[A/N: Just so you know, I have some family stuff coming up and then we're taking a long vacation to Japan, so this will be the last chapter I post for awhile. Realistically, I probably could post in two weeks, but you would not appreciate the cliffhanger if I did so. (TBH, you probably won't appreciate the cliffhanger even when you know the next chapter will be up in a week, but them's the {chapter} breaks.) I hope you all have a great few weeks and I'll post more when I return.]

True to her word, Hestia did show up for work the next day, and for the next week she and Sirius worked overtime to clear out some of the last remaining cursed artefacts and Dark magic from 12 Grimmauld Place. Finally, they came to the part Sirius had been putting off: the bedrooms.

"On second thought," Sirius said as they stared at the door with an old bronze nameplate emblazoned with his name, "let's not do my bedroom. It is a silly place."

Hestia rolled her eyes. "That was such a strange movie, and the ending made no sense! No using quotations from it to get out of doing work."

"I'm just not sure it's really necessary. Maybe you could take a break and I could do it myself."

"Not a chance," she replied. "No unnecessary risks. We have no idea what might be in there and I don't want either of us operating alone in this house. I've seen enough Dark and cursed artefacts in the last couple of months to last me a lifetime."

"I wouldn't have left any of those in my bedroom, though!" Sirius said.

She arched her eyebrows. "Would Kreacher?"

Sirius sighed. "Fine, let's go in. Just…don't look too closely at the walls." He opened the door and Hestia walked in. The witch cast a battery of detection spells as she moved, and Sirius had to admit she didn't seem to pay one whit of attention to the walls or anything else until the detection spells all indicated there was no threat.

"The Gryffindor Common Room floo'd," she said when she finished casting. "It wants its furniture back."

"Very funny." Sirius looked around at all of the Gryffindor banners on the wall, the Gryffindor-coloured scarlet and gold bedspread, and scarlet and gold curtains, though the colours were somewhat muted by the thick layer of dust everywhere. "I was the first member of my family not to sort into Slytherin. I had to either have some pride in that or walk around with my tail between my legs for the rest of my life."

"I understand…though I think this is the first time I've ever heard anyone use that figure of speech and actually mean it," Hestia said.

Sirius chuckled. "Yeah. So…um…sorry about the posters."

"Were these also to stick it to your family?" Hestia gestured expansively at the posters of scantily clad women covering the walls so thickly they'd functionally replaced the wallpaper.

"Well, that and I liked them." Sirius scratched at the back of his head awkwardly. "It was fun to make Regulus uncomfortable, too. He was a blood bigot and hated how attractive he found them all."

"I admit that sounds kind of funny," Hestia said.

"It was, but I think that joke's over." Sirius raised his wand and cast the Counter-Charm to the obscure Permanent Sticking Charm he'd used, and all of the posters began to flutter to the ground. Another wave of his wand caught them all and floated the pile onto the bed. "I want to go through those just in case James or someone wrote anything on one, but after that I'll get rid of them."

"It's your business what you do with them," Hestia said evenly.

"I know, and I'm getting rid of them," Sirius said.

She nodded and began casting detection spells on all of the large items in the room, just in case the door had blocked anything. Sirius cast the more basic detection spells for doxies and giant spiders to ensure nothing interrupted them while keeping an eye on their surroundings, which allowed Hestia to focus on the more advanced detection magic. After about ten minutes, though, she stopped and nodded.

"This room is clear," she said. "I guess there's something to the old cursebreaking adage that Dark calls to Dark. You've probably the Lightest room in this whole house."

"I'm afraid so," Sirius said. "That's another reason my mother threw me out."

"She was awful." Hestia nodded. "I don't believe it took me and Dobby to get her stupid portrait down."

"I do. She was definitely the kind of person who would want to inflict herself on as many future generations as possible."

"Lovely." Hestia gestured at the door. "Shall we investigate the other bedroom?"

"I suppose." Sirius sighed.

"What's wrong?"

"Everything about it reminds me how I failed my younger brother. He was a decent kid and I tried to shield him from our parents, but I couldn't always and after I was thrown out I couldn't help him at all. He later joined up with Voldemort and died in the war." He looked down at his feet, at the familiar old walnut flooring. "The Dementors used to torture me with the idea that I could have prevented that had I been stronger."

