Sirius James Black
Sirius watched with mild amusement as Harry seemed to begin choking on his own spit. It took him a while to righten himself, but when he did his cheeks were dark red and his eyes were glassy.
“Your - your name is Sirius?” Harry whispered Sirius’s name like he knew him already, piquing Sirius’s curiosity.
Of course Harry knew him as a child, but as far as Sirius knew, he didn’t remember him when they met that night in the Shrieking Shack. Though, the original Sirius of the time Sirius was stuck in had died… maybe Harry read about it? Sirius certainly had, he sat in his kitchen and screamed, cried, threw a great many things, and ultimately began laughing.
Sirius Orion Black was dead, legally. It seemed as if whatever the veil had done - and Sirius was absolutely researching more of that when he got to Hogwarts - it was a fresh start. Sure, Sirius was apparently eleven again and it was rough being short, a second trip through puberty didn’t sound like a ball either. But on the bright side, Sirius thought it would be brilliant to attend Hogwarts with Harry.
It wouldn’t be the same… but how many times had Sirius wished he had a chance to do things over? It was a fresh start and Sirius wanted it to begin with him and Harry being twice as close as Sirius and James had ever been.
Sirius didn’t expect Harry to know about the original Sirius, but that wasn’t exactly a hardship… probably…
“Sure is, just like my father,” Sirius said breezily, rolling with the lie he created for himself over the last month. “And you’re Harry, right?”
It had to be, of course. Harry was shorter than he had been in his third year, much taller than he was as an infant. Sirius could look at Harry and see James in his jaw, Lily in his nose… James’s thick and untamable hair… Lily’s green eyes…
Sirius didn’t know why Harry wore glasses that looked to be made for women or clothes that he was positively drowning in, but he suspected it was those bloody muggles.
There was a list, somewhere in Sirius’s trunk, that had killing Petunia Evans at the very top. Sirius would never forget the day that the Order brought Harry to Grimmauld Place and the way that Sirius could count his ribs, feel the knobs in his spine, when he saw him.
Harry had told Sirius that his summer was ‘no worse than usual’ that day and Mad-Eye had stopped Sirius from leaving the house that same night. Harry wasn’t going to suffer through years of neglect again, not if Sirius could stop it. Which he absolutely could.
Or, he could, if Harry let him.
As soon as Sirius said who his father was, Harry pulled his wand out. At only eleven, Harry wasn’t exactly the terrifying image he might have thought he was.
Harry dueling in the ministry? Fighting off Sirius’s cousin and Lucius Malfoy on his own? That Harry was a sight to behold, one who Sirius would have dueled for fun.
“Sirius doesn’t have any children,” Harry whispered, his voice suddenly harsh. Harry’s wand was pointing at Sirius and Sirius only cocked an eyebrow at the anger covering Harry’s face. “Who are you, really?”
Sirius felt a swoop in his stomach, a mixture of hope and disbelief. He was wrong, almost certainly, but there was a chance… a small chance…
“If I said I solemnly swear I am up to no good, you would say…?” Sirius watched Harry and saw the spark in his eyes that answered before Harry could.
“Mischief Managed.”
Harry whispered the words that he shouldn’t know yet just before he threw himself forward, wrapping his arms around Sirius, and making a sound that was something between a sob and a laugh.
“Sirius? It’s really you?” Harry asked, doing what Sirius thought was his best impression of the Giant Squid attacking a boat. “But you died!”
“And you are fifteen and fighting Lucius Malfoy.” Sirius held Harry just as tightly with his eyes closed and his mind racing.
How did they both end up there? Had Harry been knocked through the veil as well? Was Harry’s presence the reason that Sirius was eleven years-old in 1991? What had happened? Why didn’t Remus protect Harry in the battle?
“I - I’m so confused.” Harry finally broke off their embrace, leaning backward so he could look Sirius over. Sirius felt a bit off-balanced by the scrutiny until he remembered that he was eleven and Harry had never even seen a photograph of Sirius so young.
