A/N: This is my sequel story to 'A New Life (GOF)' written with Harry/Remus/Sirius POVs (usually in that order but things might change depending on the plot). But a quick summary for those who don't want to read a whole other story, basically Wormtail doesn't escape after POA, he is found guilty by the Wizengamot and sentenced to life imprisonment in Azkaban. Sirius struggles to officially adopt Harry as of course Dumbledore needs him to stay 'with the Dursleys' so that the magical protection borne of Lily's sacrifice continues to work and Harry can go on to fulfil the prophecy (though of course Sirius doesn't know this). The story is Sirius' attempt (with Remus) to achieve custody of Harry, which he eventually does by attempting to sacrifice himself when Barty Crouch Junior tries to kill Harry after the Triwizard Tournament. With the protection borne of this, Harry is living happily with him and Remus in their new home in Godric's Hollow. And that is where our story begins...
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Chapter One - A New Home
If someone had told Harry a year ago he'd be living in Godric's Hollow with two of his parents' best friends, he wouldn't have believed them.
Life with Sirius and Remus just felt too good to be true. Sirius had finally managed to obtain full custody of him after saving him from Barty Crouch Junior's killing curse the previous term, and now he was home for the summer holidays, enjoying every moment spent in the two men's company.
It had taken him a while to feel comfortable with Sirius. Of course he'd assumed the man had wanted to kill him for a year, and then even when it was revealed he was in fact innocent (and had been trying to kill Wormtail instead), it had taken Harry some time to trust him.
It wasn't that Sirius hadn't given him any reasons not to, but as the only caregivers Harry had any experience of were the Dursleys, of course a sane, rational adult was going to take some getting used to.
There was a loud bang followed by some colourful swearing from outside. Harry and Remus hurried into the garden to find Sirius had exploded yet another teapot he'd been attempting to transfigure.
"Blasted thing's impervious to my charms." Sirius said, frowning at the teapot.
Remus snorted. "Something has to be. Er, Sirius…" he began warningly as his friend repaired the vessel then pointed his wand at it with fresh determination.
But Sirius ignored him. There was another loud bang and the next thing they knew the air was filled with flying china. There came a shriek of alarm from the neighbours, who had presumably been outside attempting to enjoy the sunshine when they were doused in porcelain debris.
"Sorry!" Remus called over the fence.
He turned back to Sirius. "What was it Dumbledore said to you about you being a responsible guardian?"
Harry laughed. He didn't mind at all. Sirius did the one thing the Dursleys never had, he cared what happened to him.
He'd realised it on a number of occasions. His godfather's frightened anger when he'd snuck out without telling him one time, his impulsive throwing himself in front of Barty Crouch Junior's killing curse, but mostly it was in the small things.
"What would you like for dinner, Harry?" He asked now, entering the kitchen still with bits of china in his hair.
He always used Harry's name. He never seemed to get tired of saying it. And when he asked him a question he genuinely seemed to want to hear Harry's answer.
Though the answer Harry gave was often the same. "I don't mind." He said, quite honestly. It was already so good of Sirius to look after and cook for him. The least he could do was eat whatever was served.
Sirius rolled his eyes from Harry to Remus. "You know, you two might think you're being polite when you say that, but really it's bad manners to force the chef to make all the decisions."
Sirius tended to do most of the cooking in their house. He said he'd learned how when he moved in with Harry's grandparents and he seemed to enjoy it immensely.
"Oh leave him alone, Padfoot." Remus said, putting a protective hand on Harry's shoulder. "It is good manners. Don't listen to him Harry."
Sirius smiled warmly at Harry. "You can have anything you want. I promise."
Harry felt like he already did have everything he wanted.
His bedroom at the house they shared in Godric's Hollow was enormous, bigger than even Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon's had been at Privet Drive.
Sirius had also set up a makeshift quidditch stadium for him in the garden, and as it was a magical neighbourhood, he could fly his broom to his heart's content.
But more important than all of that, he was living with two people who adored him.
Harry knew Sirius and Remus had been his dad's best friends at Hogwarts. And though he didn't like hearing about the way his father had treated Snape, he still loved hearing them talk about him. Remus and Sirius spoke so much and so fondly about James it was almost as if he were there with them too.
"He'd have loved this." Remus said one night as the three of them sat in the garden, sunlight glinting off the gold quidditch hoops and the little gnomes they hadn't managed to banish scurrying around in the long grass.
