“I’d Never Go.”

“Draco, do you want to see a magic trick?”

Draco seemed tired of Sirius after only twenty-four hours. How were they meant to be cousin-brothers when Draco couldn’t handle one day together without a buffer?

“We’re not muggles,” Draco told Sirius with a sigh, eyeing the bag tossed over his shoulder. “We don’t do tricks.”

“I do,” Sirius insisted. “I’m a modern day Houdini.”

“Houdini was a wizard.”

Sirius sighed as loudly and dramatically as he could. The problem with Draco was that he had no imagination. Even the book in his hand was predictable - broomsticks. Why would he look at brooms when they both knew he would go for the Nimbus 2001, the current most expensive one on the market? No matter that Harry already had a Firebolt, thanks to Sirius’s immense creativity.

Sirius desperately hoped that Draco became more interesting when he got older, otherwise it was going to be a long few years.

“Do you want to see a trick or not?” Sirius asked.

“Fine.” Draco carefully closed the book and sat it on his lap so he could give Sirius his complete attention. “Let’s see it.”

It wasn’t exactly an enthusiastic agreement, but Sirius didn’t need it. Sirius liked an audience, and a witness, that was all.

Sirius hitched his bag more securely on his shoulder and grinned wickedly at Draco.

“Now you see me…”

Sirius turned on the spot, picturing the front step of Grimmauld Place. He dove forward and let the darkness envelop him for the trip from Wiltshire to London.

“Now you don’t!”

Sirius laughed to himself after he popped up on his front stoop. It was an old joke, one he had possibly overused when he first learned apparation. The good news was that Draco had never heard the joke before so he should be sitting in his bedroom blinking stupidly at where Sirius had just been standing.

It would only work once, Sirius would need a new escape plot for the next time he returned to the Malfoy Manor. Unless Sirius could convince Harry to go with him, then they could stick together and make Cissa happy. Sirius hoped that their bloody long to-do list would be finished during the next few weeks and they could be the laziest bastards for the rest of their holidays.

They needed to find Peter, Voldemort… fetch a diary… and Sirius knew Harry hoped to solve the murder of his relatives as well. There was more than that, but Sirius didn’t have Harry in his bed to recite it all to him so he couldn’t think of it off the top of his head. Which was fine, because Sirius would have it from Harry…

Once he found him.

“Harry?” Sirius called for Harry after he entered Grimmauld Place. The house was clean, fresh, airy, quiet. Sirius didn’t think that Harry had been there, which meant he must still be with Gaunt.

“Dobby!” Sirius changed tracks quickly, preferring to check that Harry was at the house they loaned Gaunt before he went knocking.

Gaunt gave Sirius the creeps and that was before Remus told Harry that he was Voldemort’s first uncle, which Sirius should have known already. A large part of Gaunt’s repulsion was his refusal to speak English. Parsletongue sounded soft, exotic, when Harry spoke it. There was always an undercurrent of danger in the language, the danger of the unknown. Gaunt twisted it in his guttural hisses and made it rough, strange, unappealing.

Sirius could fall asleep listening to Harry talk to Cosmo, he doubted if he’d ever be as comfortable around Gaunt.

It was no matter though, Dobby responded quickly to Sirius’s call just as he would Harry.

“Mister Sirius!” Dobby grinned at Sirius and gave him a twitching bow, always more formal with Sirius than he was to Harry. “Dobby has been missing Mister Sirius too!”

Dobby was a bit touched in the head, Sirius liked him anyway. At least he kept the house infinitely more clean than Kreacher ever had. And the loss of Walburga’s portrait? Sirius didn’t care how peculiar Dobby was, he had Sirius’s everlasting gratitude.

“Right,” Sirius said distractedly. He liked Dobby, he wouldn’t say he missed him when they were apart. Not like —

“Where’s Harry?” he asked.

“Mister Harry is being with Mister Morfin,” Dobby said. He bounced on his socked feet and held a hand out to Sirius. “Dobby can take you?”

“I’ll take myself,” Sirius said. Dobby could be the greatest elf on the earth and Sirius wouldn’t let him apparate him anywhere.

The last time Sirius had been side-apparated was on his way to Azkaban. Sirius had been under the impression that he would be interrogated, but they took him to a cell and never let him back out.