“You’re confused?” Sirius laughed and it sounded off to him, it wasn’t his usual - very expected - barking laugh, but something that sounded young with an edge that made it mature.
“I’m bloody confused,” Sirius said, grinning even if his eyes were watering. “What happened after that bitch knocked me in the veil?”
“I… well…” Harry looked down and scuffed the ugliest trainer that Sirius had ever seen on the ground. “I might have followed you?”
Harry followed Sirius? Through an obviously cursed veil in the middle of a battle in the depths of the Ministry?
Sirius sighed and squeezed Harry’s shoulder, causing Harry to peek up at him through his lashes and hideous glasses.
“Of course you did,” Sirius said fondly, too elated to work up any sort of a scolding. What did Sirius care if Harry followed him? They weren’t dead, they were given a whole new start!
It had to be a million times better for Sirius, who apparently left nothing of importance behind. Harry had followed Sirius, Remus was a dick, and everything else had been absolute rubbish. Imprisoned in his parents house? Unable to so much as walk outside? That hadn’t been a life.
Getting to restart his life right alongside his favorite person in the world?
Sirius couldn’t find anger inside him in the moment if he even tried.
“You’re not mad?” Harry asked, seemingly nervous for Sirius’s reaction.
“Mad? Nah.” Sirius grinned and tried to not think about how he was much happier with the turn of events than he should be. Instead of making a big fuss about something Sirius didn’t think they could reverse - didn’t think he wanted to if he could - Sirius crinkled his nose up dramatically.
“I am a bit disturbed though,” he said. “What are you wearing?”
Harry looked down at his clothes, as if surprised by Sirius’s disgust. The sweater was bad enough, oversized and ugly as it was, but there were stains on it. Pairing it with the jeans that seemed to be held up by magic alone and the trainers with the holes in it… Merlin, Sirius wasn’t surprised Harry only had two friends if that was how he showed up to Hogwarts the first go around.
“Er… it’s been a bad month,” Harry mumbled, looking away from Sirius and melting his heart.
It would have been, wouldn’t it? While Sirius spent the last month making as many grand plans as he could and imagining what it would be like to relive his Hogwarts days with Harry instead of James, Harry had probably spent the last month thinking Sirius was dead.
“It’s better now,” Sirius said with staunch optimism. He threw his arm around Harry’s shoulders, unwilling to separate for even a second, and grinned at him broadly. “And it’s going to get even better because we are going shopping.”
Harry didn’t look excited at the prospect at all, which was tosh. If there was anything Sirius was brilliant at, it was shopping. Harry did turn to the side when there was a group approaching and it was only Harry’s interest that made Sirius turn to see who it was.
Walking along in a large group, talking loud enough to be illegal, was Molly Weasley. She had her brood with her, the kids that Sirius had begrudgingly dealt with over the summer at Grimmauld Place. The twins and Ginny hadn’t been terrible, but they had been older than the pesky and annoying children they were then.
“Platform Nine and Three Quarters!” Molly cried, waving her hand to catch her kids’s interest. “That’s us then! Percy, dear? Why don’t you go along? Before any muggles come, go on.”
Sirius chuckled. If any muggles were nearby, and there were plenty of them, they absolutely would have heard Molly talking. She didn’t say ‘magic’, but she might as well have. Of course, if Sirius had to scream to be heard over a whole mess of red-headed kids, he might not care so much about being heard either.
“This is when I met Ron,” Harry whispered to Sirius, still tucked under Sirius’s arm. Sirius wasn’t all that tall, Ron Weasley looked to be a bit taller than he was, but Harry was short.
“Yeah?” It was finally obvious why Harry had been lingering outside the platform, Sirius thought he would find him on the train then got lucky when he saw him. Sirius rocked forward on his toes and really wanted Harry to go with him instead of reliving a single moment with Ron. “You can meet him at school though, right?”
“Wait.” Harry had to push his oversized and frankly heinous glasses up his nose to peer at Sirius then. “You want to go shopping now?”
