shook his head. "And why were you arguing over dishes?"

"I was throwing that rubbish out, and she got upset. So I told her we'd get new ones, and it's as if she didn't hear me or didn't want to hear me. I thought the girl would brain me if given half the chance."

"And did you explain what you were doing before you did it?" Remus asked, already knowing the answer. "Elara grew up in an orphanage, Sirius. She did not have means or possessions of her own. Of course she'd react poorly to you wasting things in the house she'd come to think of as her own." He could empathize with her; his family hadn't been poor, but they'd needed to be frugal more often than not while he was growing up. Remus was probably poorer now than he'd been as a boy, and Sirius—for all his own childhood tribulations and trials—had been privileged. He'd not wanted for anything, because even when his parents sent seething Howlers in the post, they followed the letters up with money and fresh Quidditch gear and new clothes.

Sirius stared into his drink as he contemplated Remus' words, his brow furrowed.

"As for them being strangers, you're going to have to get to know them as you would any new person you've just met. I know it's not the same as watching them grow up, but they're still children with a lot more growing to do. You need to make an effort to understand them as their own people, not just figments of their parents."

The brow furrowing increased, and when Sirius looked up, it was joined by the slightest approximation of a pout. "What have you learned so far? Being their teacher for a year and everything."

Remus hummed and balanced his chin on his folded hands, contemplating what to say. Sirius continued to pout until Remus couldn't help a small chuckle, his chest lighter than it'd been in a long, long time. James and Lily were still gone, and nothing would erase the pain he'd experienced in the last thirteen years—but Sirius hadn't betrayed them, and Elara was alive. Even in his wildest daydreams, Remus could not have imagined asking for more.

"Harriet likes Quidditch."

"Oh, come off it, Remus. I knew that much."

"Harriet likes Quidditch—," Remus repeated with a superior tip of his nose. "Not because she's particularly fanatic about the sport, but because she loves to fly. Professor Slytherin had her removed from the school team for his own reasons, and she's more upset about the dismissal than she lets on. She's indelibly curious about magic, though maybe not so much about the history of it," he admitted, smiling. "She enjoys learning about her parents, but not in excess. I imagine it makes her sad to hear too much about the family she'll never truly know. She's also more manipulative than you'd expect."

"Wh—manipulative? Harriet?"

"Yes. Not in a malicious manner, but if there's a conversation she'd rather not have, she's fairly accomplished at redirecting one's attention if they're not expecting it." He finished his gillywater and, instead of returning to the bar for a refill, whispered a spell to fill the cup with plain water. "She's…kind. I'm ashamed to admit I had my misconceptions, considering where she and Elara had been sorted, but…Harriet never spoke a word against me after what happened in the forest. Despite being chased and hunted by a werewolf, she hasn't treated me different in the slightest."

"Good. She shouldn't." He spoke firmly, but Remus detected the relief in Sirius' tone. "And Elara?"

Again, Remus paused to gather his thoughts and Sirius waited with evident impatience, hungry for information. "She's quite sensitive," Remus finally said, earning an incredulous look from his tablemate. "Oh, she comes across as aloof and remote, but she's a fourteen-year-old girl who has never had an adult to rely on and has experienced a truly horrid childhood. She's had precious little control in her life, which must be part of the reason she's reacted so negatively to your sudden appearance."

The revelation did little to assuage Sirius. "I thought—I'd hoped she would be happy about it. About not being alone."

"In her mind, she hasn't been alone. She has Harriet and Miss Granger—their best friend, one of my cleverest students. Elara fears you're going to change things—that you'll fight Dumbledore needlessly on some irrelevant issue and get Harriet removed from the house—."

"I wouldn't!" Sirius argued, striking the table again with his palm, rattling the flatware. "I wouldn't! And it's shite that he can remove her anyway!"

"We aren't going to argue this in public. My point, Sirius, is that Elara won't react well to change, and she's sensitive to people's behavior concerning her or those close to her. Talk to her. Let her know your thoughts and allow her to come to you with hers."

Sirius harrumphed. "You make it sound simple."

"It is simple. Though, maybe more difficult in practice than in theory. Elara and Harriet are teenagers, after all. We should probably give thanks to Merlin and Morgana that they're infinitely better behaved than you and James were at that age."