"Having a quidditch pitch in the garden?" Harry asked. He knew his father had been a big fan of the sport too.
Sirius laughed. "Your dad cared almost as much about quidditch as he did his friends and family, but not quite." He smiled and put an arm around Harry's shoulders. "He'd have been so proud of you, Harry."
Harry nodded, keeping his eyes fixed firmly on the ground. He knew this. His dad had told him so when he'd seen the memory of him in the graveyard a few weeks ago. He'd come out of Voldemort's wand as one of the people he had murdered through priori incantatem.
Harry didn't like to think about Voldemort or what had happened in the graveyard if he could help it, but the memories kept coming back to him like the little garden gnomes they kept trying to be rid of.
He was having constant nightmares and more than once Sirius or Remus had come rushing into his bedroom after he must have cried out in his sleep.
Though the Dursleys would have shouted at him for waking them up, they were understanding.
"It's OK." Remus said, coming to sit with him on his bed as Sirius looked at him concernedly. "It was only a dream."
Harry's heart was still pounding and his mind still racing from images of Cedric's body and Voldemort rising from the cauldron. It had all seemed so real.
But though it felt good to be the one being looked after and told not to worry, whatever Sirius and Remus said, he still felt a duty to act.
He was the one who'd seen Voldemort's return to strength. He had fought him. He alone knew for sure that he was back. He couldn't sit comfortably at home while others fought a battle he had helped to start. For it was partly because of him that Voldemort had returned. He'd taken Harry's blood, hadn't he? He couldn't do nothing.
"You're to do nothing." Sirius told him, as stern as Harry had ever seen him, as he and Remus made to leave for London again.
Number twelve, Grimmauld Place was the headquarters of the Order of the Phoenix, which Sirius and Remus had helped reinstate with Dumbledore and the real Mad-Eye Moody, once he'd recovered from the ordeal of having been locked in a truck for a year, that is.
"Blasted eyeball's still not right." The man had said, popping the thing out and dunking it in a glass of water at their kitchen table.
"How couldn't I have seen it wasn't you?" Sirius said for the thousandth time, staring at his friend as if expecting to see an obvious answer written across his gnarled face.
"We don't always see what's right in front of us." Moody growled. "You know that, Black."
"But he had a sense of humour!" Sirius said incredulously. "Death eaters never have a sense of humour."
"Well, not any more he doesn't." Moody said darkly.
Harry shuddered involuntarily. He didn't like thinking what that dementor had done to Barty Crouch Junior when it had entered the castle with Fudge last term. The man was worse than dead.
"Let's talk about something else." Remus said. Changing the subject was something Remus did a lot with Harry around.
But though Harry listened with some curiosity about Dumbledore's attempts to find a new DADA teacher, he still would have preferred to have been included in conversations about the Order.
He hated being treated like a child. He'd faced Voldemort three times now hadn't he? Didn't he deserve to know what was going on?
"We'll take care of it." Sirius said to him again and again. "Just stay here and stay safe."
"Bit rich coming from him." Harry complained to Ron and Hermione when they came round to visit. It was a warm day in mid July and the three of them were sitting in the back garden eating ice creams. "He didn't exactly sit back and stay safe when on the run from the law, did he?"
"He cares about you." Hermione said. "And he's had a year to… catch up now."
Harry thought he knew what she meant by that. Sirius had changed in the year Harry had known him. When he'd first met his godfather he'd been rash and reckless, seeming at times more like a teenager than a man in his thirties. On some occasions Harry had felt like he was the adult of the two of them. But he had become more rational and calm as time went on. Perhaps now almost as responsible as Mrs Weasley.
Just before Harry's fifteenth birthday, Sirius, Remus and the Weasleys were spending so much time at the Order headquarters that it was decided they would move in there.
Harry didn't mind. He knew it was easier for the Order members to have the place occupied permanently and it meant he got to spend more time with Ron, Fred, George and Ginny.
Fred and George were just as frustrated at being kept in the dark about what the Order was up to as Harry was.
The twins had brought a couple of stringy flesh-like contraptions called 'extendable ears' with them to number twelve, Grimmauld Place, which they used to listen in on important meetings. So far they hadn't heard much of use, only something about a 'weapon' and who was going to be on guard duty.