Nobody would apparate Sirius again.

The country house that Sirius and Harry loaned to Gaunt would always be one of Sirius’s more favored homes.

When his family stayed at the country house, Sirius’s parents were always busy and he and Regulus were given free access to the entire property. The girls would show up with their parents and the five Black children could do anything they wanted.

Sirius and Bella could duel, wrestle like muggle children. Reggie could draw and study the stars, Andy could read her books and write to the friends she wasn’t meant to have. Cissa, ever the middle child, would flit amongst them all, doing a little bit of everything.

They could wear themselves out, pig out in the kitchens with no mind to their manners, then collapse in exhausted heaps together. They didn’t have to be heirs of future houses then, they weren’t up and coming Lords and Ladies - they were just children.

The country house held the only real memories of Sirius being a child.

Harry was the only blip of Sirius’s nostalgia, the thing out of place on the steps of the old house. Harry didn’t belong in Sirius’s past, not like Sirius’s childhood did. Harry was the future and Sirius beamed to see him.

“Miss me?” Sirius joked, desperately hoping that Harry had. If Harry had missed Sirius then it wasn’t pathetic how much Sirius missed him. And it had been pathetic, Sirius tossing and turning, unable to sleep soundly without Harry’s warm body beside him.

Harry jumped from where he sat and rushed to Sirius. The look of relief on his face and the quick embrace were answer enough, though Sirius was also mollified by Harry’s response.

“Like you wouldn’t believe,” Harry breathed. “If you didn’t show up today I was going to send Hedwig with a letter tonight.”

Sirius laughed and felt the pieces of himself falling back in place. It was like that sometimes - Sirius could drift apart without noticing, he would lose sight of who he was and what was important. It only took Harry to push him back together, to make Sirius himself again.

Harry was Sirius’s only family, his only home.

“We need to get the mirrors,” Sirius said as he easily shifted his bag around to make room for Harry in his side. “They’re easier to use, more subtle and less reliant than an owl. Though I’m sure Hedwig is the best of the lot,” he added hastily. Harry doted on the bird, it was adorable and ridiculous.

“Mirrors?” Harry blinked at Sirius curiously. “What mirrors?”

Sirius… Sirius frowned while he searched his memory. There were some memories that were hazy, some fights and times when Sirius still felt the chill of the dementors clinging to the bones inside of his body. But Sirius gave Harry James‘s mirror, he was sure of it.

“The mirror I gave you?” Sirius said, squinting when the sun bounced off the rim of Harry’s glasses and tried to blind him. “I told you that James and I used them in detentions?”

“Er… I don’t think so?” Harry said. “I think I’d remember — oh! Oh! Sirius, do you mean the package you gave me after Christmas?”

The panic fluttering in Sirius’s chest died down at Harry’s remembrance. Sirius was not insane and deranged, he knew he gave Harry the mirror.

“Yeah,” Sirius grinned. “The one you never used?”

The one… the one that Harry could have called Sirius on the day he went to the Ministry. The one that would have reassured Harry that Sirius was safe and that he didn’t need to faff about with a floo or prick of an elf.

The one that Sirius took through the veil with him, tucked in his pocket.

“Harry, did you lose it?” Sirius asked then, frowning suddenly. He didn’t think Harry would have, it wasn’t the type of thing that Harry - who carried around all of James and Lily’s belongings that he owned in a trunk, who guarded his cloak not because of its pricelessness but because of who used it before him - would do. It didn’t fit who Harry was.

“I - er… I forgot to open the package, actually.”

That did fit.

“Oh, Harry.” Sirius shook his head in a faux-disapproving manner. “Now why would you do that? I told you that you could use it to contact me.”

“Oh, yeah, I’d contact you on a magic mirror and tell you that Snape was a git and Umbridge a nightmare and you would have burst in the castle to try and fix it all,” Harry drawled sarcastically. “Then she’d have you shipped to prison and you’d break loose again and it just seemed really time consuming, Siri.”

Since that was exactly what Sirius would have done, he lied.

“You have no faith in me,” Sirius said, feigning hurt. “I am not some overly dramatic bastard incapable of logic.”

“‘Only one will die here tonight’,” Harry quoted flatly.

That had been for Ron Weasley’s benefit and it had been funny, so Sirius didn’t apologize.

