Ruined Things
“You kissed him. You kissed Harry Potter.”
“Wouldn’t you?”
“Ugh, no way.”
“That’s because you’re a child.”
“You’re eleven.”
Sirius hummed, only half paying attention to Draco beside him. The Kiss, capitalized for the space it was consuming in Sirius’s mind, was the last thing Sirius wanted to discuss. In the last week since Halloween, Sirius had been relieved that Harry, for once, didn’t want to talk an incident to death. There had been no more impulsive and heartbreak driven kisses, no more fights… it would have been peaceful if Sirius didn’t rip himself apart for it every time he thought of it.
Which was why Sirius didn’t want to think about it. Sirius didn’t want to talk about it, he didn’t want to think about it, Sirius only wanted to sit in the quidditch stands and watch Harry fly through the skies above the place where he had kissed Harry.
Sirius had Harry’s cloak on at first, then he saw that Snape didn’t show up so he took the cloak off so he could sit in plain sight to watch Harry fly. Sirius didn’t want to hide and if Snape wanted to enforce his absurd ban then he could show up and try to drag Sirius away.
“Fuck.” Sirius exhaled forcefully and barely stopped himself from dropping his head in his hands. It was because it was Harry flying that Sirius didn’t do it, but he wanted to. A part of Sirius wanted to hide and run and never show his face again.
Sirius wanted to grab Harry and hide and run and never be apart from him again.
Draco patted Sirius’s shoulder in some misplaced show of sympathy.
“At least he’s kind of cute,” Draco said. “Father said I can’t begin courting until I’m thirteen, but I guess you didn’t really have parents to tell you that.”
Sirius snorted, momentarily amused by what Draco must have considered to be polite advice. It sounded something like what Reggie would have said…
“He’s Harry Potter,” Blaise repeated, rolling his eyes at Draco. “He’s Sirius Black, do you think anyone’s going to celebrate them courting?”
“Do you think there’s anyone to complain?” Draco asked, part logical and part rude without even realizing he was rude. “What? Potter’s muggle relatives will call Sirius’s muggle caretakers?”
Point, Draco.
Sirius lifted his head back up so he could continue watching Slytherin trounce Gryffindor in the first quidditch match of the season.
Harry had been excited for the match and Sirius had paid no attention to anything other than Harry flying around, releasing all his energy in flashy moves and risky stunts. Lee Jordan, the third year boy who did the commentary, had already commented on the ‘erratic Slytherin seeker’.
Harry wasn’t erratic, he was happy and having the time of his life. It shouldn’t have made Sirius feel guilty, but it did.
“You think I don’t know what you look like when you’re pining? That’s my son, Sirius. Don’t you bloody dare.”
James was going to haunt Sirius; it wasn’t any different than usual though. At least Harry was happy.
He was anyway, until he almost caught a bludger to the back of his head. Harry scowled and it made Sirius chuckle at just how ridiculous he looked, eleven years old and glaring at the Weasley that nearly unseated him and ruined the streak of spirals he had going.
“I love him.”
“You’re going to ruin him, Pads. Let him be a kid.”
Sirius was going to burn in Hell, he was sure of it.
The game lasted nearly three hours before Harry caught the snitch. Sirius screamed and cheered as loudly as anyone and his heart ached at the brilliant smile Harry gave him from the sky.
Harry was too good, too pure, damn near perfect.
Sirius was a monster.
There was a party in the Slytherin common room after the quidditch team won their first match of the season. Sirius told Draco and Blaise to go on without him, he wanted to wait for Harry.
Draco and Blaise exchanged small grins then started giggling like the children they were as they made kissing noises at each other. They ran off with their laughter echoing behind them and Sirius’s middle finger aimed in their direction.
It might have been better if Sirius hadn’t gone chasing comfort from Harry in front of dozens of witnesses. Aside from too many comments from kids who were getting too comfortable around Sirius, nobody had said anything.
There were disapproving tuts and skeptical gazes, mostly from the old crowd who - like Draco - had been taught that traditional courting shouldn’t start until at least thirteen.
It was rubbish. Sirius wasn’t courting Harry, Sirius - Sirius made a mistake.
Sirius leaned against the changing rooms and kicked the grass until it came up in clumps. It was fucking James’s fault, putting the idea in his head. Sirius thought Harry had gotten a bit confused, shuffled Sirius around in his head as a mate that he could fancy if he wanted.
