Epiphanies
Sirius had been watching Harry, growing steadily more concerned about him.
Harry wasn’t sleeping great, he wasn’t eating much. Harry hardly smiled, he talked even less than usual, and he just seemed really downtrodden. The only time that Harry came to life was when he wanted to talk about the murder of his relatives and theorize over who may have done it.
They had no suspects. None.
Sirius couldn’t imagine who - outside of Voldemort himself - would kill Harry’s horrible aunt and abusive piece of shite uncle. The kid made it worse too, because Sirius would have happily slit the throat of Petunia and Vernon Dursley, but who killed a kid?
Voldemort. Death Eaters.
Two thirds of the attendants at the Yule Gala.
Dumbledore.
Harry didn’t agree with Sirius about Albus, but Sirius kept him on his own list of suspects. Why Albus would kill Harry’s relatives, Sirius couldn’t be sure. It could have been a message, a way to scare Harry into following Albus more closely. Albus could have gone to check up on Harry, make sure he was where Albus wanted him, and he could have killed the Dursley family in his anger.
It wasn’t the most likely scenario, but never impossible.
Harry looked like hell though and everyone was noticing. Minerva had taken to checking on him daily, Filius was sending house-elves to the Slytherin dorms in the evening with snacks and hot chocolate.
Hell, Amelia had sent Harry two letters in the week since his interview with her. She said that she promised to keep him up to date on the investigation. So far there had been no leads.
There had been a rush of families applying to take custody of the Boy-Who-Lived. The news broke a few days after Harry had been informed and there suddenly wasn’t a magical family in Great Britain that wasn’t somehow related to the Potters.
Every morning Harry’s poor owl had half a dozen letters for Harry from ‘caring relatives’ who wanted to offer their condolences. The Malfoy family had sent letters, the Averys sent a letter, Corbin Yaxley wrote to Harry personally. Juliana Zabini of Italy sent bloody chocolates. Daphne Greengrass’s mother sent Harry a bouquet of flowers and a card.
Not a single damn one of those families cared about the death of some muggles, they just wanted to try and take custody of Harry.
It wasn’t only the families wanting to heighten their political standing either. Molly Weasley sent Harry a heartfelt letter saying she knew how he felt, she had lost a large part of her family to violence as well. Augusta Longbottom sent a similar card, along with an invitation to tea during the Easter holiday. The Grangers sent Harry a card, though Sirius didn’t think that was forced - they just sounded sad for their daughter’s ’best friend’.
Harry was overwhelmed and Sirius was seething over it all.
“You’re not going to live with any of them,” Sirius swore to Harry at night after another day of receiving letters and cards of condolences laced with ulterior motives.
“Madam Bones said they’ll have hearings this spring over it,” Harry said dully. He was listless, laying on his back and staring unseeingly up at the charmed ceiling.
“And we’ll tell them to get fucked,” Sirius said. He had one arm beneath Harry’s shoulders, holding him close. His other hand was rubbing Harry’s arm, trying to warm him up. Harry was freezing.
“You can follow in my grand footsteps of running away,” Sirius said, planning as he spoke. “Nobody can find us at Grimmauld Place, not even a team of aurors. We’ll send Dobby out to the shops, it’ll be fine, Pup.”
“So we’ll be in hiding,” Harry said, a grim summary of Sirius’s plan. “Yeah, that worked out well for you last summer, Siri.”
Sirius would do it, for Harry. There was no length of time too long for Sirius to hide away if it meant keeping Harry safe and secure.
“I’d do it for you,” Sirius said softly. “Anything.”
That was what Sirius would do for Harry - anything, everything.
February brought a slowing in condolence cards for Harry and a resuming of quidditch practice. It was enough for Sirius to see Harry perking up while he flew and working up an appetite for dinner afterward.
It didn’t mean that Harry didn’t stop talking about the murders. He was obsessing over them and Sirius wanted to help him find the killer more than anything.
There were just no leads, no suspects that stood out more than any other.
“Father said that he thinks it was a crazy fan,” Draco said. Draco and Blaise sat in the quidditch stands with Sirius while the Slytherin team practiced. Sirius had his notepad out, going over every idea, theory, and wildest conspiracy that he and Harry had come up with.
There was a theory about an overt fan of Harry’s tracking his relatives down and killing them. That one involved Snape releasing Harry’s private medical information though, which Sirius secretly hoped had happened so he could truly make Snape regret ever being born.
