The Blacks
Harry had been inside Draco’s house before - he had seen the ballroom on Yule, he had seen the foyer before. Harry had also seen the dining room from visions connected to Voldemort and it made him sick to sit in that room as a guest.
What other option did Harry have? To return to Grimmauld Place by himself? Without Sirius?
It was an uncomfortable affair, for Harry.
Harry and Morfin had both been invited to a dinner at Malfoy Manor to celebrate the Malfoy’s ‘new son’. Morfin had very colorfully denied the invite, something Harry had awkwardly translated back to the Malfoys.
“When will I see you?” Morfin asked Harry once the paperwork was signed and nothing could be taken back. It made the witch passing out the paperwork jerk in shock, then again when Harry replied.
“Stay in the new house and I’ll come by this summer,” Harry promised. The new house was one of Sirius’s, a much nicer place for Morfin than his horrible shack had been. Harry had been on edge in the shack too, there had been something tickling in his memory while he had been there, though he couldn’t think of what it was the entire time he and Sirius had been with Morfin.
Sirius had been the one to point it out to him - the grand house down the hill, the one that Harry knew precisely what the opposite side looked like. It was the house that Harry had seen from the graveyard, the one that Harry had seen inside Voldemort’s visions - where Frank Bryce died.
It made it twice as important to Harry that Morfin moved.
Morfin seemed somehow disappointed that Harry wasn’t going to Liverpool with him, which was another frustration of the day. Morfin knew Harry wasn’t going to move in with him and start calling him father. It had been something of a business arrangement - Harry needed a guardian who wouldn’t try to control him or report on him to anyone. Morfin needed someone to carry on his family name.
Harry Gaunt was a ridiculous name and not what Harry’s legal name would be, but it was still what Morfin called him when he left the Ministry.
“I will see you this summer, Harry Gaunt,” Morfin said with a new glimmer in his dark eyes.
Morfin leaving left Harry with only one major and unexpected obstacle in his pathway: the Malfoy family.
The last thing that Harry expected from the hearing was for Sirius’s guardianship to be in dispute. It was absurd, Sirius was technically a grown man. He shouldn’t have made himself an orphan, though Harry couldn’t easily think of any alternative story for him to have.
It was all a mess when they had worked so hard to keep it simple.
It became clear to Harry that Narcissa and Lucius had been planning - hoping?? - to take guardianship of Harry and Sirius both that day. They gave them a tour before dinner and the wing of their manor that had Draco’s room (just as outlandish as Harry always suspected) and two other rooms made up.
“You are always welcome,” Narcissa told Harry, sounding so kind and warm. She smiled when she showed Harry the room meant for him and it made her look like someone’s beautiful mother… Draco’s beautiful mother… and Sirius’s guardian.
“Er… thanks,” Harry said, glaring at Sirius afterward. Sirius didn’t notice, he hadn’t noticed any of Harry’s shock or annoyance since the second that Madam Bones announced that there were two families that wanted Sirius.
Harry had felt a bit dismayed to see Professor McGonagall step forward to apply for guardianship of Sirius. Whether that was her own decision or not, it was a more touching decision than Snape trying to take Harry.
It was almost insulting, really. Harry had five families volunteer to take his guardianship and not a single one of them cared at all about Harry. They wanted the Boy-Who-Lived. Sirius on the other hand only had two petitioners, but at least he knew they were only there because they liked him. As far as anyone knew, Harry had been the one to inherit the Black line. It meant that Sirius was presented as only an orphan in need of a family.
And two families showed up for him.
Harry had been jealous, then frustrated. How would they get anything done with Lucius and Narcissa Malfoy treating Sirius like their long-lost and desperately wanted son?! They hadn’t even gotten a chance to talk privately since before the hearing.
They went from the Ministry to Malfoy Manor and had to have a whole tour of ‘Sirius’s home’ before being ushered to dinner. There was no time for private conversations and Harry needed to know how they were going to get out of the mess they were in.
Narcissa sighed when dinner ended and they were all still sitting at the oversized table. Lucius sat in the very seat that Harry had once seen Voldemort at while Narcissa and Draco sat across from Harry and Sirius.
“I can’t get over how much you resemble your father,” Narcissa told Sirius kindly. “Have you seen photos?”
“Some,” Sirius said. “If you had any though…”
“Oh I’ve got hundreds!” Narcissa laughed, a tinkling noise, and beamed at Sirius. “The way we were raised, it was more like I had two brothers than two cousins.”
“Who was your favorite? Sirius or Regulus?” Sirius asked. He grinned back at Narcissa and several things struck Harry at once when he saw that smile.