“Uh… yeah.” Sirius didn’t want to tell Harry that he looked awful, but it lingered between them as a silent explanation. “You can’t go to Hogwarts like this, pup. I’m flattered you were depressed over my untimely death, but what kind of reincarnated godfather would I be if I let you show up in rags for your second first day?”
Harry sighed, but Sirius could see he was interested. There was a tiny curl to his lips, a light in his eyes.
“We don’t have time before the train leaves,” Harry pointed out, as if logic could work on his reincarnated eleven year-old godfather. “Are you even registered for school, Sirius?”
“Of course not!” Sirius laughed, already beginning to steer Harry away. Harry reached behind him for his trunk and cage and Sirius swatted his hand away from it.
“Here, allow me!” Sirius pulled the wand he planned to use, the same one he had been using since he left Azkaban, and tapped Harry’s wand and cage quickly to shrink them down until they were small enough to fit in a pocket. Once Sirius had them tucked away with his own trunk, he tossed his arm around Harry’s shoulders once more.
“Here’s what I thought we should do…” Sirius made up a plan as they walked, right back out the door to the train station.
It was a good plan - one that involved clothes shopping and lunch in London, a pop-in at the optometrist in Diagon. Maybe a quick trip to Gringotts, since the only gold Sirius had he found in Grimmauld Place. It was a lot of gold and even some muggle money that had been stashed in his own closet, but Sirius would feel more secure once he had access to his vaults. After that? They could use the floo in the Leaky Cauldron to get to Minerva’s office.
“We can do that?” Harry asked after Sirius told him his plan. They were already nearing a store and Sirius wondered if they should have gone to Gringotts first? It would probably be fine, Sirius could swipe whatever he didn’t have money and then pay the store back later.
If he remembered, which Sirius was sure he definitely would…
“Technically? No.” Sirius grinned and then did a showy bow for Harry when he opened the shop door. “But you're the Boy-Who-Lived, right? It’s not like they’d expel an innocent couple of firsties who missed the train and did their best to make it to school.”
When Sirius made his eyes go wide and innocent with his lower lip sticking out in a pout, Harry finally laughed. Sirius liked his laugh, it might have been one of the first times that he truly got to hear it.
“If they didn’t expel me in my second year, I suppose they won’t this year either,” Harry said, giving in just as Sirius knew he would. “Alright then, let’s shop.”
Sirius let out a cheer and then proceeded to take Harry on his first ever shopping spree.
Sirius had estimated that they had four hours to get all their shopping finished and still make it to Hogwarts in time to be sorted.
They had been doing fine on time, and money - Sirius forgot how much cheaper and nicer muggle clothes were - when they were in the shops. Harry had been awkward at first, only selecting a shirt and pair of trousers until Sirius egged him on. When Sirius started selecting clothes for himself - all the clothes in the attic of Grimmauld Place were outdated, uncomfortably posh, and Sirius didn’t want to wear them - then Harry got bolder.
Between the two of them, they ended up with over a dozen pairs of jeans, some trousers, several arms full of shirts, and sweaters. Sirius tried to add it all up as they went, but when he lost track, he quietly confounded the cashier before being given a grand total of nineteen pounds.
“This was more expensive than nineteen pounds,” Harry said when they left the shop. Sirius ducked in an alley so he could shrink down the bags and pocket them with the other belongings and he shot Harry a grin when he was ready to move on.
“I’ve got the receipt in a bag,” Sirius promised. “I’ll send them the proper amount later, after I get in my vault.”
“Your… vault…” Harry blinked at Sirius and the half-smile he had been wearing slipped, worrying Sirius. “Er… you didn’t happen to have a will made before you were arrested, did you?”
“Yup.” Sirius did have one, anyone with money and sense made them before they left Hogwarts. Sirius had already inherited money from his uncle, the same wizard whose wand Sirius was using, by then. It had been an easy choice to make in his seventh year, even easier to amend a few years later when Harry was born.
“I left everything to you,” Sirius told Harry. It took a few seconds of Harry staring significantly at Sirius for Sirius to realize what he had just said.