“You have two dead men on there,” Blaise said, peering over Sirius’s shoulder and pointing at the lines for Peter and Crouch Junior. “No, three, sorry,” he said, pointing at Voldemort’s name as well.
“Did you see their bodies?” Sirius muttered distractedly, rewriting the names in order of most likely to least likely on a fresh page. “No? Then don’t assume they’re dead.”
“You have my father listed twice,” Draco pointed out.
“He’s twice as likely,” Sirius said rationally. He glanced up for a moment to check on Harry and smiled crookedly at the sight of Harry flying through the sky on his new broom.
That broom had been a bitch to order, much easier to smuggle in the school. It wasn’t as if anyone searched students returning from break and no one cared what broom the Slytherin seeker flew on.
Worth it though, to see Harry zooming around and doing the flips and spins he was so fond of.
“The Dark Lord is your top suspect?” Blaise asked. He hummed. “So you think he’s alive?”
“Harry said he is,” Draco reminded him. “He said he’s going to attack him again.”
“Harry also said that caramel was a fruit, so I don’t really trust him much.”
Sirius snorted and then looked at his page once he had moved all their theories and information to a fresh sheet.
Voldemort: failed attempt on Harry
Lucius: political ploy
Crouch Jr: gift for V
Pettigrew: apology/gift for V
Albus: message/threat
Crazed Fan: justice
D.E. at Y.G.: political ploy
Snape: revenge
Lucius: for V
Minerva: justice
Pomfrey: justice
The problem with their theories was that there were too many of them, all with their own merits.
If they could figure out the why, they might be able to figure out the who. Then Sirius could make them pay over and over and over for every moment of unrest they caused Harry.
“Do you think you’re going to solve it before the entire Ministry?” Blaise asked. “You’re brilliant, I don’t know that you’re really much of an auror.”
That was where Blaise was wrong. Sirius had been an excellent auror, for the entire six months after school that he had lasted on the force. The first time Sirius had blasted at a death eater attacking a family in public and aimed to kill rather than detain, he had been written up. The second time, he had been suspended. When it happened a third time, Sirius quit.
When a war was happening, Sirius didn’t give a damn about rules and regulations. Anyone who knew Sirius had known that he didn’t care about them most of the time, but war wasn’t a time for leniency and red tape.
It pissed him off still to remember how Crouch Senior authorized the use of Unforgivables right after Sirius quit. Sirius could have saved the bloody world if he had been given the free use of any spell he wanted.
“Ten galleons says I solve it before the DMLE,” Sirius said. He tapped his quill on Minerva’s name… debating how far he would get if he tried to interrogate her.
It was Minerva, so probably not far.
Slipping Veritaserum in Snape’s evening drink and cornering him for an interrogation wouldn’t be Sirius’s worst idea, knowing Snape and his double-sided life the bastard probably drank the antidote every day though.
“I think it was Harry,” Draco suggested, his eyes sparkling with excitement when Sirius glanced at him. “Listen! What if Harry saw how much better life with wizards was at the Yule Gala and so he killed the muggles so he can live with wizards.”
Sirius blinked and then raised his wand, silencing Draco with a single hex.
“That’s the most idiotic fucking theory I’ve ever heard,” Sirius told him, focusing on his list of actual suspects. “If you’re not going to be helpful then shut the hell up.”
After a few minutes without anything brilliant or new popping in Sirius’s mind, he put the notepad away and huddled down in his cloak to watch practice instead. The sky overhead was a dull grey, threatening snow at any moment. Sirius watched Harry zoom through the air on his broom, looking much like a seasoned professional. Every move Harry made seemed effortless, each twist and twirl looked graceful.
Harry was so damned beautiful in the air.
Sirius wasn’t an untalented flier, but it paled laughably when compared to Harry. As Harry looped through the sky, navigating even through the darkness, Sirius felt a pang of inadequacy.
Sirius told Harry that he needed time to give Harry what he wanted and he did. Sirius needed time to give Harry all of him, as wretched and pathetic as he was.
Even knowing that, Sirius couldn’t keep his eyes off Harry.
Harry was just so beautiful.
February changed to March and Sirius felt and heard Harry’s frustration at the lack of progress in the murder of his relatives. Every bloody Slytherin in the castle knew Harry was frustrated, every professor could sense it.