Sirius would have ignored it, let it sort itself out. Then James had to go talking as if Sirius had been mooning after Harry like a teenager.
It wasn’t like that, it wasn’t. Sirius loved Harry, he needed him like he needed oxygen and magic.
And - and it just felt so fucking normal with Harry. Sirius felt more like himself than he had in his entire life.
Sirius was free; free to start over, free to be anyone and anything he wanted. Sirius was free from the judgment of all the friends he loved and lost, free from the scorn of his family.
Harry walked out then, his hair wet and laying in his face from a shower. He was shivering and wearing one of the sweaters that he and Sirius bought in London. The first thing he did was look to Sirius and smile widely, a brighter smile than he had when he caught the snitch.
Fuck it.
Sirius was free, Harry was happy.
Sirius’s conscience could wait to berate him with James.
November was a strange month for Sirius.
He received top marks in every class he had, he successfully convinced Filch that he only had been assigned detentions for a month, so those ended halfway through the month. The weather turned bitterly cold, Harry had never been as social as he was.
And Sirius was bored.
Sirius was bored to tears.
It was difficult to squeeze himself in with the older students, who would undoubtedly be more interesting than the first years. It wasn’t impossible within Slytherin, Sirius was something of a celebrity in that house. But too many of those students reminded Sirius of either their relatives or his - the same difference, really.
There was no magic that Sirius desperately wanted to learn, like Harry and his nonverbal spells. There were no grand pranks to plan, no full moons to prepare for.
It was only Sirius feeling like the loneliest bastard in the castle for a while. A few days turned into a week, one week turned to two…
“Let’s skip today,” Harry said one morning, apropos of nothing. He was looking at Sirius though, so Sirius felt compelled to respond.
“Yeah?” he said. “Why?”
Harry shrugged. “No reason. History just sounds boring today and I’d rather not deal with Snape later in defense.”
Sirius was surprised that it was already another full moon - time seemed to drag on, how had it already been a month? - but trusted that Harry had the days right.
“You can’t just skip classes whenever you feel like it,” Pansy told them with an air of disapproval. “You’re going to make us lose points.”
“Oh, noooo…” Blaise drawled, smirking a little. “Whatever will we do?”
At Blaise’s gesture, everyone looked to the glass counters that were displayed in the front of the Hall. There was just enough green to make Sirius feel sick.
“Sirius and Harry could lose fifty points each for skipping and make up for it in a week of classes,” Daphne said rationally, as if Sirius needed the endorsement of a kid to decide to skip classes.
“Where are we going?” Sirius asked Harry, feeling more and more cheered by the idea of doing something out of the usual schedule.
“We could go to Hogsmeade,” Harry suggested. “Or - I don’t know. Where do you want to go?”
Sirius couldn’t find a reason to not go to Hogsmeade, that sounded like a fine idea to him. It was good of Harry to suggest it, plus his last big plan had involved acromantula and ended hysterically.
“Yeah, alright,” Sirius agreed. “Let’s go to Hogsmeade.” He looked at the others, the tagalongs as he called them. “Anyone else interested?”
Pansy opted out immediately, Draco as well, though he seemed put out by his own decision. Blaise seemed interested for a moment before looking at Harry and then deciding to stay behind as well.
“No way,” Daphne said, the last one that Sirius extended an invite to. She scrunched her nose up and tossed her hair back. “I have parents who would be very mad if I skipped classes.”
It took Daphne a moment of Sirius and Harry both looking at her with cocked eyebrows before she squeaked and clasped her hands over her mouth in mortification.
“I didn’t mean it like that!” she wailed. “I’m sorry! I’m so sorry! I didn’t mean because your parents are all dead!”
“Daphne!” Pansy seemed just as horrified and she reached over to cover Daphne’s mouth with her hands. “Shut up!!”
Sirius caught Harry’s gaze and a small twitch of Harry’s lips was all it took for Sirius to start laughing. When Sirius laughed, Harry laughed. For whatever morbid reason, Draco started laughing.
Within thirty seconds, every first year at the Slytherin table was bent over, clutching at each other, screaming with laughter. Harry actually laughed until he had tears in his eyes and Sirius felt a stitch in his side from his laughter.
For a bunch of kids, they could be decent company on occasion, even if it was mostly on accident.