"That's awful!" Hestia put her hand on his arm. "You endured more in that house than any child should have had to endure. You can't blame yourself for the fact you couldn't undergo even more torture for the barest chance to have helped your brother choose a different path. You did more than anyone else would have, and, even with your horrible parents, your brother does bear some responsibility for the path he eventually chose."

"I know," Sirius said, "but it's hard for me to think of him as anything besides a little kid, not someone who deserved to die for what he'd done."

"Maybe you're lucky you didn't see much of him after you were thrown out, then," Hestia said. "You get to keep the memories you have of him as a child, not the man he was growing into."

"Maybe. That's depressing to think about. And awful. Depressing and awful."

"That's a good summary of the whole war." Hestia sighed. "Come on, let's get this over with. I hate to say this, but stay on your guard. It sounds like he was significantly Darker than you were, so we don't know what might have been attracted to his room since he passed."

"Understood." Sirius gripped his wand more tightly and followed the witch to Reg's door. A sign hanging above it stated, in superb quillmanship, "Do Not Enter Without the Express Permission of Regulus Arcturus Black."

Hestia ignored the sign and cast an Unlocking Charm on the door, causing it to swing open. The curtains and bedclothes were all emerald and silver, and the Black Family Motto "Toujours Pur" was painted on the top of the intricately carved mahogany headboard. Next to the bed was an ornate writing desk in silver-accented mahogany. Its lift-top was closed, but Sirius remembered it could open and fold up, allowing the user to pull out a writing surface concealed inside and also to access some of the various drawers and compartments toward the rear.

"What is it with you two and stealing your house's decorating style?" Hestia asked.

"It was probably his way of showing our parents he wasn't me," Sirius said.

"That's certainly plausible." Hestia started casting her usual battery of detection spells, but stopped almost immediately. "Merlin!"

"What's wrong?" Sirius asked.

"There's something awful in here," Hestia. "I have no idea what, but it's swamping my detection spells."

"What sort of thing could do that?"

"Nothing," she said shakily. "That shouldn't be possible." She cast another spell and stared at the weave of light it left hanging in the air in front of her. "Whatever it is, it's in the desk."

"That's a start," Sirius said. "Do you want me to open the drawers till we find it?"

"No!" Hestia grabbed him with her free hand. "Don't even think about it. Let me levitate the desk into the empty bedroom on the other side of this one, away from yours. We just cleared that, so we won't have to worry about anything attacking us while our backs are turned. Once we have the main Dark item out of this room and dealt with, cleanup in here will be simpler."

"That works for me. I'll get out of your way so you can move the desk." Sirius stepped forward from the doorway to make room for the desk to go through.

Hestia nodded, made a tight little swish-and-flick motion with her wand, and the desk leapt a few inches off the floor. As soon as it did, the lift top burst open and a black cloud rushed out of it. The witch lost her concentration on the Levitation Charm as the cloud coalesced into a twenty-one-year-old James Potter covered in dirt and rotting skin, and the desk clattered back to the ground.

"Your family was right to throw you out!" Potter said venomously. "We took you in and you got us killed. We should—"

Sirius staggered a step backward and let his back slide down the wall as he collapsed. "I'm sorry, James, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I—"

"Enough!" Hestia stepped in front of him and levelled her wand at Potter. "Rid—"

Potter whirled back into a black mist and spun back out again into a short, middle-aged woman with her greying, dark hair tied up in a bun on top of her head and wearing a long, conservative dark green dress with a white apron.

"Ungrateful wretch!" she screeched at Hestia. "We found you a perfectly good husband and you spurned him! Too good for your family, are you?"

"No! It's just…he was twice my age!" Hestia's wand wavered.

"And had a steady income! You'd never have wanted for anything if you'd married him, but now? Your 'career' is going to disintegrate and you'll end up penniless in Knockturn Alley, you will, and we won't lift a finger to help you! You had your chance."

"No…I can do this…"

"Your only work so far has been from charity, and when that runs out, so will your food. You think you're special because of your education? You're nothing! Give it up and come crawling back and maybe I can find you a sexagenarian who's still energetic enough for a wife."

The ranting finally penetrated Sirius's skull, and he lunged to his feet. "Get the fuck away from her!" he roared at the boggart as he stepped between it and Hestia.