Harry wrote a letter to Amelia every evening, mailed it every morning, and her replies had slowed to once a week. The Prophet had already moved past the muggle murders as well, they were on to the next sensational story.
“This is BOLLOCKS!” Harry yelled as he walked the center of the room - back and forth, back and forth.
“They have to have at least one good suspect!” Harry vented. “‘The case is going cold’, ‘I won’t forget about them, but without any further evidence I’m afraid that there isn’t much I can do because the Ministry is useless and filled with morons’.”
“Did she say that last bit?” Sirius asked idly. He frowned at his notes on the wall and moved a thumbtack from Barty Crouch Junior to Peter.
Harry swore that Barty hadn’t done anything until his fourth year while Peter leaving Hogwarts had not happened in his first year. It meant that Peter was the one acting out of character, not necessarily Barty.
“She didn’t need to.” Harry threw himself on the floor a split second before the room helpfully provided him a cushion to sit on. Harry grabbed it and threw it at the wall, then the room gave him a stack of glass bottles and bludgers to throw.
It was a helpful room to have, it would be better if Sirius could plot the damn thing on his map.
Sirius frowned at their own lack of progress and wished he could get his hands on the photographs of the house. Had it been trashed? Was the killer angry? Was anything stolen? Had Harry’s room been ransacked?
“Give it up,” Harry said, causing Sirius to jump. Sirius had been focused on examining the board they set up in the hidden room and hadn’t noticed Harry sneaking up behind him. Sirius turned and saw that Harry wasn’t just tired and stressed, he was miserable.
“I’m not going to give it up,” Sirius told him, reaching out to just grab Harry, reminding him he wasn’t carrying the damn world on his shoulders alone.
“I didn’t even like them,” Harry said, looking past Sirius and staring at the wall. Sirius didn’t need to look where Harry was, he knew which name Harry would be looking at. It was the same one that kept him awake, kept him burning with a need for vengeance.
“Dudley was an arse, he made me miserable for our entire lives.” Harry blinked and Sirius pretended to not hear his voice getting choked. “But he was a kid, Siri. He was just a kid.”
Sirius pulled Harry to him by the hip and wrapped his arms around him so Harry could duck his head and hide in the crook of Sirius’s shoulder.
“You hated Regulus.”
“HE WAS JUST A BABY!”
“I’m going to find them and I’m going to make them pay,” Sirius whispered heatedly. He slid a hand up to cap the back of Harry’s head and he just held him close. “If it’s the last fucking thing I do.”
Who more than Sirius could understand what Harry was going through?
A lot of Sirius’s plans couldn’t be put in place until April when he could get close to the likes of Lucius and the others to see what they knew. What Sirius could do, and did, was tell Cibelle Yaxley that he and Harry would like to attend the Spring Equinox at her home during break.
“Oh.” Cibelle was amusingly - annoyingly - surprised by Sirius accepting the offer on his and Harry’s behalf.
“You’ll be coming as well?” Cibelle asked, one hand fluttering to her neck to fidget with her necklace.
Sirius smirked. Surely the girl had heard Harry screaming about Sirius kissing him on the first night back at Hogwarts? Nobody had ever been Sirius’s as much as Harry so obviously was.
“Harry won’t go without me,” Sirius informed her smugly.
“I’m delighted to have you then,” Cibelle said smoothly, the perfect daughter of a pureblood. She smiled and she was pretty, proper, boring.
The girl was everything that Walburga would have loved in a daughter, a little Narcissa down to the hair that didn’t have a single stand out of place. It pissed Sirius off for no real reason.
“Let me be really bloody clear…” Sirius took a step closer to the desk that Cibelle studied at in the library. He didn’t bother lowering his voice or pulling his wand, he didn’t need to.
Cibelle had to be the only blind student in the fucking castle.
“Every event that Harry attends? I’ll be with him,” Sirius told her clearly. “Every Yule, every Equinox. Harry is with me. If he’s invited, I’m his plus one.”
Cibelle looked just over Sirius’s shoulder and giggled girlishly before she tucked a strand of hair behind her ear.
“I see,” she said. “Then I’ll enjoy getting to know you.” Cibelle smiled then lifted her book to hide her face. “It’s traditional to wear white, Harry.”
Harry.