“‘Ruin me’,” Sirius winked. Circe, those two words lived in his head constantly.

“‘I’m a monster’.”

“‘Go lie low with Lupin’.”

“Alright, alright.” Harry shoved Sirius away from him with an embarrassed blush. “If I’m dramatic it’s only because you’re a terrible influence.”

Sirius was, but he wasn’t going to ruminate on that for long. Sirius was not going to think about the many ways he truly was ruining Harry, dragging him down in the flames with him.

“Or Morfin, you know he’s out back praying to the dirt?”

Sirius had started to drift and there Harry was again, pulling him together.

“Merlin, I forgot how old he is,” Sirius said, rolling his eyes for emphasis. “It’s an old tradition,” he explained to Harry. “Very old. Wizards used to believe that magic came from Earth and so they would pray to it, usually an excuse to ask for things they don’t need. You know,” Sirius ticked off the usual things with his fingers, “power, money, love, dirty sex.”

Harry sputtered on Sirius’s last inclusion and Sirius smirked at him. He was still young physically, his hormones would catch up with his imagination in a few years. A few years…

Sirius shook his head, banishing the thought for the time being.

“I hope he’s not praying for - for dirty sex,” Harry said, stammering almost as hard as he was blushing. “Ugh. That’s gross. Come inside, tell me about the Malfoys. I woke up early and started doing some planning…”

Sirius fondly followed Harry, deciding to not tease him any further about any prayers for sex. That probably wasn’t what Gaunt was asking for anyway, the backwoods bastard likely forgot he had a cock.

Sirius looked around the inside of the country home in mild disappointment. Everything had been changed so much that Sirius hardly recognized it. The house was just as fresh and clean as Grimmauld Place, but that diminished the memories of the five kids who used to run amuck within its walls.

“I’ll be right back,” Sirius told Harry vaguely, interrupting whatever he had been saying. Harry turned toward him with a question on his lips, but Sirius was already racing up the stairs.

There was a wall in the guest suite, the one that Sirius specifically didn’t mention that anyone should sleep in. Harry was in Sirius’s old room, Morfin in Walburga and Orion’s room, the guest suite should be empty.

It should be empty and there should be a piece of trim in the room, one marked up over the years. There would be initials carved by childish hands, marks where Reggie refused to believe that Bella was taller than him…

Sirius could already feel his magic welling up, ready to lash out if the markings were gone. Sirius tore at the wallpaper covering the wall just inside the bedroom and —

They were still there. All of them. The ones that Sirius had to crouch down to see all the way to the last ones they did, the ones they did the summer after Sirius turned twelve… the summer before Regulus started school…

“Should we?” Regulus looked from where Sirius sat sullenly on one bed to where Bellatrix scowled in another corner.

Without Andromeda there, it wasn’t the same. With Bellatrix treating Sirius like an outcast and Narcissa acting all year like they weren’t related… it wasn’t the same.

“I’m not doing it,” Sirius spat, glowering at Bella for all he was worth. “Measure Bella, I’m sure her horns have grown.”

“Don’t start, Sirius,” Bella said, the dam of silence and betrayal between them broken. “You’re the one on a high pegasus, I don’t know that the doorway can reach you anymore.”

“I’m not on a pegasus!” Sirius yelled. “You two are the ones acting like I’m dead because I’m in Gryffindor!”

“YOU SHOULD HAVE WENT TO SLYTHERIN!” Bella yelled. She started toward Sirius and Narcissa placed her hand on her shoulder, holding her back. “YOU’RE GOING TO BE JUST LIKE ANDY, AREN’T YOU? ANOTHER BURN HOLE IN THE TAPESTRY!”

“YOU KNOW WHAT? FUCK YOU!” Sirius yelled back, the worst swear he knew. “I’M GLAD I’M IN GRYFFINDOR SO I DON’T HAVE TO BE AROUND YOU ANYMORE!”

“I HOPE YOU DIE THERE!” Bellatrix shrieked.

“STOP IT!” Regulus had his hands over his ears and when Sirius looked at him, he was crying. There were great fat tears streaming down his cheeks and it killed the reply on Sirius’s tongue immediately.

“Just stop it,” Regulus told them, slowly lowering his hands. “It’s - it’s bad enough that Andromeda’s gone, I hate this. Do we really have - have to fight?”