The woman in front of him swirled into mist and then back into James. "—should have let you starve—"

Sirius's only response was to level his wand at it and say, "Riddikulus."

A wave four feet wide and eight feet high of tiny glass pigs filled with glittery dust rose from the floor, and, oinking a crude version of Wagner's "Ride of the Valkyries," surged into 'Potter's' body and brought it crashing to the floor.

"Huh," Sirius said. "Never seen that happen before."

"The glitter," 'Potter' groaned, "it burns!"

Sirius had to pause for a moment to remember the Boggart-Banishing Charm, mostly because the groans and Wagnerian oinks from in front of him were incredibly distracting, but after about twenty seconds he finally pieced it together and expelled the stupid thing from his house.

Now that the oinking had stopped, Sirius could hear the sobbing behind him and turned around to find Hestia leaning back against the doorframe, trying and failing to compose herself. Three quick strides brought him to her.

"I'm sorry you had to deal with that," he said. His free left hand twitched upward to touch her cheek, but he stopped it with a firm thought of "employee."

She laughed bitterly between sobs. "I'm sorry you had to deal with it. I'm your cursebreaker! I should be able to handle a fucking boggart. I used to be able to handle a fucking boggart…" she trailed off into another sob.

"I should have been able to handle it, too," Sirius said. "My life has gotten a lot worse since the last time I faced one for my N.E.W.T.s, and I suspect yours has, too. Do you want to talk about it?"

Hestia shook her head. "It's pathetic."

"I know a lot more than most people about awful parents," Sirius said.

"I suppose you do." She sniffled again. "Alright. I don't think I can deal with whatever's in that desk right now, regardless."

Sirius nodded and took her hand. "Come on, my room's right here and it's safe."

She followed unresistingly as he led her into his bedroom, pausing only to cast a Locking Charm on Regulus's old door to ensure whatever else might be in there stayed put for a bit. A wave of Sirius's wand moved the stack of questionable posters from his bed to the top of the walnut highboy, and another wave began the Scouring Charm to syphon dust off of all of the sitting surfaces in the room. Hestia waited patiently as a stream of dust was sucked into Sirius's wand.

And kept flowing.

Thirty long seconds later, Hestia was slightly less patient. "Do you want help?" she asked.

"I can clean my own room," Sirius said.

She waited another thirty seconds with a gradually growing grin on her face. "Are you…um…sure about that?"

"Yes," Sirius said, making sure to make that word sound as petulant as he could. Thirty seconds of streaming dust later, he added, "Oh, come on!"

"My offer of help has been rescinded," Hestia said. "I'm now invested in how long this is going to take you."

"I didn't think it was this dirty," Sirius said.

Another thirty seconds passed.

"I'm really sorry," Sirius said.

"No, no, this is actually kind of amazing," Hestia replied.

The flow of dust petered out another minute later to the sound of soft applause. Sirius glared at the witch next to him. "That really wasn't necessary."

"It really was," she responded cheekily.

"Humph." Sirius glared at her for a moment before finally allowing himself to smirk.

Hestia blinked. "Wait…you set that up?"

"Not entirely. I really was trying to clean it quickly in that first minute, but once you started smiling, I weakened my intent to see if I could drag it out and cheer you up a bit. I thought you might need a good laugh."

"Oh, Sirius!" She threw her arms around his chest and hugged him tightly. "You're amazing. I keep promising myself I won't underestimate you and I keep doing it anyway."

"It's instinct on my part. Academic recognition is something my parents would have liked, so I never wanted any." He sighed. "Speaking of parents, would you like to talk about yours?"

Hestia released him and nodded. "I think so. If…if you don't mind."

"Of course I don't. Have a seat." He gestured to the bed and leaned back against the wall. His teenage self's plan to remove all chairs in the room to discourage family visitors was coming back to bite him.

"Thank you." She sat down and looked at him. "I don't want to make you stand in your own room."

"I'm fine, really."

"Sirius." Hestia patted the bed next to her. "Sit."

He nodded and sat down next to her, trying very hard to focus on the fact she was his employee and not a beautiful woman sitting next to him on his bed.

"I didn't quite tell the truth about why I left my Ministry job," she told him. "My parents thought I was throwing my life away by not marrying before I turned twenty-five and found one of their friends who was, and I quote, 'willing to marry me anyway.' He used some of his connections to get me a bad performance review, and I knew I'd be let go on the next one. I'd always been interested in cursebreaking, so I started studying it intensely and resigned right before the next review was to have started. This was my way out."