“In the case of my death… I left you everything.” Sirius sighed and could feel what he judged to be the first of many time-travel induced headaches beginning to creep up on him. “Harry, you didn’t happen to get a letter from the Ministry, did you? One that would have been delivered after my supposed death?”
“I did, actually.” Harry looked sheepish when he rubbed his neck. “I didn’t respond though, but… but I reckon - er… I can give you gold until we get that sorted out?”
Sirius considered that for a second or two. They could do that, that would be the reasonable thing. They could finish their shopping, go to Hogwarts… return some other day. Or…
“Do you fancy a trip to the ministry?” Sirius asked Harry brightly. “You could go officially inherit all my worldly possessions, then we can figure the rest of it out over break?”
“Sirius…” Harry shook his head, shooting down Sirius’s idea. “Why don’t we deal with all that over break? You know we won’t be quick in the ministry and - er… I do actually need glasses if I want to be able to see in class.”
“Fine.” Sirius sighed dramatically, not letting it truly dampen his spirits. It would have been a relief for him to have the security that money brought, but he didn’t think Harry would leave him desolate or homeless in the meantime.
Anyone who followed Sirius through the bloody veil had to like him at least a bit… a thought that carried Sirius through the rest of their trip.
The optometrist in Diagon Alley was quick, much quicker when Sirius whispered for Harry to move his hair, show his scar. If it were Sirius, Sirius would be milking his fame for all it was worth. New glasses? No problem. No appointment? Boy-Who-Lived.
Harry was humble and shy though, in a way that Sirius and James had never been. It reminded Sirius somewhat of Remus, though he eventually got to Remus just as he planned to do Harry.
“Now you look the part!” Sirius assured Harry when they left the shop. Sirius had ushered Harry in loo, encouraging him to change into something nicer, then immediately tossed the old clothes in the rubbish bin where they belonged.
Diagon Alley was packed with families and parents doing some shopping after sending their kids off to Hogwarts. The two of them received a few looks as they walked around, but nobody stopped them.
Harry kept touching his new glasses, the round and wire-framed ones that Sirius swore he looked perfect in. It seemed like a nervous habit, one that Sirius had seen him do a few times before…
“You’re ridiculous,” Harry told Sirius, grinning right back at him. “Honestly, I don’t think I’ve ever seen you in such a good mood.”
Honestly? Sirius hadn’t been in such a good mood in years… many, many, years.
When he escaped from Azkaban, he thought that he would be free. That only led to further imprisonment of a different kind - locked in his foggy mind, on the run from his own poor choices. Living in Grimmauld Place had been a hell of its own, constantly surrounded by the reminder of his family and the distrustful faces of the Order.
Sirius receiving the alert that there was a battle happening had been the first bit of true excitement he had. And it wasn’t as if it ended badly, not in Sirius’s opinion.
Voldemort hadn’t returned yet, Harry was alive and well, the two of them had a chance to live their best lives together. All that would make it better was…
“Ice cream,” Sirius decided, turning in the street and guiding Harry toward the old parlor. “We need ice cream, pup.”
“Then we’ll go to Hogwarts?”
“Yeah, of course.”
As it turned out, they didn’t need to floo themselves to Hogwarts at all!
Sirius was thrilled to see Florence Fortescue, Alice Fortescue’s dad who owned the shop. When the man stared at Sirius a moment too long, Sirius gave him his most charming smile.
“Hello! Sirius James Black.” Sirius held back a snicker when that made Mr Fortescue’s eyes bulge. “And this is my best mate, Harry Potter.”
Sirius did not hold back his full on laugh when that made Mr Fortescue actually stumble. Sirius liked him, he was a nice man who raised a brilliant daughter, but introducing himself as his own son was bringing Sirius more joy than he had since he was in Hogwarts.
“You boys look like your dads,” Mr Fortescue said when he brought them both a sundae, on the house. Sirius and Harry were seated at the counter, swinging their quite short legs and sharing grins when they bumped into each other.
