Love, Probably.

James stood up at the front of the crematorium and looked at the screen behind him with his favourite picture of Lily on it. It had been taken when Harry was a toddler, and he’d just managed to capture Lily watching their son wiggle precariously to music with a look of pure joy on her face. He pressed his lips together and took a deep breath before turning to face the congregation.

“On behalf of Harry and I, I’d just like to thank you all for being here with us today. As you know, Lily and I had a long time to prepare for this moment. She had a long list of demands for what today should be like. A lot of them, for example, bringing Taylor Swift as my date to the funeral, she expected me to ignore. At least I hope she did, because I didn’t send Taylor an invitation… But others, she was pretty insistent on.” He paused and ran a hand through his hair, leaving it sticking up wildly on one side. “When she first told me about what’s about to happen, I said ‘over my dead body’, and she said ‘No, Jamie, over mine’. And as usual, my beautiful wife... Harry’s beautiful mum, was right on the money. So she’s not going to say goodbye to you through me, but, naturally, through the immortal genius of Queen.”

He nodded resolutely and shot Harry and Sirius a semi-helpless smile before stepping away from the lectern.

Suddenly the unmistakable baseline of Another One Bites The Dust blasted through the chapel speakers, and a slideshow of photos of Lily, James, Sirius, Harry, Fleamont, Euphemia, and Pete over the last fifteen years. Sirius, sitting up on the balcony of the chapel, out of sight, with his arm around Harry didn’t know whether to laugh or cry, so he did an approximation of both and spluttered uncontrollably.

Harry hadn’t cried in days, and it had been worrying both James and Sirius. James had decided to take a short sabbatical to help Harry adjust to life without his mum. As if that was something that one could just adjust to within a few weeks, especially as a ten-year-old. Sirius regretted the timing immensely, as after the funeral, he was starting a new job, and a pretty important job at that, and having pushed back the start until the afternoon, there was no way he could be late, but he just wanted to stay and hold James and Harry, to do anything he could for them. But he couldn’t even attend Lily’s wake that afternoon.

James appeared behind them and pulled both of them into a hug, both men breaking down again.

🌙✨🎄✨🌙

As Sirius’ car pulled up outside Number Ten Downing Street, he checked his face in his phone camera. Any signs that he’d been sobbing with James over his dead wife less than an hour ago were gone, and he just had to get through the next six hours until he could break down again.

He took in the media and public-lined streets and sighed before schooling his expression into something friendly yet humble, and stepped out of the car waving and smiling at the throngs waiting there for him. He turned one last time on the step outside the front door to wave before entering the house. Once the door closed behind him, he lessened the mask a little. A woman who looked to be a similar age to him approached him.

“Welcome, Prime Minister.” She said. “I’m Amelia Bones, we spoke on the phone last week.”

Sirius felt his demeanour soften, “Wow, Prime Minister… that still sounds so strange. Yes, sorry, hello Amelia, wonderful to put a face to the name.”

“How are you feeling? I understand you had a family commitment this morning.” She looked at him sympathetically.

“Yes, well, not ideal for the first day on the job, but I can’t very well blame my sister-in-law for her terrible timing when it comes to dying, can I?” He laughed a little bitterly.

Her face dropped, she had no idea what she could even say to that. Not to mention, she couldn't exactly comment on anyone's relationship with their sister-in-law given the way her morning had gone.

“Sorry, dark humour. Never mind.” He mumbled, “I’m a little dazed to finally be here but I’m sure I’ll get the hang of things quickly. How are you? Hope my delay in starting the day hasn’t caused too much chaos or affected anyone too badly.”

“A few staff members will be leaving early due to childcare arrangements, but anyone essential has agreed to stay later to ensure we can cover everything today. Speaking of the staff. Would you like to meet them?”

“Oh, yes please.” Sirius smiled. “I should warn you, I’m useless with names.”

She smiled tightly at him before leading him towards a line of people. He suddenly felt like the queen, greeting people at a gala, or the couple doing a receiving line at their wedding. Shit, he must remember to call Reg later and congratulate him. How on earth three life-altering events all happened to occur on this day would baffle him, possibly forever.

“This is Rubeus.” Amelia introduced a man who towered over everyone and was built like a brick shit house, as James’ mum would have said.

“Hello Rubeus, I do hope you work in security!” Sirius chuckled.

“I do, sir. It's a pleasure to be here.” His accent was possibly Cornish, maybe Devonian, but it was warm and Sirius found himself smiling.

“Glad to have you on board.”

“Pomona, Sir. Housekeeper.” A stout lady curtsied in front of him and Sirius didn’t quite know what to do with himself.