Bellatrix glared at Sirius as if he had betrayed her - as if he had ever once truly hoped for her death.

Did Sirius often wish she got trampled by a herd of threstrals? Yeah, all the time. But dead?!

Sirius couldn’t lose another cousin, not like how they basically lost Andy.

“No,” Sirius told his brother. “We don’t. Here,” Sirius took their secret pocket knife that they used every summer to mark their heights. “I’ll do it.”

Sirius took extra care to mark all of their heights before he looked Bella in the eyes to pass her the knife to do his.

It would be the last summer for it, Sirius was sure. Once Reggie sorted Slytherin in the fall then Sirius would truly be an outcast in his family. Sirius would be the next hole in the tapestry, he just knew it.

Sirius swallowed hard when he reached out to trace the last carvings. He had been right, Sirius had been an outcast in his family to the very day. Sirius had also been the next one cast aside, the next burn in the tapestry.

It always bothered Sirius, wondering how much his cousins and brother had suffered for his defection.

“Regulus.” Sirius said the names aloud for Harry’s benefit. It wasn’t surprising that he followed him, Sirius would have done the same.

“Me.” The mark that Sirius touched was the precise height he currently was, much shorter than he knew he would grow to be. “Bella.” Sirius touched Bellatrix’s name, perfectly even with his own. They had always been so alike in so many ways… “And Cissa.”

“Siri…” Harry lifted his hand and slowly, gently, placed it on top of Sirius’s. He laced their fingers together until they were both touching the marks that Sirius left with his family.

“If you want to stay with Narcissa for a few more days, we can,” Harry offered quietly. “I’m guessing you didn’t get the diary anyway, we can go back.”

Sirius smiled joylessly at the offer. It cost Harry something to offer that, Sirius knew it.

“No.” Sirius dropped his hand and only kept Harry’s fingers entwined with his. Sirius squeezed his hand in appreciation at the gesture. “I don’t want to stay here though, why don’t we go to Grimmauld? Unless we’re going straight to Albania.”

Sirius might not mind that, it would be something to do. Tracking Peter wouldn’t be easy, especially not if he was hiding out as a rat. Albania was a big country too, Sirius hoped that Harry might have some way to narrow down their search.

“I actually got a letter from Amelia Bones this morning,” Harry said, pulling a letter from his inner robe pocket and offering it to Sirius. “I thought we might want to see what that’s about before we leave the country?”

Sirius hummed as he unfolded the letter, curious what had been written…

Dear Harry and Sirius-

Sirius snorted. Amelia had always been too astute, never one to let something get by her.

I hope that the end of term went well for you, you’ve both been in my thoughts. If you’re amenable this summer, Susan and I would be pleased to see you. I am home most evenings by five, but Susan would be available if you wanted to come early. I’m sure she would be happy to have lunch with her friends.
There’s no need to stand on formalities with us, please come any day you’re free.
Warmest wishes,
Amelia Bones

“Well…” Sirius carefully reread the letter and wondered again why Amelia had been so sure that he couldn’t be Mary Macdonald’s son. “It couldn’t hurt to check this out. We should probably go tomorrow, mind you, before Narcissa informs the Ministry that her ward has run away and Amelia feels obligated to turn me in.”

Harry grinned and Sirius took one last look at the markings on the wall before he turned his back on them.

Just as they had to Sirius years ago.

Sirius and Harry spent the night catching up and plotting at Grimmauld Place. Sirius didn’t have much to report, but Harry had talked with Gaunt about Voldemort.

“Huh.” Sirius had just watched the same memory that Harry did, the one that Harry procured from Gaunt, the one that Albus had already seen.

“Strange, right?” Harry asked. They were splitting a pizza and Sirius kept blinking at the sauce on Harry’s cheek. “What’s so special about that memory?”

Sirius considered what Albus would have learned from the memory - Voldemort’s father lived near Gaunt, in the big house on a hill. Sirius had already known that, Harry had all but told the Order when he shared the details of the graveyard ritual.

Voldemort had been fit, Sirius was disgusting for thinking it, though it was true. Albus probably didn’t go hunting down Gaunt for that information. Gaunt had a ring that he told Harry had been stolen that same day, not a coincidence. There was also a missing necklace, one that Gaunt had been distressed over more than his dead sister.