“You knew my dad?” Sirius made his eyes go wide and began testing his own theory. “I never knew him, sir. What was he like?”
Sirius’s theory was that people wouldn’t blatantly insult him directly to ‘his son’s’ face. Even if the original Sirius Black had died as an inmate and traitor (and Sirius would regret not being able to attend his own funeral for his entire life), surely people wouldn’t say so. Someone, somewhere, had to remember Sirius before his arrest, back when he had been confident and charming and told left and right that he was ‘going places’.
That place had been Azkaban, but that probably wasn’t what anyone meant when Sirius had been a teen.
“Your father? Hm?” Mr Fortescue suddenly made himself busy wiping down the spotless and gleaming red counter. “I can’t say I knew him well, really.”
A lie, actually. Sirius spent many afternoons in the ice cream parlor with his friends. It had been their favorite place to meet in the summers, mostly for the ice cream and to watch Frank, who had been a year older than Sirius, flirt with Alice.
“Now your parents…” Mr Fortescue smiled at Harry. “Lovely people, they were. I’ll never forget the day we had a terrible storm, absolutely awful… your dad and his friends saw me struggling to fix the damage. I didn’t even blink before those boys were throwing themselves right in the middle of the work, and not a one of them with their wand!”
Sirius grit his teeth behind his forced smile. Sirius had been there with James, Frank, and Peter. Sirius had been the one to cut his hand when he helped rip down the destroyed awning and he had been the one to run around town trying to find the supplies needed to make a new one.
Merlin, as Sirius listened to Mr Fortescue talk to Harry, he thought that people acting as if Sirius had never existed was twice as bad as saying he was an evil traitor. It was going to give Sirius a complex, being erased from stories that he had been a part of.
Still though… Harry looked happy as he sat at the counter and listened to stories while he had ice cream. It would be fine, once they arrived at Hogwarts then Sirius would have to be acknowledged. Or, dead Sirius, anyway…
Sirius began to wonder what Hogwarts would be like with Harry and his friends while they sat there. Harry probably had a million stories about his years that Sirius never got to hear. Sirius didn’t need to hear his stories then though, not if he could live them with him.
It was going to be grand, Sirius just knew it.
All that much grander when the bell for the shop rang and Sirius turned to the door. It had slipped Sirius’s mind, as busy as he had been with all the everything happening, but Snivellus was a professor.
Snivellus was to be Sirius’s professor.
Sirius’s face spread in a wicked smile when Snape stepped in the parlor, his sallow face twisted in blatant disgust. There was a moment when their eyes met that Sirius could sense Snape’s shock, then it twisted immediately to hot anger.
Excellent.
“Potter!” Snape snapped Harry’s name out and caused the poor kid to twitch in his seat. He wasn’t one for first impressions, was he?
“Pro—”
Sirius kicked Harry under the counter, a silent reminder that Harry couldn’t actually know who Snape was just yet. At least, not to Sirius’s knowledge.
“Hello?” Harry said instead, so hilariously awkward.
Snape strode toward them and Sirius would remember how he seemed unsure who to sneer at harder as he did for every future patronus. James and Snape had never gotten along, but it was Sirius who had truly despised Snape.
While Sirius wished a million times that he could break free of his pureblood status and the expectations added to it, Snivellus had tried to imitate the dark bastards that cursed Sirius for his difference. It was dislike that grew to hate between them and Sirius had never expected such a glorious opportunity to make Snape’s life hell for another seven years.
After spending the last year being mocked and belittled for how useless he was to the Order, to Harry? Hearing how Snape tormented Harry in lessons, outright abused him in his private lessons?
Sirius almost felt he owed Bellatrix a thank you note for the opportunity he was presented with.
“Is there a reason why you are lazing about a sweets shoppe rather than riding the train to Hogwarts?” Snape asked Harry, glaring down his giant nose at him.
“Yes.” Harry didn’t need to kick Sirius for Sirius to understand that he was about to lie. It wasn’t as if the truth was going do them any good.