Sirius spun on the spot and would have gladly apparated away if it were possible. Harry was standing a few feet behind Sirius beside Hermione Granger, both of them with arms ladened in books. Hermione was blushing darkly, her precariously balanced stack of books shook with her silent giggles.
Harry was pink in the cheeks, but he looked damned pleased.
Sirius was going to put a bloody bell on him.
“I thought you had quidditch,” Sirius said, not meaning to make it an accusation.
“Flint told me to take the evening off, rest up for the match this weekend,” Harry said. “Hermione was going to help me research wards.”
Of course she was. Harry had moved past researching all their suspects and had began to question how anyone breached the Dursley home since Sirius knew for a fact that it had been warded by Albus himself.
Another bit of damning evidence against Albus.
“Wait until break,” Sirius said, eager to move past the sticky moment of Harry overhearing more than he wanted him to. “There’s plenty of books we can get, more extensive than Hogwarts would have.”
“My father would also have some,” Cibelle said airily from behind her book. “I’m sure he would be happy to loan you any reading material you require.”
Would he? Would Yaxley be sooo happy to loan Harry a book?
Sirius scoffed and took the books from Harry’s arm to dump on an empty table.
“Did you eat?” he asked Harry, knowing he wouldn’t have. “Come on, let’s grab dinner.”
“I think I’ll stay here,” Hermione said, as if Sirius had been speaking to her. “May I sit with you?” she asked Cibelle, carefully sliding her books to the desk when Cibelle agreed.
Sirius grabbed Harry’s arm and began leading him away quickly, eager to get away from the giggles that were following them. Sirius could feel embarrassment burning him from the inside, not without a decent amount of concern.
“Oi, why’d you tell Dorcas that I wouldn’t go to Hogsmeade with her?” Remus had his arms crossed and seemed peeved with Sirius.
Sirius didn’t mind, Remus would get over it probably.
“Because I figured you’d go with me,” Sirius said, grinning widely and waggling his eyebrows. “We can sneak in the Shrieking Shack, see if it’s really haunted.”
Remus snorted and relaxed, he affectionately ran a finger down the side of Sirius’s face, drawing a sigh from Sirius.
“Ask me next time,” Remus told him. He kissed Sirius briefly, too briefly. “You don’t own people, Pads.”
Sirius glanced at Harry and saw that he was stifling a little grin. It was the first hint of humor that Sirius had seen in a while from him so he sighed and invited the mocking to begin.
“I shouldn’t have said that,” Sirius said flatly. “I don’t own you.”
He shouldn’t even want to act on the possessive streak inside of him that said Harry needed a tattoo on his forehead, covering his lightning bolt, that said he was Sirius’s. Sirius was the one who needed time, who needed to get past the way Moony was haunting him in the halls.
“Did you mean it?” Harry asked, peeking at Sirius with a hint of vulnerability on his face.
Did Sirius mean that Harry was his? Of course he had. Sirius loved him- too much, not enough.
Circe, Harry was in his brain, his veins. Sirius was breathing Harry’s oxygen and filling his lungs with him.
“Yeah,” Sirius said faintly, crushed beneath the weight of how much he meant every damn word. “I did.”
It didn’t mean Harry —
“Good.” Harry twisted his wrist that Sirius held until it was his fingers laced in Sirius’s.
“You don’t own people.”
“Ruin it.”
“Good,” Sirius echoed, a thrumming of Harry reaching through his veins. “Good.”
Sirius loved Remus, he did. Sirius didn’t trust him, hadn’t been trusted in return. Sirius was too erratic, too possessive. Loving Remus hadn’t been enough, not when Sirius wanted to burrow in his skin and reside there.
And Harry said good.
When they returned to Grimmauld Place… Sirius was going to find a token.
On the morning of the Slytherin versus Hufflepuff quidditch match, Harry was in excellent spirits. He had been pulled to sit with his team during breakfast and Sirius snickered with Blaise as Marcus Flint kept trying to force him to eat more.
“It’s not funny,” Draco scolded them. “If our seeker faints during the game then we’d have to beat Ravenclaw by over three hundred points to have a shot at the finals.”
“If Harry faints then he’ll catch the snitch on his way down,” Sirius bragged. “He’s never lost a match.”
One that didn’t involve dementors on the field anyway, which hardly counted against Harry.
“He’s only played in one,” Theo Nott said.
Sirius sighed heavily. “The stars have foreseen a Slytherin victory, are you happy?”