Outside of that? Sirius couldn’t imagine.

“That was probably the same time that he killed the Riddle family, right?” Sirius asked Harry. He ripped his eyes off where the sauce was on Harry’s cheek and snagged another piece of the pizza for himself. “Maybe Dumbledore was trying to prove if it was Gaunt or Voldemort that killed them?”

“And then he did nothing to get Morfin released?” Harry scoffed. “That sounds about right.”

It did.

Sirius didn’t have much to contribute to Harry’s speculations on why Dumbledore had been interested in that one memory. Sirius had much more to add when they began plotting their way to Albania.

It would be a grand plan, one that Sirius was actually eager to get started on.

They decided to get packed for the trip that night, so they could leave immediately after visiting Amelia and Diagon Alley.

“We should get a potions case,” Sirius told Harry while they sorted through clothes and books. “I want to grab a standard set of potions, in case we run into anything nasty.”

“Sounds good to me.” Harry held up Sirius’s bag. “Mind if I dump this? I think you’ve got my dad’s scarf.”

Sirius didn’t, but he waved Harry off and told him to dump it and add his clothes to the bag. Sirius was busy sifting through books, deciding if any of them would be of use. There was a nasty one about blood tracing, Sirius thought that might be handy and added it to the stack to take.

“Oi! I thought you weren’t able to get this?”

Sirius raised his eyes from the book he held to see what Harry was on about. Harry was kneeling beside the pile of Sirius’s clothes - oh, Sirius did have James’s scarf, he thought it was Harry’s - and waved a small black book at him.

“What is it?” Sirius asked blankly. It wasn’t his, not that he knew of. Maybe something of Draco’s that he took on accident?

“The diary!” Harry said with a huff. “Riddle’s diary?”

Sirius tossed the book he had in the discard pile and made a grabbing motion for the diary. Harry tossed it to him and Sirius winced when he caught it.

No, he definitely couldn’t have grabbed it by accident.

“Fuck.” Sirius hissed between his teeth and dropped the book on the floor, careful to keep it away from his skin. “It’s cursed as hell,” Sirius said, thinking hard to remember the last time he touched something that burned him as badly as the diary did.

It had been something they found when they were clearing out Grimmauld Place, probably. Not that it was a huge surprise that the Blacks had cursed items, Sirius only didn’t understand how a little girl had withstood touching the journal.

“Yeah, it’s got Voldemort in it,” Harry said. He grinned teasingly and Sirius wished he had done something to deserve it. “Did you swipe it?”

“Harry, I swear, I didn’t take it,” Sirius insisted. “I don’t know how it got in my bag.”

Harry’s grin fell all at once when he heard the honesty in Sirius’s voice and his eyes grew in size.

“You think Lucius put it in your bag?” Harry asked. “He pawned it off on you instead of Ginny?”

“I don’t know,” Sirius said, doubting it heavily. Harry said that Lucius pawned it off before when his name had been added to a list of homes to search for dark artifacts. The list hadn’t been created yet, Lucius had said as much at dinner the night before. It would be soon, Lucius already had a trunk of belongings he wanted to hide.

“Well, we have it,” Harry said, shrugging the mystery off. “I suppose we can destroy it when we get to Hogwarts? We’d - er… we’d have to kill the basilisk though.”

“Don’t touch it,” Sirius said when Harry reached for the diary. “Circe, Pup, you’ll burn your skin off.”

“I think I’ll be fine,” Harry said with a queer look. He picked the diary up and held it against his chest. His bloody pain tolerance... “Are you alright? Maybe we should finish this in the morning?”

“Yeah, alright,” Sirius agreed. He was tired, it was getting late, they had a lot to do the next day. Sirius kicked away the stack of books he didn’t sort and glanced at Harry with hope hidden beneath nonchalance. “We can sleep in here?” he suggested.

“Alright,” Harry agreed, relieving Sirius immediately.

It was silly to think that one night apart would have Harry moving away from Sirius. They were… they were as close as possible.

Sirius needed Harry, but Harry needed Sirius too.

Sirius slept easy that night, wrapped up with Harry. Harry mumbled a few times in his sleep, smiled some when Sirius woke up to peer over at him. It seemed like whatever he dreamed about was good, Sirius selfishly hoped that he was a part of it.