“A house-elf blocked the barrier and I didn’t know how to get to Hogwarts.”
Sirius blinked at the bald-faced and even lie that Harry told Snape. It didn’t make a damn bit of sense to Sirius, but it wasn’t Sirius’s place to teach Harry more creative lies, not yet. They would have time, they had plenty of time.
A bloody lifetime.
“And instead of contacting the school, you thought you would skip?” Snape seethed.
“Oi! Who are you?” Sirius theatrically jumped from his chair and clutched Harry to him. Snape wasn’t going to have a go at Harry, not with Sirius there. Snape didn’t even get a chance to open his mouth before Sirius was going on, playing up being eleven for all he was worth.
“We are children and you are a creepy adult asking us invasive questions!” Sirius cried. He looked at Mr Fortescue with the innocent eyes that he never really could quite pull off. “Sir? Can you call the aurors?”
Mr Fortescue tried to frown, but his grey mustache was quivering so much that Sirius knew he was holding back a laugh.
“Boys, this is Professor Snape, from Hogwarts,” he told Sirius slowly, valiantly not laughing. “I didn’t know you missed the train, I would have sent for someone myself.”
“And yet you didn’t,” Snape hissed with blotchy patches on his face. “I have been sent here by Headmaster Dumbledore to bring Potter to Hogwarts.”
“And me!” Sirius said, swapping back to his most cheerful voice. “I’m a first year, like my good friend Harry.”
Snape looked at Sirius and Sirius smiled back. Snape had to see it, he had to. If anyone alive remembered what Sirius looked like at eleven years old, it was Snape.
It looked like it pained him to ask the question, the one Sirius knew he had to be dying to ask.
“And what, precisely, is your name?”
A thousand dementors couldn’t wipe the smile off Sirius’s face as he introduced Snivellus’s worst nightmare to him.
“Sirius James Black.” Sirius didn’t offer him his hand, but he did wink solely because he could. “I’m pleased to meet you.”
Snape was absolutely not pleased to meet Sirius, and he refused to take him to Hogwarts. And since Sirius refused to let go of Harry so Snape could take him, it led to something of a stand-off.
Sirius couldn’t let Harry be taken, not by Snape. Sirius tried to rationalize it, reminding himself that Snape was a double agent with death eater roots and that was why Sirius wouldn’t let Harry go. The truth of the matter was that Sirius thought he would be sick if Snape took Harry and he was out of Sirius’s sight for any length of time at all.
If the veil had brought death or torment instead of confusing time-travel, then Harry would be dead. He would be dead and it would be Sirius’s fault and Harry was not leaving with fucking Snivellus.
“Look! Why don’t you get ahold of Albus, tell him there’s a boy here Hogwarts age!” Mr Fortescue had let Sirius and Snape scowl and sneer and argue for some time before a customer had entered the shop, immediately left, and he lost his patience with them.
“Or Mister Black,” Snape looked positively ill when he said Sirius‘s surname, “Can return home to his parents who can sort the matter out.”
“Can’t,” Sirius said, pissed and trying to remain just nonchalant enough to piss Snape off. “My dad’s dead, mum’s dead.”
“Who do you live with?” Fortescue asked him.
“Muggle orphanage,” Sirius said at random. He hadn’t actually figured that bit out yet, but he knew he couldn’t exactly say he was homeless and risk being separated from Harry when summer rolled around.
Snape stilled for a moment, a sharp look in his eyes suddenly. When they met Sirius’s, Sirius curled his upper lip at the faint pressure in his head.
Snape might consider himself a master of legilimency, but Sirius was a Black. He learned occlumency before he stepped foot in Hogwarts. It was meant to keep Dumbledore from discovering any family secrets and Sirius never bothered to maintain it.
It wasn’t hard to sense when someone was trying to dig though and Sirius was able to call Snape on it immediately.
“OW!” he said loudly. “That hurts, Professor.”
That was enough for Snape to blink and for the pressure to lessen. It was also enough to send Snape storming for the door, warning Harry to not move while he fetched Dumbledore.