The first was that Sirius and Narcissa resembled each other quite deeply. It was their eyes and their smiles, their general bone structure in their faces. They both looked like they could be royalty with their fine features. Sirius’s weren’t as pronounced, but Harry knew they would be.
The second thing that struck Harry quite deeply was that Sirius was happy. Sirius was overjoyed to be sitting with Narcissa and talking about his family. Sirius looked at Narcissa like a kid starved for a connection to his family.
Sirius looked at Narcissa like Harry used to look at Sirius.
That realization sort of diminished Harry’s desire to get out of that manor as quickly as possible.
After dinner Harry was almost immediately invited to spend the rest of his Easter break with the Malfoys. Lucius had an air of disinterest in Harry’s response, but Narcissa and Draco both looked so hopeful.
Harry was going to accept, mostly because he wouldn’t leave without Sirius, then Sirius practically threw him out.
“Morfin would bawl if Harry didn’t go home,” Sirius told them, a bold lie. “Didn’t you hear him? He’s just so happy to have a son.”
Harry flinched, both at how Sirius was apparently getting rid of him and at hearing Sirius call Harry Morfin’s son. Harry had a father, a brave and brilliant man. Morfin Gaunt was a business arrangement.
“Did you understand him?” Lucius asked, suddenly interested. “You share the gift?”
“Yeah, I must have inherited it from my mother,” Sirius said breezily, waving his hand in a dismissive wave. “Did you not hear me promise him to bring Harry home after dinner? I said that maybe one of you should do it, but he refuses to open the wards to anyone else.”
“Oh.” Narcissa looked to Lucius, who grimaced. “I don’t know, perhaps it would be best if Harry stayed here and Mister Gaunt—”
“Lord Gaunt,” Sirius interjected brightly.
“If Lord Gaunt retrieved Harry in the morning,” Narcissa said, smoothly correcting herself.
Harry, hoping he understood Sirius’s angle, played along with an easy shrug.
“Yeah, I just hope he doesn’t think I’ve been kidnapped.” Harry laughed like it was something amusing to picture. “He’s quite protective, I think he cursed the arm right off the wizard that accidentally pushed me yesterday.”
“Oh his arm is definitely gone,” Sirius said, nodding quickly. “Circe, he barely brushed you! Poor bloke.”
Draco’s head swiveled from Harry and Sirius to his parents while they spoke. It was strange seeing Draco outside of school so much, he wasn’t nearly as insufferable when he wasn’t around his friends.
“Sirius seems to have a good grasp on apparation,” Lucius said, puffing up as if it were any reflection on him. “I see no harm in allowing him to return his friend to Gaunt.”
“If you’re sure…” Narcissa said, clearly less than pleased about the arrangement. “Sirius, you’ll be quite careful, right?”
“I will be the most careful,” Sirius said solemnly, his face perfectly earnest even with the scrutiny of all three Malfoys on him. Harry couldn’t help but admire his composure, he was so talented at blending in any situation that it sometimes made Harry worry if Sirius was Sirius with him or if it was another role he played.
“Very well,” Lucius said. He glanced toward a grand clock on the wall, one made of shining wood and golden fixtures, so different from the one that adorned the Weasley’s house.
“We will expect you home within the hour,” Lucius said. “Don’t forget that your behavior reflects on us all now.”
“I won’t forget,” Sirius said.
Sirius apparated them directly to Grimmauld Place, much to Harry’s relief. He then burst into hysterical laughter, falling over on the foyer floor as he filled the house with his laughter.
“This isn’t funny!” Harry said, grinning despite himself. “Sirius! This is —”
“Is it serious?” Sirius asked. He was laughing so hard that he could barely wheeze out his dumb joke. “Is it really serious? No, wait! Harry! Is this a serious and hairy situation we’re in?”
Harry laughed, only because Sirius was an idiot. It was a hairy and serious situation… It was also a Harry and Sirius situation, which was what made it ridiculously funny.
“You’re so dumb,” Harry said fondly. “You know this is a disaster. If you don’t go back to your shiny new home in an hour they’re going to - to…”
“To what?” Sirius used Harry’s shoulder to pull himself upright and his eyes were shining with amusement. “They’ll come here and demand I go with them? They can’t, nobody can come here.”
“Or they’ll track down Morfin and accuse him of kidnapping you,” Harry pointed out.
“They can’t,” Sirius said, drawling the words out pointedly. “If he stays in the Leasowe house then he’s as unreachable as we are.”