They had a grand morning in Diagon Alley the next day. Harry had grimaced when they traveled down to his vault again, but Sirius was dying to get inside the actual Peverell Vault.

“You kept the ring?” Sirius asked, surprised when Harry rejoined him in the cart, the Potter and Peverell rings still snuggly attached to his fingers. Sirius kept his on, for sentiment more than anything.

“I like it,” Harry said. He blushed and Sirius couldn’t imagine why he was embarrassed, a family ring was meant to be worn, to share a history of magic starting from their first ancestor.

“It clashes,” Sirius teased him. He eagerly took Harry’s hand when the cart started back up and twisted it to show how the gold Potter ring clashed with the silver bracelet. “Gold and silver, c’mon now,” he joked.

“My God.” Harry laughed and it was louder than the cart on the tracks, it bounced off the walls and echoed in the cavern. “You’re a snob, Siri! How did I never know that? You’re - you’re as bad as Draco!”

“Oi! Take that back!” Sirius cried, insulted. “Draco has no taste at all!”

That only made Harry laugh harder, an unintentional but acceptable response. Harry mocking Sirius for the rest of their shopping trip - asking if certain things were ‘up to his standards’ - had made Sirius roll his eyes.

“I’m not going to apologize for knowing what’s tasteful and good quality,” Sirius sniffed, playing it up some to keep Harry’s spirits high. “If you want to waste your galleons on this year’s hottest trunk only to replace it next year, be my guest.”

“Didn’t you waste a small fortune on ‘this year’s hottest broom’ once?” Harry asked. He smiled at Sirius with his snake wrapped around his shoulders and his eyes sparkling and Sirius - Sirius loved him.

“It wasn’t a waste,” Sirius told him.

Nothing Sirius did for Harry was ever a waste.

As soon as they were both satisfied with their shopping - Harry wanted to get their supplies for the upcoming year, it was handy that he knew almost all of the required textbooks - Sirius apparated them to Amelia’s home in Northampton.

Sirius had been to the house before, it was where Amelia and Edgar had both been raised. Edgar had a party once, during the winter hols. It was more of a cottage, quite homey, quite capable of being a fun place for an evening. The acres the cottage sat on had a pond, a private wooded area that Edgar hunted in with his father, and a treehouse somewhere.

Sirius once kissed Amelia in the treehouse, when they were young and dumb and Sirius tried desperately to not be attracted to blokes.

“No magic,” Sirius reminded Harry cheerfully as they strolled hand-in-hand toward the red brick cottage. “Albania’s going to be a bit of a bitch, now that I think about it. My wand isn’t registered, but you’ll be out of luck, love.”

“I want an unregistered wand!” Harry cried immediately, just as Sirius knew he would. Sirius had already considered the issue the night before and packed accordingly. He had a wand for Harry, he just liked to mess with him.

Harry was very teasable and Sirius felt so giddy to have the entire summer with him.

“I wish you told me sooner,” Sirius said with a sigh. “There’s half a dozen at Grimmauld Place. You wouldn’t want those though, I’m sure… They were all used by snobs.”

With that, Sirius elbowed Harry in the side then started running toward Amelia’s house, leaving Harry to chase after him.

The sun was shining on them, they had a grand adventure planned. Sirius felt as if they could take on the world and walk away victorious.

That was how Harry made him feel - ten meters tall and more powerful than anyone.

Amelia humbled Sirius rather quickly with a secret that he had never been privy to.

Susan had been thrilled to see them and had chattered on and on about every topic under the sun. Sirius had snickered to himself when Susan asked Harry if she could hold his snake - poor Harry was a bit too innocent to pick up any innuendo.

Amelia had been polite, warm. She told Harry that there weren’t any leads on the murder of the Dursleys and asked him how Gaunt was faring. Sirius couldn’t shake the feeling that it was him who Amelia was most interested in, a feeling that proved correct after they had dinner together.

“Susan, I heard that Harry’s an excellent seeker,” Amelia said as soon as everyone had pushed away their plates with their stomachs full. “Why don’t you two go fly fit a bit? Sirius can help me clean up.”