A wolfish grin spread across Sirius' face, and his eyes glimmered with past recollections, of all the misdeeds he and James—and Remus too, if he was honest—had gotten into during their Hogwarts years. He looked younger when he smiled, more like the boy Remus had fallen for and less like the hollowed-out convict still featured on the old, weathered wanted posters.

"You're not in this alone," he said softly. "You have the Order behind you, ready to help. You have—." Hesitating, Remus forced himself to add, "Me."

Sirius didn't say anything. Instead, he reached across the table and placed a thin, cool hand over Remus'. He squeezed, a reassuring pressure of skin against skin, of dry fingertips pressing into old scars without flinching. They returned to their drinks—and the hand stayed where it was.

x X x

The hour grew late as Sirius and Remus moved their conversation onto less pertinent issues, chatting about old acquaintances or trivial Wizarding news until the menacing shadow at the bar gave up his watch and disappeared. They waited another hour, then Sirius polished off the remainder of his drink—the remainder of the bottle—with a satisfying smack of his lips.

"So, are you coming with me to Grimmauld?"

"Sirius…."

He waved an inebriated hand. "None o' that. Got an extra bedroom on the fourth floor—right next to Snape, the tosser, if you can withstand his presence."

Remus considered the offer and decided he really was too tired to Floo all the way back to Hogwarts, and he wasn't sure his companion was in a fit state to get back home in one piece on his own. His splinched bits would probably end up scattered across Piccadilly. "Yes, alright."

Sirius settled the tab with Tom, the bartender, before they stepped into the alley out behind the Leaky Cauldron and linked arms. The ease with which Sirius gave himself over to Remus' care was disconcerting, like an old jumper he'd tried on with the expectation of it not fitting, only to find it more comfortable than ever. Remus didn't know what to make of it, and he shrugged Sirius off when they arrived in the park across from Grimmauld, Number Twelve looming dark and ominous and unfriendly before them. The city groaned with noise in the distance, but this street laid quiet in the arms of a humid summer night, the Muggles all abed, their lights dimmed and shuttered. Insects buzzed in the bushes, and the dry grass crunched under their shoes.

"Hey, Moony?" Sirius asked as they crossed the road, his gait stuttering as they reached the kerb. He had to fish out an old iron key from his waistcoat and hand it over to Remus to get the front door open. Remus had been to Grimmauld before years in the past, but he found the foyer hadn't changed much. It was cleaner, perhaps, with a pair of girl's shoes left by the umbrella stand. He thought the tartan cloak on the hook might belong to McGonagall, forgotten sometime earlier in the week.

"Yes?"

"D'you think things can ever go back to the way they were? Before?"

"I don't think this is a conversation to have when you're three sheets to the wind—mind the step!"

Sirius managed the stoop, though he had to grab hold of Remus' shoulder when he tripped on the raised threshold. "Bloody house is trying to kill me," he snarled, flicking disheveled hair from his eyes. "But I've got my wand now. D'you hear that, you minging heap? You pile of planks and hippogriff dung? It's war, now!"

Naturally, the house didn't answer, though Remus thought it felt decidedly more ghoulish than it had a minute prior. With their luck, the house-elf heads would reanimate and try to eat them. "I see you remember the discussion about speaking with Elara before making any rash decisions about the house."

"Hell." Sirius made for the stairs and slid on the carpet, nearly toppling arse over elbows.

"Merlin, Padfoot. Let's get you up to bed."

With his arm once more linked through the other wizard's, Remus helped him climb the stairs and braced a hand on the railing to keep his balance. Sirius slurred imprecations about the covered portrait on the first landing but otherwise said nothing until they reached the next floor, at which point he tugged on Remus until he stopped, gesturing at the light spilling out from under one of the closed doors.

"That's Harriet's room," he said. "She shouldn't be up, should she? It's gone midnight by now."

"No, she shouldn't," Remus agreed, considering. He let go of Sirius to cross the landing and gently rapped a knuckle against the door, calling, "Harriet? Are you awake?"

No answer. He tried again to a similar result—and Sirius leaned off the wall, grabbing the door's handle.

"She probably nodded off and left the candles lit. Merlin knows I've done it enough times—."

"Sirius, wait—."

The door creaked open—.

"Harriet, are you—?"