“Hello, Pomona! Reckon I’ll be a lot easier to handle than the last lot. No kids, no scary wife! No raucous parties, I promise.” He laughed as Pomona looked thoroughly relieved.

“This is Remus.” Amelia said a little snottily, “He’s new, like you.”

Sirius looked at Remus and oh good grief. He was tall, taller than Sirius, only just, but that put him at 6’4 easily. His hair looked soft, and Sirius couldn’t decide whether it would be considered light brown or dark blonde, but a few strands fell down into his green eyes and it was all Sirius could do to not brush them back off his face.

“Uh, hello Remus.” He said after a slight pause that he hoped nobody else noticed.

“Hello, Sirius. I mean… sir. Oh shit… I knew I was going to cock this up, and now I’ve said cock, and shit - twice.” Remus babbled as Amelia looked mutinous, and oh god he was Welsh. Really fucking Welsh.

“It’s fine. You could have said fuck and then we’d all have been in serious trouble.” Sirius said, trying to ease the stricken look on Remus’ face.

“Thank you, sir. You know I had a feeling I was going to fuck this up on my first day and— oh, for fucks sake! Ffycin anghredadwy! Hurtyn!” Remus covered his face, but Sirius could tell that his cheeks had turned bright pink and he found it incredibly endearing, and then he clocked what he assumed was Welsh and he couldn’t take his eyes off Remus as he barked out a laugh.

“Right, well, let’s go and fix the country shall we?” Amelia said wearily.

“Yes, right. Yes, of course. Can’t see why not.” Sirius snapped out of his Remus-induced trance and nodded, “Lovely to meet you, Remus.”

Amelia led him towards his office, but Sirius couldn’t resist taking one last look over his shoulder as he walked away, chuckling softly at Remus’ mortified expression.

“This is your office, sir. I’ll go and organise some refreshments. Would you prefer coffee or tea?” She said as they reached the door.

“Coffee, please Amelia. Black, no sugar. Thank you.”

Amelia nodded and left. Sirius entered his office and closed the door behind him, leaning against the cold wood and letting his head fall back against it. “Of fucking course.” He grumbled to himself.

Ten minutes later, as Sirius was getting settled at his desk, having finally located the password to his computer, there came a knock at the door.

“Come in!” Sirius said loudly, opening every drawer in the desk and being a little disappointed to find them all empty. Whenever he had to vacate number ten, he planned to leave little notes and knick-knacks everywhere just for the hell of it. Pomona would surely hate him.

Remus entered the room, expertly balancing a tray with one arm, and holding an envelope in the other.

“Amelia said to pass these on to you while I’m here, they’ve just come through from the treasury.” He handed Sirius the thick manila envelope which he set aside carefully. “And this is also for you.” He set down the tray on Sirius’ desk and handed him a large mug of black coffee and a small plate with three chocolate digestive biscuits on it. “Also, sorry again about earlier, I’m not really used to all this… formality.”

“Thank you, Remus.” Sirius accepted the mug and plate gratefully, “And please, don’t worry about it. It made everything a lot less tense. I’ve just come from my sister-in-law’s funeral and honestly, it was a breath of fresh air, so, yeah, no need to apologise.”

“Oh fuck, I’m so sorry,” Remus said quietly, “Oh, fuck I did it ag— Fucking— Fuck!. I’m sorry for your loss, Sir. Sounds like the worst first day of a new job ever.”

“Doesn’t it just?” Sirius leant back in his chair. “We all knew it was coming, but nothing prepares you for a loss like that, you know?”

Remus nods, “There’s a Welsh word, hiraeth. It means almost a homesickness or longing for something or someone cherished but now out of reach. The bittersweet feeling of loss when you also have so many happy memories. I know it’s just a word, but it brought my mam a lot of comfort when we lost my dad a few years ago. To be able to put a name to how she was feeling.”

“Hur-eye-th?” Sirius attempted to repeat.

“Here-ayeth.” Remus chuckled, “Here, let me write it down, you can google it when I’m gone.” He pulled a pen from his shirt pocket and noted down the word on the piece of paper Sirius had very unsecurely written his computer password on. “You know, I’m glad you won. I’d have been polite to the other bloke too, but I doubt he’d have been as understanding about my, uh, first-day nerves? Shall we call them?” He chuckled. “I wouldn’t have given him the biscuits with the chocolate on though. Only boring biscuits for Tories. Might not have brought him biscuits at all, actually.”

With that, Remus grinned at him, before picking up the tray and leaving the room, closing the door behind him with a click.

Sirius waited a moment before letting his head hit the desk in front of him. “Sirius, you’re the fucking Prime Minister! Get your shit together!”