“That’s your plan then? Just hide out here?” Harry asked skeptically. “It’s not a very good plan, is it?”
It wasn’t something they could do forever. Aside from not wanting either of them to be trapped in a house for the foreseeable future, Harry didn’t think that Narcissa Malfoy was going to just write Sirius off as Sirius’s parents had done when he once ran away to live with Harry’s dad.
“Only for the rest of break,” Sirius said, sobering up quickly. “I’ll figure out something before summer, okay? I didn’t exactly plan this.”
But he wasn’t unhappy about it either, Harry could see that. Sirius - Sirius might actually have more issues with his family than Harry did any of his.
“I know,” Harry told him. He ran his hands through his hair, grimacing at the products Sirius used on it that made it tacky against his hands. “I think I’ll take a shower,” he said. “I need to wash this whole day away.”
Sirius said that he would write a note up Narcissa to let her know not to expect him back and they parted ways for a while. The house was quiet, Dobby was splitting his time between houses to appease Morfin. It gave Harry space to clear away everything else and to focus on what was important.
They needed to get the diary. They needed to find Pettigrew and Barty Crouch Junior. They needed to find Voldemort’s wraith in Albania and then figure out how to kill it.
And they had to do all of that while dancing out of the Malfoys' reach. There wasn’t anything they could do to Harry, thank God. But Harry wasn’t doing anything without Sirius.
It sounded impossible, really bloody impossible.
Harry found Sirius in Sirius‘s room that they had been sharing. Sirius was still partially dressed, he had only removed his robe and dress shirt, he still had on his trousers and short-sleeved shirt. Harry climbed in the bed to get a look at what Sirius worked on and wasn’t wholly surprised to see that the bed was covered in photographs.
“Aw.” Harry grinned and reached for a photo of Sirius only a few years younger than he looked currently. He was sitting on the front steps of Grimmauld Place beside a smaller boy that had to be his brother. They were dressed up in posh and frilly little robes, they looked unhappy, but they were adorable.
“Reggie,” Sirius said absently. He plucked up a different photo, one of a whole group of kids. Sirius was a bit older, maybe thirteen. Harry could see his brother, a slightly less good-looking and scowlier version of Sirius, standing off to the side of the group. There were three girls with them, all dressed in very old-fashioned dresses.
The oldest girl had long black hair that was pulled up in a neat bun. The other two girls looked so similar in ages that Harry wasn’t sure which was older. One had wild black curls that made Harry itch to rip off her head, the other had sleek and straight black hair that hung down to her waist. Harry knew which girl was which, though they all shared very similar features. Sirius was beside the girl with the straight and long hair, Narcissa. They were leaning against each other, just enough to add a small touch of warmth to the stiff photo.
Nobody was smiling, not a single one of them.
“Cheery, weren’t we?” Sirius said, laying that photo down and moving some around to find another. When he held it up, it was a stark contrast to the first. That photo was in black and white, but it had the same kids, nearly the same age, all laughing. They were laying on the grass of a lawn, Harry thought it might have been Hogwarts, and they were all laughing.
“I thought you didn’t get along with any of them?” Harry asked, touching Sirius’s face in the photo. There was a tie under Sirius’s robe collar, Harry was sure it was the red and gold match to the green and silver ties of the others.
“I didn’t, that was the day that our grandmother died, we had been excused from school for the funeral.” Sirius grinned, a younger copy of the same smile from the photo. “Reggie made a joke when we got back to school, something stupid about not having to smell her awful perfume anymore. We started laughing and Remus saw us, he took a picture.”
“That’s… nice,” Harry said uncertainly. It wasn’t really a cheerful story and it wasn’t as if any of them had happy lives after school. Sirius and Bellatrix went to prison, Andromeda was outcast from the family by that point as far as Harry knew, Regulus had died. Only Narcissa seemed to be living a relatively normal life.
“They weren’t,” Sirius said, still smiling softly. He started picking photographs up one at a time, stacking them lovingly in the table drawer beside the bed. “They were awful, Pup. The worst bloody people you’ve ever met in your life.”
“But they’re your family,” Harry said, understanding what Sirius wasn’t saying. The Dursleys were terrible people, cold and cruel. They didn’t like Harry, they treated him awful. But they were the only family Harry had known for so long and they were his normal.
Just as Narcissa, Bellatrix, Regulus, and Andromeda were Sirius’s normal.
“A horrible family,” Sirius sighed. He held up the last photo, the one of all five of them laughing together, and Harry could see him drooping while he looked at it.