Theo shrugged his scrawny shoulders and went back to picking at his porridge. That kid was too damn intuitive for Sirius’s taste.
Sirius went back to making faces at Harry, teasing him from down the table, and didn’t notice the grand eagle owl delivering him a letter until the bird landed literally right in front of him.
“That’s from my mother,” Draco said, reaching out to stroke the wing of the owl.
Sirius didn’t need his comment to recognize Cissa’s elegant handwriting on the scrawl where she carefully penned Sirius’s name:
Sirius James Black
Sirius pushed his food away to take the scroll and he curled an arm around it to protect it from the busy bodies.
Dear Sirius,
I hope this letter finds you well.
I regret that our meeting had been short, though I was delighted to have met you. It is remarkable that your father lives on through you, in both looks and personality.
Your father and I were quite close as children, though, as often happens, we grew apart as we grew. Regardless, I cannot imagine that he would be pleased to know that his son, the child he named after his two most favorite people —
Sirius snorted at the way Narcissa so easily called him arrogant without using the word.
— resides in a muggle orphanage.
You have a rich family history and I am certain your father had much higher hopes for you.
It is with this belief that I would like to bring you in my family, our family, as more than a cousin.
If you find it acceptable, I would be honored to formally adopt you. I swear to you, on the memory of your father, that you would want for nothing and would be treated as highly as my son, your cousin.
Perhaps we can talk about it over your upcoming break, you and your friend Harry are more than welcome to stay in our manor. I would say that there are plenty of bedrooms, but I will instead offer to relocate a bed so that your suite would be a double.
I look forward to your reply,
All my love,
Lady Narcissa Malfoy-Black.
Sirius read the letter a second time, he traced the letter on his third read.
It made Sirius choke up, truthfully. Even if he thought Narcissa would have ulterior motives… It was touching. It meant a lot.
“I can’t wait to have kids,” Cissa sighed wistfully. She watched her reflection in the mirror while Sirius carefully braided her hair. Cissa was a year older, but Sirius was a better braider.
Sirius’s fingers trembled from the tears he refused to let loose. It had been a horrible dinner with his family, he hated them. He hated all of them except Cissa and Reggie and Bella and Andy.
“You’d be a really good mum,” Sirius whispered, trying to not wake up the others. They were having a sleepover while their parents had a meeting together with some others. Andy wasn’t asleep, she was wide awake and staring at the ceiling, probably thinking about the marriage contract she was going to end up in by the end of the meeting.
“I’d never be mean to them.” Cissa reached up and wrapped her long fingers around Sirius’s while she stared hard at him in the mirror. “When I’m a mother, I’ll have fifty kids and I’ll love them more than anything.”
Sirius shared a shaky smile with her in the mirror then went back to braiding her fine hair.
“I believe you,” he said. “Your kids will love you.”
Cissa’s kids wouldn’t be afraid of her, they wouldn’t hold their breath when she was around. Maybe they’d end up spoiled rotten and full of love, all fifty of them.
“What is it?” Blaise asked, carefully nudging his shoulder against Sirius’s. “Fan mail?”
“No.” Sirius protectively rolled the scroll up, careful to tuck it in his inner pocket. He looked over for Harry, wishing he were sitting closer so Sirius could share the letter with him.
Harry, it seemed, had received a letter of his own. Sirius didn’t see the owl that delivered it, but judging from Harry’s pale face, it must have been another condolence letter.
‘Alright?’ Sirius mouthed at him when Harry caught his eye.
Harry frowned and touched his own pocket. ‘Later’, he mouthed back.
‘Later’ wound up being in the Hospital Wing.
Harry had played an excellent game and he beat Diggory to the snitch. It was an unlucky hit of a bludger to the back of Harry’s head that had him staying the night in the Hospital Wing.
Sirius had followed him with his team after the match then returned beneath the cloak to stay the night. Harry told him not to, but something was bothering him, enough that he had been distracted and didn’t notice the bludger until it had been too late.
“You’ll get in trouble,” Harry said when Sirius climbed in his bed and pulled the cloak off.
“I won’t.” Sirius was confident of that, but he didn’t think Harry wanted to know how or why he knew that. Instead, Sirius pulled on the blanket wrapped around Harry until Harry relented and let him cuddle beneath it together.