"And you still risked it to stand up for Hermione," Sirius said.

"I didn't tolerate that sort of behaviour when I was Head Girl and I wasn't about to start then," Hestia said. "I'd have made it work somehow."

Sirius's determination to see her as his employee slipped just enough for the words "You're amazing" to leap from his mouth.

She blushed. "Not at all. 'Amazing' would be a cursebreaker who could stand up to a bloody boggart and didn't lie to you about her previous employment. Or yell at you for kidnapping a child for that matter. That was none of my business."

"It was absolutely your business, and I respect you tremendously for being willing to stand up to me for potentially putting Neville in danger." Sirius left his wand on his lap and took her left hand in his right as he spoke, looking her in the eyes the whole time so she could see that he meant it. "And it's not your fault that guy was an arsehole who tried to run you out of a job so you'd be forced to come crawling to him. I'm never going to let him win, do you hear me? I don't care what it costs, I'm going to ruin him and you're never, ever going to need to beg him for anything."

Hestia's mouth opened slightly and Sirius suddenly rethought the wisdom of staring deeply into his employee's eyes while seated next to her on a bed. Before he could back away, though, she asked, "Why?"

"Why?" Sirius responded dumbly. Something about the look in her eyes was making it hard for him to think straight.

"I want you to tell me why."

"Because that guy's an arsehole and deserves what's coming to him," Sirius said quickly.

She smiled. "You know you've never been able to lie to me, Sirius."

"It's not entirely a lie," Sirius said, possibly a touch defensively.

"I know." Her smile was even bigger now. "Next door is the last room I need to work on for you."

He nodded. Something about the smile on her face had him barely able to breathe, much less speak.

"I'm going to do that one for free, as a bonus for all of the work you've paid me for. So, that's it. I'm off the clock…"

She leaned up and closer to him as she spoke. "…as of…"

Her mouth was so close to his that he could feel her breath tickling his moustache. "…right now."

That broke whatever spell had been holding him in place and he leaned forward just as she did, capturing her lips with his own. Their hands released simultaneously, as well, to better pull themselves closer as the kiss turned into the most intense snog of his life. As his hands started to wander a little, he accidentally brushed smooth, bare skin in the small of her back between the bottom of her blouse and the top of her skirt and she moaned into his mouth.

That shocked Sirius to his senses and he broke off the kiss, which Hestia didn't seem to appreciate. "What's wrong?" she asked.

"I…I'm sorry, I don't want to take advantage of you," he said.

"You're not." She put her hands on his cheeks. "I've wanted to do this for months now, and I nearly took advantage of you after the night Lockhart attacked us."

He blinked. "Oh! So that's why you were acting a little odd after the Aurors left."

"'A little odd'?" Hestia laughed and Sirius had to smile at how her normal, clear, musical laugh had returned. "I had never wanted a man like that before." She pulled his lips gently down toward hers. "Do you want to know a secret, Sirius?"

The tightness in Sirius's pants was now matched only by the tightness in his chest, and all he could do was whisper, "Yes."

She pulled his lips closer to hers. "I want you even more right now."

Those were the last coherent words either of them said for a solid hour.

Much, much later that night, after Sirius and Hestia had drifted off into a contented sleep, Sirius found himself dreaming of the first time he'd ever really been away from his family. He'd been nervous as he stepped onto Platform 9 3/4, but then he'd met James Potter on the train and suddenly the possibility of a life as more than an awful, bigoted Black opened up in front of him and he grabbed on with both hands.

This wasn't quite the same as he remembered it, though. The platform was empty and the Hogwarts Express wasn't even there yet. As he looked around, confused, it pulled up to the platform and a single man got out.

He was older than he'd been when Sirius had last seen him, with a smattering of grey hair around his temples and a bit more weight around his stomach, but Sirius would have known him anywhere.

He would have known his brother anywhere.

"Good to see you, Padfoot," James Potter said. "Honestly, it's about time we had this conversation."

"Prongs…" Sirius's eyes teared up and, before he even realised what was happening he'd latched onto James and started bawling his eyes out.

"It's alright, mate." James patted him on the back.