“Woof,” Sirius said mockingly when Snape left. From one master to another, Snape was nothing if not a dog chained to wizards more powerful than him.
Great greasy bastard.
Harry sighed deeply when Snape was gone and began fishing for coins to pay Fortescue with.
“Sirius, you know we’ve got to deal with him for seven years, right? I was planning on trying to make him like me this time,” he whispered. “Maybe if he didn’t think I was my dad, he wouldn’t be as horrible.”
“Snape?” Sirius scoffed at Harry’s misplaced optimism. “Pup, there was no world anywhere where Snape was going to like you. Maybe if Lily had married someone who wasn’t James…” Sirius shrugged and missed the crooked glance Harry sent him.
Sirius was busy plotting out what would be a brilliant seven years of paying Snape back for all the abuses and hatefulness that he had dealt Sirius recently. Sirius would need his map, he’d probably need to borrow the cloak… oh, yeah, Sirius was fully prepared to make Snape regret ever becoming a professor.
Harry, on the other hand, seemed glum while they waited. Sirius thought he’d bounce out of it soon, once they were at Hogwarts and sharing a dorm, talking and plotting just as Sirius used to with James.
Harry wasn’t as much like James as Sirius once thought. Sure, they looked quite a bit alike, but Harry was rather different in personality. James never would have worried about making a professor like him, they always did though. James would also already be planning revenge with Sirius…
Sirius didn’t mind though, he figured that things were a shock for Harry and that once he got used to their situation, he’d crawl out of his shell. Really, as much as Sirius had wanted to be, the two of them hadn’t been very close before either. That would all change, Sirius wanted them to be closer than he had ever been with James, closer than any set of brothers or friends before.
It didn’t take all that long for someone to return and Sirius was elated to see it was Snape again. He had thought maybe Dumbledore himself would arrive, another name on Sirius’s list, but Snape having to break the news was twice as good.
“Your birthday?” Snape spat at Sirius, his anger only serving to increase Sirius’s gloating.
“Thirtieth of July,” Sirius said, having already decided that before. Sirius had considered taking Harry’s birthday as well as his middle name (who could question it?), but the day before would still put them in the same year.
If Snape was surprised by that, he didn’t show it.
“Who is your mother?” Snape asked, more of a personal curiosity than professional one, Sirius was sure.
Sirius had planned to tell people that he was the son of Sirius and Marlene McKinnon. Marlene had been killed not long after Harry was born and she had been Sirius’s first and only girlfriend. It would have been an easy lie to sell, Sirius had even met Marlene’s family.
The opportunity to spit in Snape’s face twice was too much for Sirius to resist though.
“Mary Macdonald,” Sirius said, unable to hold back a scowl as he said it. Mary had been a sweet girl, a year older than Sirius and a Gryffindor. Mary had been the type of person who would give a person the shirt off her back, regardless of house or blood status.
Then Snivellus’s buddies, the death eaters in training, had gotten ahold of her in her sixth year. Nobody except for Lily, who had been close to Mary, knew precisely what had happened, but it had been vile and Mary had never been quite the same.
Sirius couldn’t prove Snape had been involved, but Mary’s changed demeanor had played in Sirius’s mind the full moon night that he sent Snape to the Shrieking Shack.
Snape didn’t do anything as obvious as flinch, but Sirius saw his shock all the same.
“Interesting,” Snape said, a cold murmur laced with blatant hate. “And here I thought your father was a flaming homosexual.”
And there Sirius thought Snape never pulled his oversized nose from a cauldron long enough to notice Sirius’s sexual preferences.
Snape didn’t waste any more time before ordering Sirius and Harry to take his wrists. Sirius refused, more on principle than anything, and took Harry’s hand instead. If Harry was willing to touch Snape, more power to him.
It felt like returning home when they arrived in Hogsmeade and made the short walk to Hogwarts. Sirius could tell Harry felt it too, they didn’t need to pretend to be awed, they were both as starry eyed as any true first year at the sight of the castle.