“We should get something for everyone,” Sirius said later to Harry. They had just dropped in the tunnel under the hump-back witch and Harry pulled the cloak off until they reached Hogsmeade and saw if the coast was clear.
“What? For Christmas?” Harry sighed dramatically at Sirius’s nod. “Imagine me buying Draco Malfoy a Christmas present.”
“We should really get Cissa a bottle of wine too,” Sirius said. “It’s tradition to bring something to the host of Yule.”
Sirius didn’t really give a damn about tradition - but when in Rome…
“Yule?” Harry stopped in the dingy passage and squinted at Sirius. “What are you on about?”
“What?” Sirius paused. “I told you that we’re going to the Malfoy’s for Yule, right?”
Sirius was sure of it because his to-do list included finding dress robes for the both of them. There were dozens of pairs in Grimmauld Place, but they were fussy and outdated. Sirius wouldn’t be caught dead in any of those robes and he’d never make Harry wear a set either.
Frills, honestly. Who had thought that would be a good look?
“No,” Harry sighed. “You didn’t, Siri. I don’t want to go rub elbows with Draco’s dad. You might have missed it, but he did try to kill me and my friends before.”
Yeah, he did. Lucius was a scum of a human, a waste of magic. But Cissa… Cissa wasn’t all bad. It wasn’t as if she had chosen Lucius either, she had been the sister shoved forward to fulfill that familial obligation when Andy ran off with Ted.
Cissa had once been one of Sirius’s favorite cousins and the request had come from her, to Draco, to Sirius… Sirius had just seen a small glimmer of opportunity to see who Cissa had grown to be and jumped at it. He hadn’t even considered Harry’s history with Lucius in the equation outside of accepting on both their behalf.
“Shit.” Sirius was the one to sigh, somehow much less dramatically than Harry. He gave Harry a pitiful look through his fringe. “I didn’t even think about that, Pup. I’m sorry.”
Sirius should make that the first tattoo when he began replacing his own old ones: ‘I’m sorry’, right across his forehead.
It would save him from having to say it so much.
When Remus looked at him, Sirius could point at it. When Sirius inevitably disappointed Harry again, he’d point at it. If he ever had the horrible opportunity to speak with James again, Sirius would point at it.
He was bloody tired of being sorry.
“C’mon.” Harry reached out and grabbed Sirius’s wrist. It seemed like a small thing, but Sirius felt every particle of where his palm connected with Harry’s when Harry slid his hand down and they were - fuck.
They were holding hands.
Nobody had ever held Sirius’s hand… not really. Not in a casual sort of ‘I want to touch you just for the sake of touching you’ way. Not even when Sirius had been a small boy did anyone hold his hand. Maybe James a time or two, when they’d been goofing off or skipping across the lawns in their first couple of years together.
Had Sirius and Remus ever held hands? Did Remus ever lace his fingers between Sirius’s just for the sake of it?
“If you want to go, we can,” Harry said casually, as if it wasn’t nearly an indecent level of innocence to be holding Sirius’s hand while they walked. “I’m going to be an arse though, Lucius laughed when Voldemort tried to kill me, Siri.”
“So we ruin the party!” Sirius said cheerfully, loving that idea. It was good to focus on mischief instead of his sweating palms or racing heart. “Or - or! You can embarrass the hell out of him, Pup. Some of the best revenge involves personal humiliation and we’ve got a month to plan!”
“Do we have to dress up?” Harry asked.
“We do…” Sirius had another brilliant idea. “We could wear suits, go in the finest muggle wear, we can order them from Madrid. Circe, they’d choke.”
“Yeah?” Harry grinned at Sirius, a little shy, always sweet. “Then we should bring a muggle gift for them, so it’s like we’re following tradition but not theirs.”
Sirius knew then that he was going to love Harry every step down the staircase to Hell. And maybe… Sirius wouldn’t swear on it or anything… maybe walking down to Hell wouldn’t be so bad… if someone held his hand.
Hogsmeade wasn’t all that busy considering the early hour. Most of the shops weren’t even opened yet and Sirius cast a warning charm on them so they could wander around freely.
The fresh air, as cold as it was, seemed to be what Sirius needed to clear some of the pressure from his mind. There wasn’t much to do, but it was still nice to walk around and make more and more elaborate plans with Harry to ruin Lucius Malfoy’s holiday.