Sirius cried for what seemed like ten minutes before he could finally speak. "It should have been me," he said, and started crying again.

"It wasn't, though," James told him. "I won't say I'm happy with how things turned out, not by a long shot, but they are how they are. You can't change the past. The important thing is that I'm proud of you in the present, Pads."

"You…you are?"

James took him by the shoulders and held him at arm's length so he could look him in the eyes. "Yes, I am. You're a fantastic godfather to Harry and to his witch, too."

"I feel like I have no idea what I'm doing and literally anyone else in the world would be better at it," Sirius replied.

"Perfect!" James smiled. "That's what all parents feel."

"Really? Even Lily?"

"Oh, Merlin, especially Lily. She was a mess before Harry was born. Made Wormtail go out and buy us all kinds of parenting books, mostly by that Dr. Spock guy, remember?"

"Oh, right. It's just…she seemed so confident."

"Only after she'd memorised those books." James released Sirius's shoulders and gave him a pat. "You've got this, mate, especially now that you've finally let go of your grief for us."

Sirius blinked. "You're…not mad that I drowned my boggart of you in a wave of the Lovegoods' Moon Frog Attractors?"

"Mad?" James guffawed. "That was the funniest thing we've seen in years! Lily is trying to figure out how to make glitter dust in the afterlife so she can throw it at me when I'm being a plonker." His mien turned serious. "You did the right thing by choosing to protect your witch rather than drowning in your grief."

"But…some days I feel like that grief is all I have left of you," Sirius said. "Some memories are already fading and those damn Dementors didn't help that process. I…I don't want to lose you."

"It's alright, really," James said. "The important thing is that you're making new memories with Harry and Hermione…and Hestia, too. We'll have plenty of time to catch up later."

Sirius nodded firmly. "Got it. Thank you, James. Assuming you're really James and I haven't just lost my mind after being shagged senseless, that is."

"Does it matter?" James shot him the "I know something you don't know" smirk that used to enrage Lily.

"Of course it does!" Sirius said.

"Assume I'm a figment of your shagged-out imagination," James said. "If the real James Potter were here, do you think he would have said a single word differently in this entire conversation?"

Sirius stared at him.

James grinned. "You get it now."

All Sirius could do in response was hug him again and start crying.

"It's alright, really," James said after a few minutes. He gently extracted himself and clapped Sirius on his shoulders. "You've got this."

"It's just…I'll miss you," Sirius said.

"We miss you, too, Padfoot, but we'll see you again eventually. In the meantime, take care of our son and his fiancée for us."

Sirius winced. "Yeah, sorry about that one. We got him out of the engagement, though."

James shot him that smirk again. "Oh, right. Silly me, forgetting that."

"I literally saw them break the engagement." Sirius had forgotten how much of an arsehole James could be. Merlin, he missed that man.

"Then everything is absolutely fine," James said. "Oh, and thank you for taking care of Neville for us, too. I know that was a tough one, but I think you made the right call there."

"Thank you," Sirius said. That was a relief, at le—

"James Potter!" an irate, familiar voice shouted from the train.

"Lily…um…may have disagreed with me on that one," James added.

Sirius laughed. "Thank you, and tell Lily I'll listen to Hestia more from now on."

"You'd better!" she shouted back from the train. He'd forgotten how much he missed Lily, too.

Sirius laughed again and took one last look at James. "Thank you," he told him. "Thank you both for everything"

James nodded. "And thank you for taking care of the children." The train whistle blew behind him. "I've a train to catch. Goodbye, Sirius."

"Goodbye, James." Sirius watched him board the Express and stood there waving as it pulled out of the station. It got blurry as it chugged off, though Sirius wasn't sure if that was the dream or his eyes filling with tears.

When he awoke, the room was dark with just a bit of London's light pollution creeping in around the curtains. A nude Hestia was asleep next to him and using his left arm as a body pillow. She stirred when he did, seemed startled for a moment, then gave him a soft smile.

"Are you alright?" She reached up to touch his face. "Sirius…you're crying. Is something wrong? Did I—"

He caught her hand and placed a kiss on her palm. "No, no, love, everything is perfect. I woke up from a good dream into an even better one."

Hestia had gone still when he'd taken her hand and her breath caught when he called her "love." "Really?" she asked.

"Really," Sirius said.