“Yes, please!” Susan cried, smiling widely at Harry. “I’m going to try out for the Hufflepuff team this year. Cedric’s the seeker and he’s brilliant but I think I’ll be a chaser until he graduates…”

Sirius nodded subtly in reply to Harry’s quick look for agreement. Amelia wasn’t altogether subtle, it seemed as if she wanted to speak to Sirius alone. And if she knew something that would ruin Sirius’s entire backstory then he wanted to know what it was.

Amelia waited for Harry to be dragged outside by Susan before she waved her wand to clear the table and smiled warmly at Sirius.

“I wondered if we could talk in private,” she said. “I went to school with your father, we were friends for a time.”

They were the best of friends, really. Sirius had cried on Amelia’s shoulder when he thought that being queer was the end of the world and she had cried on his shoulder when her brother had been killed.

“Of course,” Sirius said, curiosity welling up inside of him over her cryptic remarks during Yule. “You knew my mother too, right?” he pushed, wanting to get to the mystery he needed resolved.

Mary had been Sirius’s first girlfriend, his first kiss. Mary was a death that cut Sirius deeply, he didn’t need to know Amelia’s opinion on Sirius Orion as much as he needed to know why she firmly believed Mary couldn’t be his mother.

“I knew Mary Macdonald, yes…” Amelia said slowly, making a rather obvious distinction. “I am curious who told you that she’s your mother?”

Sirius needed to stay evasive, at least until he knew what Amelia knew.

“That was what they told me in the orphanage,” Sirius said, forcing himself to remain nonchalant, casual. Sirius was a child, it wasn’t on him to carry any burden of proof.

“Dear…” Amelia reached across the table and took Sirius‘s hand in both of hers. It was… uncomfortable.

Sirius’s hand had grown to become used to Harry, Amelia was a stranger of his past, his hand didn’t want hers.

“Mary Macdonald couldn’t have children,” Amelia told Sirius gently, the kind bearer of bad news. “It was a nasty curse, she had been attacked when she was young. I’m so sorry, but she couldn’t be your mother.”

“Do you want kids?” Mary asked Sirius. They were doodling hearts on each other during lunch and Sirius kept adding his initials, marking her all over with himself.

“I don’t know,” Sirius said, grimacing while he focused on the ink to keep it from dripping and ruining his work. “Maybe, maybe not.”

“I do.” Mary sighed, so dreamy and happy and easy to please. “I think we’d have pretty babies.”

James snorted and elbowed Remus, who was already grinding his teeth at Mary.

“Yeah?” Sirius smiled at Mary and ignored Remus with all his might. “If they have your smile then I say we have fifty of them.”

Sirius was flirting, it didn’t mean anything.

“Three,” Mary told him later while he walked her to her charms lesson. “I want three kids and I hope they all have your brains.”

If they had kids - something that Sirius couldn’t even imagine having - then Sirius hoped they had his brains too. But he also hoped that they had Mary’s heart and her patience.

“You’ll be a great mother,” Sirius told her. He kissed her quickly and flashed a smile before turning to run to his own class that he would undoubtedly be late for.

Sirius reeled internally by the news that Mary never had any chance to have a family while Amelia went on about how maybe that meant Sirius still had a mother who was alive… if she thought he was thinking over that idea, so be it.

Sirius was thinking about his fifth year, the year that Mary - sweet Mary, kind Mary who would give a stranger the shirt off her back if they so much as shivered - had been attacked.

It hadn’t been pretty, Sirius only knew who was involved, not what they did. Mary never named names, not to Dumbledore or McGonagall, but everyone in Gryffindor had known who needed to be repaid for making one of the sweetest girls in their house suffer.

Mary had become withdrawn, less likely to sit around and chat with Sirius and his friends. She had been skittish, clinging more to Lily and Marlene. Sirius worried about her, but James told him that maybe she didn’t want to watch him and Remus moon after each other.

“When?” Sirius asked, interrupting Amelia’s explanation of blood tests Gringotts offered. Sirius averted his eyes, sure that Amelia would read the rage in them if she looked too closely.

“When was Mary Macdonald made infertile?” Sirius repeated, explaining the hard question.

Amelia squeezed Sirius’s hand and confirmed what he had immediately guessed.

“She was sixteen,” Amelia said. “It was - it was horrible.”

It was Mulciber, Yaxley, possibly Selwyn, probably Snape.

And so Sirius’s list of wrongs that needed rightened during his second chance grew.