Sirius' question cut off with a sudden, startled shout as he fumbled for his wand—and Remus gasped as seven feet of living, hissing serpent reared off Harriet's empty bed and bared monstrous fangs in their direction. Had Sirius been sober, his spell would have probably lit the linens alight, but instead, it shattered the window and tore the curtains. Harriet came leaping out of her trunk at the bed's foot—James' old trunk, Remus recognized—and yelled "Don't hurt him!" as she threw herself between Sirius and the furious, venom-spewing beast.

Remus almost suffered his second heart attack of the night when something started screaming down below, and a door threw itself open overhead, footsteps pounding down the steps. Mussed by sleep and dressed in her night things, Elara appeared from one of the other doors on the landing, and Snape swept into view from the stairwell, still dressed in his daytime attire. Remus had to wonder for half a delirious moment if there was credence to the rumor of him being a vampire, as it really seemed Snape never bloody slept.

"What the fuck is that?! Godric's gonads, Harriet, get away—!"

"Miss Black, will you go shut your grandmother up—?"

"Leave Livi alone!"

Harriet wrapped her thin arms around the snake's neck, bringing its head closer to her chest—and to Remus' astonishment, it stopped hissing and vibrating with rage, though its sharp eyes never left Sirius, its tongue flickering in indignation. Elara stomped downstairs, down toward the screaming, rude diatribe emanating from a familiar voice, and it cut off with a flourish of rustling fabric. Snape yanked Sirius back by the collar—earning a short, startled curse—and peered into the bedroom. He scoffed.

"All this drama over a pet, Black? How insipid."

"That's not a ruddy pet! What on earth—?!"

Harriet set about gathering the angry black serpent into her arms, looping together far too many coils over her arm. "This is, err, Livius," she explained, stepping around the broken glass on the floor. "Sorry, I didn't mention him before, but—um—he's my familiar. I didn't steal him, I swear."

Sirius sputtered and choked, torn between what to explode over first, his face pale and glistening with nervous sweat. "That's not a familiar, Harriet, that's a venomous, wild animal!" He glowered at Snape. "How could you let her keep that thing in here?!"

"I don't let Potter do anything. I'm not her nanny." Snape gave his wand a lazy flick, repairing the window and tattered curtains. "She's a Parselmouth, Black."

"A Parselmou—?!"

Harriet had at last gathered the snake together and tucked it under the sheets, pulling the thicker eiderdown over its horned head. She turned—and blushed, sneaking glances at the clothes and personal items strewn about the floor and dresser. There was a box of feminine products on the rug, and she kicked it under the bed with considerable force. "What're you doing in my room anyway?" she demanded. "I didn't let you in here!"

Sirius and Remus both shared abashed, uncomfortable looks. "We were checking on you," Remus said. "It's quite late, and we saw your candles were still lit."

"What are you doing still awake, Potter?" Snape demanded as he crossed his arms and raised an imperious brow. "Decided to do a bit of midnight cleaning?"

Harriet's blush deepened, and her green eyes flashed behind her spectacles. "Shove off, Snape! It's none of your bloody business!" she shouted. "And get out of my room!"

A raw burst of magic threw the door shut in their faces, plunging the corridor into darkness once more aside for the bar of candlelight lingering at the threshold.

"Brilliant," Elara intoned from behind the trio of wizards, her tone dripping disdain. "You've intruded on her privacy and threatened her familiar in one go. Truly brilliant."

"And no one thought to tell me about this familiar?" Sirius retorted, ignoring Snape's sudden, inexplicable retreat. Remus watched him go, pondering the odd look in the man's black eyes when Harriet had addressed him directly. It had only lasted for a moment, but teaching with the man for a year had shown Remus how infrequent such flares of emotion were for the Potions Master. It was telling. "No one thought to tell me there was a ruddy monster in the house?! What in the world even is that thing?! How was I supposed to react to that?!"

"You never asked." Elara returned to her room, pausing before entering. "I have a familiar as well, if you wanted to know. An owl," she added. "He's not friendly."

"Of course bloody not."

Her door snapped shut, leaving Sirius and Remus alone. Sirius stared after his daughter—their daughter—for one long, lingering, silent moment, then turned heel and headed back downstairs. Remus followed, sighing, and wondered how long it would take for him to remember there was no liquor in the house.

Not long at all.

A/N: Meanwhile, back at Hogwarts:

Dumbledore, sitting up in bed: "Ah poop, I forgot to tell them about the snake!"

Dumbledore: "…."

Dumbledore, laying back down: "Oh well, they'll figure it out."