Harry quickly became acquainted with the other Order members. There were those he'd already met - Dedalus Diggle and, to his surprise, the old cat-obsessed lady Mrs Figg who had looked after him when the Dursleys had been away. But there were others too - Sturgis Podmore, Mundungus Fletcher, Kingsley Shacklebolt and Nymphadora Tonks.
Some of the Order members stayed for dinner and so mealtimes were usually fun. Mrs Weasley took over the kitchen and they would all eat in there, which Sirius said he had always preferred to the more formal dining room upstairs.
Conversation was lively and cheerful, with Tonks doing impersonations of death eaters (Harry discovered she was a metamorphmagus and so could change her appearance at will) or Mundungus giving the Weasley twins tips on how to get their hands on items that might help their skiving snackboxes.
They were halfway through pudding when Sirius and Arthur Weasley began discussing Order business.
Harry, who was sitting next to his godfather, listened curiously to their conversation.
"We have to be careful, Sirius." Arthur cautioned. "This is why Dumbledore told us to stay at headquarters. We need to gather information."
"Arthur, we have all the information we need." Sirius said impatiently. "We know Malfoy's a death eater and we know where he lives. I say we execute another raid. There must be something we can use to bring him in for questioning with."
"I don't disagree with you, but you know Dumbledore wants us to focus our attention on the ministry. Did you have any luck following Avery the other day?"
"Avery?" Harry asked curiously, but Mrs Weasley, who seemed to have been listening too, cut across him.
"I don't think we need to be discussing this at the dinner table, thank you." She said, frowning at Sirius and her husband. "Harry's far too young to be involved in this conversation. It's not at all appropriate for someone his age."
"I'm nearly fifteen!" Harry argued.
"I think Molly's right." Sirius said and Mrs Weasley looked a little surprised. "We shouldn't be discussing this here."
"It's so unfair." Harry complained later that night to Ron, who he was sharing a room with. "Sirius didn't fight Voldemort in that graveyard. I deserve to know what's been going on. Why has he gone all…" he gestured as he tried to find a word to describe Sirius' behaviour. "Parent-y on me all of a sudden?"
"Welcome to my world, mate." Ron said, rolling his eyes with an exasperated sigh. "They still treat us like kids. It's ridiculous."
Harry sighed too. He was grateful to have Sirius as his godfather and guardian now, but he'd survived for thirteen years without him, hadn't he?
Ron was right. They weren't children. And if Sirius and Mrs Weasley wouldn't tell them what was going on, they'd just have to find out for themselves.
Unfortunately, neither adult was impressed by the extendable ears.
"If I catch another of these in the house again then I'll send you all back to The Burrow." Mrs Weasley snapped on discovering them eavesdropping on another Order meeting.
Harry looked at Sirius. He was glaring at him. "What she said." He said, jerking a thumb at Mrs Weasley.
"But it's so unfair!" Harry said, quite unable to help himself. "You never let me do anything. I'm not a kid you know. I can be useful!"
"We've been through this, Harry." Sirius said. "You're not to get involved."
"You joined the Order when you were seventeen." Harry said mutinously.
"Fine. Ask me again in two years."
"I've already fought Voldemort three times!"
"Yes and I'll never forgive myself for that." Sirius said. "Harry," he said, "you shouldn't have had to have fought Voldemort. That ought to have been my job."
Harry knew Sirius blamed himself for not being there to raise him after his parents died. It had been his idea to switch to Wormtail as their secret keeper. And though Harry didn't blame him, he'd still had to fend for himself. And he'd managed, hadn't he?
"I wish you'd stop treating me like a child."
Sirius smiled. "Sorry." He said. "But I've fought too long to keep you safe. You're not going to change my mind on this now."
And so Harry, Ron and the others had taken to spending their time playing exploding snap, gobstones or else finishing their holiday homework.
Harry's fifteenth birthday was spent in the company of the other Order members, Hermione, Ron and the Weasleys. Mrs Weasley made an enormous birthday cake and they celebrated with balloons, butterbeer and party games.
Harry clutched his sides with laughter as Mrs Weasley, Hermione and Ginny acted out an impression of 'The Weird Sisters' band and Sirius' impersonation of a grindylow had them all in stitches too.
He went to bed that night feeling happy, appreciated and cared for. It was quite hard to feel resentful towards Sirius for not letting him take a more active role in the Order. At least not when he finally had everything he wanted. A new home with adults who cared for him.