Their top idea was to spike his drink with Veritaserum and get him to spill as many secrets as possible before it wore off. That was Harry’s idea, devious brat. Sirius’s idea had involved roasted peacock.
Sirius felt seven meters tall when he had Harry in stitches as he walked across the top beam of the fence surrounding the Shrieking Shack and impersonated Lucius.
“Oh, the indignity!” Sirius wailed in his haughtiest voice, his nose in the air and his arms held out straight at his sides. “A Malfoy? Drinking from anything less than a gold cup? Off with your head!”
Harry rolled on the ground, laughing his damn head off. He tried to prop himself up to give his own haughty impersonation, the poor kid just didn’t have the experience with stuck-up purebloods that Sirius did.
“You call that a hex?” Harry sniffed and flicked his head, looking like a centaur. “My hair stylist has more power than that!”
“Hair stylist?!” Sirius cried. “As if I would let unworthy hands touch my golden locks. My hair grows until I find hands pure and lucky enough to be gifted with a single strand of hair.”
“Shut up,” Harry laughed. “Is that why his hair’s so long?”
“It’s long because he’s short,” Sirius told Harry. He did a leap across a fence-post and then bowed because he could. “He was the shortest bloke in his year, he thought longer hair would make him look taller.”
Sirius could see Harry self-consciously pulling on a lock of his own hair, it didn’t take a mind-reader to know what he was thinking.
“You don’t need long hair,” Sirius assured him. He stood on one foot then gracefully jumped down from the fence, landing on his feet perfectly.
“You need to not go back to Petunia’s house,” Sirius said. He figured if Harry wasn’t going to get up, he’d lay on the ground beside him. Harry was on his stomach, Sirius laid next to him on his back.
“We can start clearing out Grimmauld Place during break,” Sirius said, staring up at the sky and thinking aloud. “We’ll get you a room setup however you want. I don’t know how to cook, but we can get rid of Kreacher and find a better elf, one who can cook the best meals.”
“Molly Weasley makes the best food.” Harry rolled on his side so while Sirius gazed at the sky, he could feel Harry’s eyes on him. “I - er… I’m sorry, about last summer too. I should have said something when she had a go at you. It wasn’t fair.”
Sirius’s forehead scrunched down in thought while he tried to think of what Harry meant.
Last summer? When Molly and her brood had taken over Sirius’s prison? There were so many cross words that were exchanged, Sirius couldn’t think of what Harry meant.
“Molly’s a prude,” Sirius said carelessly. “I’m sure I wasn’t even listening if she had a go at me.”
“Well… you talk in your sleep, you know? And… I dunno. You just talk a lot, and I should have said something then.”
Sirius turned his head so he could see Harry properly. There he was, looking right at Sirius with his earnest eyes that were so clear, no deception to be seen. Sirius knew he talked in his sleep, every lover he had and inmate in Azkaban had said so. Sirius didn’t know that Harry listened to him when he slept-talked about transgressions he didn’t even remember while conscious.
“Don’t worry about it,” Sirius said, unintentionally soft. “I didn’t expect you to defend me. I’m a grown man, Harry.”
Too old for Harry, too dark and twisted for Harry.
If Harry heard his warning, he ignored it in favor of dipping his head a little closer, too close… not close enough.
“I should have,” Harry insisted. “Someone should have. You - you’re brilliant, Sirius. You’re kind and funny and - and you care, right? I should have said that then.”
Sirius lifted a hand, something of an experiment. A thrill went down his arm when his fingers touched Harry’s face.
“Would you say it now?” Sirius asked quietly, not thinking of Molly Weasley at all.
“Yeah,” Harry breathed, leaning closer still. “I would.”
James’s voice echoed in Sirius’s ears, “You’re going to ruin him.”
“I’m going to ruin your life,” Sirius said, wincing at the sharp ache he felt when he told Harry what he knew - what James knew - was the truth.
Harry - the reckless boy who chased a vision of Sirius to the Ministry, the desperate boy who didn’t accept Sirius’s death and instead ran through the veil behind him - shook his head so his hair fell across his forehead.
“Ruin it.”
Sirius would… it was wrong and horrible and nothing had made him feel so happy in his entire life. If Sirius was going to end up in Hell, the only regret he would have would be the eternal separation from his Harry.