Hogwarts was the first place Sirius had felt at home, the first place he felt loved and cared for. There was nothing like returning to it, knowing that Sirius would once again be gifted with seven years in its walls.
Did Azkaban accept flowers? Sirius should check… he owed Bellatrix some form of thank you.
Despite their antics and side-trips, Sirius and Harry were pushed in the Great Hall as the sorting was happening. Some of the first years had already been sorted, but there were still a few waiting. Sirius and Harry shared a grin and then Sirius sent a longing look at the Gryffindor table.
Lily once mocked Sirius, said he couldn’t care about Gryffindor for his entire life, but Gryffindor felt like a part of who Sirius was. Sirius made his friends there, found a home there. And Minerva had been like a real mum to him during his time… Sirius would have to take care to not actually weep when he was sorted again.
Minerva was in front of them, not looking that much younger than the last time Sirius had seen her. While Snape slipped up to the Head Table, Minerva called for ‘Moon, Lily!’ to be sorted.
“Who’s she?” Sirius whispered to Harry. They had already received a variety of rude stares when they joined the others late, whispering wasn’t likely to make them any more of a spectacle.
“I didn’t really know her well,” Harry whispered back, desperately trying to cover his forehead with his fringe.
Sirius scoffed and swore to pay attention to every student being sorted. Harry had clearly missed the glory of gossip.
After Lily Moon was sorted to Hufflepuff, Theodore Nott was called. Sirius couldn’t help but pull a face at the small boy with the brunette hair and tucked head. If he was remembering right, Theodore was Thaddeus Nott’s son and Thaddeus had been friends with Sirius’s father. Which meant it was no surprise when Theodore went directly to Slytherin.
Next was Padma Patil. She was a cute kid; dark skinned, fashionable purple glasses on her face to match her dangling earrings. When she went to Ravenclaw, her twin Parvati was called.
“That’s the one you went to the Yule Ball with, right?” Sirius whispered to Harry, winking when Minerva sent him a pointed glare.
“Er… yeah,” Harry breathed back, shrinking under Minerva’s glare.
Sirius nodded and knew she would go to Gryffindor, a good place for Sirius to interrogate her about if she had gone with Harry or with the Boy-Who-Lived. Maybe if her interest grew to be genuine, Sirius could help set her up later… maybe.
Sirius wasn’t the only one whispering when Harry’s name was called next. Students were actually standing on their seats to get a look at Harry, which meant it was a bloody good thing that Sirius made him change before they arrived.
“Go get ‘em,” Sirius whispered to Harry, reluctantly releasing his wrist that he had been holding up until then. Harry smiled back, looking a little nervous, before he went up to the stool.
Sirius didn’t think it would take long for Harry to be sorted, not like it had taken Sirius. Merlin, Sirius had argued with the bloody hat for so long that he had worried he’d be kicked out before he got sorted.
In the end though, Sirius had been pleased to be sorted to —
“SLYTHERIN!”
Sirius wasn’t the only one whose jaw dropped when the damned defective hat called out Slytherin for Harry. There were a lot of murky moments in Sirius’s memory, but he knew for sure that Harry had been a Gryffindor.
Harry definitely wasn’t then and it wasn’t until he sent Sirius a horribly guilty look on his way to the Slytherin table that Sirius realized beneath the outbreak of whispers, not a single person was clapping.
Sirius made sure he found Harry in the crowd so Harry could see Sirius enthusiastically clapping and loudly whistling for him. It sparked a few others to clap, but mostly it made the new tension in Harry’s shoulders disappear.
Honestly, Harry followed Sirius through the veil… did he really think Sirius would write him off because of where he was sorted? Sirius knew Harry, he knew he wasn’t some evil bastard.
It put a damper on Sirius’s plans though… Unless… well… unless Sirius didn’t bother arguing with the hat when his turn came?
The Sorting Hat had once told Sirius that he would do well in Slytherin, Sirius supposed that it was time to see if that was still true or not.