They were horrible, really. Two of them were definitely death eaters, one of them was married to one, and Harry didn’t know much about Andromeda but he hadn’t seen her at court for Sirius, did he? They were Sirius’s horrible family though and clearly he cared for them in his own way.
“Time travel made you soft,” Harry said gently as he took the photo from Sirius and laid it on the nightstand rather than in the drawer. “Didn’t you tell me before that they were all evil?”
“Well, they are,” Sirius said. He grabbed Harry abruptly in a hug and yanked him down so that they were both lying down and Sirius was using Harry’s chest like a pillow.
“Cissa wasn’t always so proper,” Sirius said quietly, lowering the lights with his wand before tossing it off the bed and getting comfortable. “She used to be a tomboy, you know. That’s what they called her, a tomboy. Her and your mother got on for a while.”
“Really?” That was the second time Harry heard that his mum had been friendly with Draco’s mum.
“Oh, yeah.” Sirius was grinning, Harry could feel it. “Your mother was a tomboy too, always running around the lawns at school. She liked to swim, did you know?”
“No.” Harry considered that new piece of information as he slowly placed his hand on Sirius’s head, feeling his hair that was so soft and curly. Harry wanted to hear more about his mum, little things like how she liked to swim, but he didn’t think Sirius wanted to talk about her just then.
“Tell me about your family,” Harry asked him. “Not the awful stuff, but who they were before - before it all changed.”
“Yeah?” Sirius covered them both with the blanket and Harry could feel him relaxing against him, letting Harry hold his weight for a while. “Alright then… so Reggie liked to draw, right? But his real talent was screenwriting…”
Harry listened to Sirius’s stories for the rest of their break. Sirius told him about Regulus, who was dramatic and moody (which made it a family trait, clearly). He talked about Narcissa, who had a soft spot for creatures and had bonded with Harry’s mum over their talent for potions and their shared love of classic literature.
Andromeda had been the ‘motherly one’, according to Sirius. She was the one with the talent for painting and an ear for music, though Harry was both surprised and also not surprised to find out that all the Blacks had been forced to learn at least one instrument and Sirius could play three.
Bellatrix liked to dance, loved to duel, and was more interested in defense than she had been in any other class. Bellatrix had placed second in the school-wide dueling competition, just behind Regulus. Sirius didn’t enter, he had been in detention with Harry’s dad during the week of tryouts.
Harry told him if he had maybe they wouldn’t have went through the veil, Sirius didn’t think that was as funny as Harry did.
Little stories spilled from Sirius the rest of that week. It was as if once Harry told him that he could talk about them, it became all Sirius could talk about. Harry didn’t mind, he started to enjoy the stories. At least it made Sirius stay in a semi-state of happiness for the rest of their break.
Harry received a letter from Morfin on the morning they were set to return to school, a scrawled note sent with Dobby asking again when Harry would ‘return home’. Harry rolled his eyes and sent back a short note, promising to be there for a day or two when summer break began.
Hedwig also brought Harry a package, which surprised him. Harry squinted at the small and elegantly wrapped box and slid it to Sirius, asking him to check it for curses or hexes.
“How would someone send a cursed gift through these wards?” Sirius asked, his lips twitching enough to make Harry twice as suspicious.
“Why would someone inside the wards send me a gift through the mail?” Harry narrowed his eyes at Sirius’s suddenly beatific smile.
“Maybe it’s because they couldn’t risk leaving the wards so they ordered it and if they had to order it then they might as well have it wrapped too.” Sirius slid the package back across the table to Harry. “Go on then, open it.”
Harry didn’t know why Sirius would buy him something - it wasn’t a real holiday, Harry hadn’t done anything especially important recently… but he opened the package slowly, unintentionally holding his breath.
The glossy paper came off and Harry was sure he was blushing when he saw what looked like a jewelry box. The logo on the top of the box showed two rings linked together which had… implications, certainly. Harry slowly lifted the lid and was relieved (absolutely relieved, not disappointed, that would be stupid) to see there were a pair of silver bracelets inside the box resting on a cushion.
“Oh.” Harry lifted one up and read the inscription on the inside while Sirius began babbling, sounding rather nervous.
“I thought, you know, we’re - uh… we’re strange, right? This is all so strange and Merlin knows I should be hung from a rope by my neck, but nobody’s here to do that. And I’m not going to hang myself. It’s stupid, actually, this is like a traditional thing, ‘exchanging a token’. In fact, you don’t have to wear it. I’ll wear one, but you don’t have to.”