Sirius hadn’t been worried about Harry when he was hit, he did feel a small amount of murderous rage toward the boy that hit him though. Peeves was on that though, the poltergeist had been thrilled with Sirius giving him a specific name to torment.
Harry hummed and they shifted around until they were comfortable. After a minute of quiet, they both said:
“I got a letter today.”
Sirius grinned and turned his head so he could press his lips quickly to the top of Harry’s head.
“You first,” Sirius said.
“I’ve got court on the twenty-first of April.”
Sirius’s arms tightened around Harry, holding him tightly until his brain caught up with Harry’s news. Harry wasn’t being tried for a crime - he wasn’t.
“For what?” Sirius asked. Had there been something that happened with the case? They needed Harry to testify?
“Custody,” Harry said flatly.
“Custody?” Sirius repeated blankly, still thinking of the chambers they held trials, the cages they transported prisoners in… the dementors that circled Azkaban.
“Everyone wants a piece of the Boy-Who-Lived. They’re holding a trial to settle the matter.”
The immediate understanding Sirius had made his blood boil. There were multiple families who were actually fighting to take Harry from him… again. Harry belonged with Sirius, he always had.
"Harry…” Sirius whispered his name, making his voice as soothing as he could manage. "It's going to be okay. We'll figure this out."
Nobody could force Harry to live with them. They could fight for custody, they could make their cases. Someone would win and Harry would still spend his summers, breaks, and every bloody day in between them with Sirius.
“No one is going to take you from me. I won’t let them.”
They would have to kill Sirius if they wanted to take Harry from him again.
“Let me have the baby. Dumbledore’s orders.”
Sirius had been young, stupid, trusting. He let Albus take Harry before and separate them. The entire might of the Ministry could send armies to try a second time and it wouldn’t make a difference.
Harry pulled back slightly and stared at Sirius until Sirius was able to shake off the past and focus on what was happening in the present.
“Swear it,” Harry said, searching Sirius for assurance.
Sirius asked him for time, Harry gave it to him. Harry asked for assurance, Sirius would give it to him.
“I solemnly swear,” he said.
Harry nodded and Sirius could feel the tension in his body easing a little. Harry trusted him and Sirius would do anything to make sure that trust was never broken. Harry snuggled closer, Sirius moved closer. They were tangled up in each other, neither willing to give up the comfort they provided.
“What was your letter about?” Harry murmured after a while, just when Sirius had been sure he had fallen asleep. The worry lines on his forehead had smoothed, making him look as young and innocent as he had never gotten to be.
Sirius thought of Cissa’s letter and the way that Harry would view it. Harry didn’t need to stress about Sirius leaving, because Sirius wouldn’t go.
“Narcissa wants to have tea during break,” Sirius said. He pressed his lips to the top of Harry’s head and held him tighter still. Anyone else would complain, tell Sirius it was too tight, too much.
Not Harry, Harry seemed more comfortable the tighter Sirius held him.
There were too many thoughts rushing in Sirius’s mind for him to stay quiet that night. There were memories battering his brain, quiet moments with Harry that slowed his harsh breathing.
“I think I was wrong before,” Sirius breathed in the darkness of the room. Harry was asleep, Sirius was sure of it. It made it safer to speak his mind, like practice for when Harry was awake.
There wasn’t a grand epiphany, but a small series of raindrops that built to a waterfall of understanding. It was the way that Sirius wasn’t happy when Harry wasn’t, how Harry was the first person that Sirius always looked to when anything happened.
Sirius felt his chest tightening until it was nearly unbearably painful. There wasn’t any more pretending, no James to warn Sirius away. There was just Harry.
It wasn’t a full moon out, but Sirius still looked out the window and searched for the moon. It was what he did in Azkaban, when he tried to hold conversations with his first love, the one that hadn’t been quite enough for him.
“I don’t need time,” Sirius told the night sky. “You’re not dead, I’m not mourning you. We - we didn’t fit right. You were my best friend, my first love. But Harry? He’s everything. I don’t need time. I need him. I’m sorry.”
Sirius was sorry - sorry for the hurt his new life dealt to Remus. He was sorry for the way that James would hate him. He was sorry for those things.
What Sirius was not sorry for, what he would never again be sorry for, was that he was going to spend the rest of his life with Harry in any damn way that Harry let him.
Harry shifted around so that he could hide his tired grin from Sirius while Sirius shared his thoughts and feelings with the night sky.