"Oh, Sirius!" She pulled his head toward her and kissed him passionately.

Somewhere in the far distance, a train whistle wailed, and all was right with the world.

Miranda had just put a full tray of frozen toad-in-the-hole in the oven when there was an unexpected knock on the front door. She hurried over and saw a rumpled Sirius and Hestia through the peephole, so she pulled the door open. "Hello!" she said. "I wasn't expecting you to come by today. Isaac's at Hapkido practice with the children. Please come in."

"That's why we came by now, actually." Sirius scratched the back of his head awkwardly with his right hand as he and Hestia walked into the foyer. His left hand, Miranda noticed, was holding Hestia's right.

"We…um…caught feelings," Hestia said.

"Oh, goodness," Miranda said. "I take it this wasn't a one-time thing?"

"It wasn't even a one-day thing," Sirius replied. "We've been at 12 Grimmauld Place for the past two days straight and barely left the bedroom."

"Two days?" Miranda sighed. "I do miss being younger sometimes. Aren't you starving, though?"

Hestia blushed and shook her head. "Not at all. Dobby's been wonderfully accommodating."

"He really has," Sirius added. "I think he's excited about the possibility of more little Blacks to spoil."

"Oh!" Hestia's blush deepened. "That's…disturbingly possible, actually."

Miranda furrowed her brows. "You're already thinking about children?"

"No," Sirius said, "but Dobby probably is."

The house elf in question popped up next to them wearing a tie-dyed t-shirt that hung down to his knees and mismatched orange and lime green socks. "Dobby definitely is!" he said enthusiastically, and popped away again.

Hestia put her free hand over her eyes and tried to hide her now incandescent blush. "Oh, Merlin."

"That was amazing," Sirius said. "I think we have the best house elf in the world."

"That was certainly something," Miranda said.

"Anyway," Hestia removed her hand from her eyes as she attempted to change the subject, "we realised we're both in way over our heads, to say nothing of the fact I was his employee until approximately one second before I kissed him, but we really want this to work out. We were hoping we could spend some time discussing our relationship with you, Isaac, and maybe the Tonks' and get some advice about dealing with things like finances. I mean, you know how Sirius is with money. He'd give me whatever I needed, but I don't want to feel like a kept woman."

Sirius shrugged. "It's a fair cop. We were talking earlier and realised how complicated some of this stuff could get. Since neither of us have much in the way of experience with adult relationships, we figured we should talk to some people who seem to be doing a good job with them."

"That's very kind of you to say," Miranda said. "Isaac and I would be happy to help."

"Great!" Sirius said. "We just have one more room to clear out at 12 Grimmauld Place. Why don't we all have an early dinner there on Sunday?"

"Um…that's Easter," Miranda said. "Also, Friday is Passover. I'd like to celebrate both with the children, not that we're particularly religious."

"Oops," Sirius said. "I'm sorry, the Wizarding World in general doesn't teach much about religion. How about Saturday, then?"

"That should be fine. Oh! We'll need a sitter. I'm sorry, Sirius, I'm just so used to imposing on you whenever we need a babysitter that I don't have anyone else to turn to on short notice now."

He looked down at the floor. "That's another thing I wanted to talk with you about, actually. I've spent every day since I got out of prison making Harry the sole focus of my life. I feel weird about splitting that focus, but at the same time I know James and Lily didn't expect me to devote my whole life to him. I wanted to ask you how you balanced your love for each other with your love for your children."

"That's a hard one to explain," Miranda said. "It's different for every family, too."

Sirius nodded. "I understand. Oh, and I think I can help with a sitter. If it's Easter, that means it's Easter hols at Hogwarts. Nymphadora will be home and I'm sure she'd be happy to keep an eye on the children."

"That's a great idea, thank you," Miranda said. "Wait…if you don't really know much about religion, why do you have Easter holidays at Hogwarts?"

"Mostly for Beltane," Hestia said. "I have no idea why they call them Easter holidays, though."

"Me, neither," Sirius said.

Miranda sighed. "I have so many questions," she muttered, apparently to herself. "Anyway, that sounds like a good plan. Could you confirm it with Nymphadora?"

"Of course," Sirius said. "I think she'll do a great job. The most interesting thing that will probably happen is that Hermione will want her to show her all of the stuff she's revising to prepare for her N.E.W.T.s."