“Sirius!” Harry laughed, he had never heard Sirius babble on or sound really nervous before. Harry looked up from the cuff he had and smiled widely at Sirius, feeling actually overwhelmed by the gift. Sirius had his lower lip caught between his teeth and he wouldn’t look Harry in the eye.
“Which one is mine?” Harry asked, reading the inscriptions and wondering what they meant. ‘Semper’ was familiar, maybe part of the Black family motto? They both started with that, then one said ‘tuus’ and one said ‘mea’.
“This one.” Sirius took the one Harry left in the box and held it out for him. Harry slid his hand in and watched as the silver cuff shrunk and fit itself to his wrist. Sirius put on the one that said ‘semper mea’ and Harry couldn’t help the mild sense of satisfaction he felt seeing him wear it.
It was wide enough to be noticed, and they were together often enough that people would see they had a matched set. It wasn’t a ring (stupid, ridiculous… maybe not such a hopeless thing to think) but it would be as good as one in the eyes of many of their classmates.
And Remus Lupin.
Which made Harry much happier than he should be.
“I wouldn’t hold you back,” Sirius said later while they were packing to get to the train station.
“What?” Harry had been distracted by searching for a shirt of Sirius’s that he wanted to wear. It was checkered and Harry liked it, it also looked better on Harry than Sirius… according to Sirius.
Harry pulled his head out from under the bed and victoriously held up the shirt he wanted. He was grinning, Sirius was not. Sirius sat on his packed trunk and he twisted his silver band around his wrist, looking unhappy with it. It made Harry’s heart sink and his hand to droop down, lowering the shirt he had been holding.
“If you - you know… I wouldn’t hold you back, I’d still be here,” Sirius muttered, not even lifting his head to look at Harry. Harry tried to reason that through, searching for Sirius’s meaning, but he was coming up blank. All Harry could hear was regret and it was twisting his stomach hard.
“If I what?” Harry asked, exasperated with the ever-changing moods of Sirius. Why couldn’t he just be happy? Why couldn’t he just let Harry be happy?
“If you…” Sirius curled his shoulders up and it shouldn’t have been endearing, he was so small though.
“If you wanted to be with someone else, I wouldn’t have a fit.”
If Harry… if Harry wanted to be with someone else… Sirius… the most dramatic person that Harry had ever met… wouldn’t have a fit.
The words hung in the air between them, unexpected and unwanted. For a moment, Harry didn't know what to say. He tried to search Sirius’s face, trying to understand the meaning behind the words.
"Why would you say that?" Harry asked finally, his voice barely above a whisper. Harry wasn’t trying to be melodramatic, but it hurt. He felt a real pang in his chest, an aching hurt that felt like rejection.
Sirius shrugged and glanced at Harry quickly, then back at his bracelet. He was trying to keep it light, though his eyes betrayed more than casual indifference.
"I... I know how things are, Harry. I know it's complicated and messy. I don't want you to feel trapped or obligated. So…” Sirius twisted his bracelet. “If you changed your mind later, I’d understand.”
Harry didn’t know how to explain the bone deep, hopeless, pathetic, all-consuming love he had for Sirius. There might not have even been words, Harry certainly couldn’t think of any. All he could think to do was stand up and march over to where Sirius sat.
“It’s not complicated,” Harry said heatedly. It wasn’t, not to him. There was the godfather issue, but the time-travel issue was surely more important and that had taken Sirius Orion, Harry’s godfather, and gave him Sirius James, Harry’s best friend and the one person who he could never live without.
“Harry…” Sirius looked up at Harry and his face was twisted with wry humor, self-loathing, and a million things that didn’t belong there. “It is,” he insisted. “It’s fucking the most complicated.”
“Not to me,” Harry said. He was sick of arguing, he was sick of Sirius pulling him close then pushing him away. That bracelet meant something to Harry, it was visible proof of things Sirius would only whisper at night.
“I don’t feel trapped and I’m not going to change my mind later,” Harry said. That was laughable to consider, Sirius was only going to get more charismatic and unfairly attractive. If either of them were going to change their minds, it would surely be Sirius.
Sirius looked ready to argue and Harry didn’t want to. Harry had a million things to do and trying to convince Sirius that whatever it was that they had was right was not something he wanted to add to his list.
“I - I love you,” Harry said in a rush. He could feel his face flame once the words were out and he couldn’t take them back. It snapped Sirius’s face up and Harry decided that there had been enough words for the moment.
Harry impulsively ducked his head down and kissed him. It was messy, quick, Harry bumped their noses together kind of hard.
It shut Sirius up though, so Harry considered it a win.