As it turns out raising a child his unbelievably hard to do. Raising a child, with your boyfriend who is the definition of a man-child exponentially increases the amount of stress. And Remus loves Sirius, he really does. But sometimes he swears Sirius comes up with a new level of incompetence.
It goes from taking bread out of the toaster with a fork (still relatively harmless, Remus is sure everybody does that at some point), over telling Harry it is okay to eat only the treacle tart ond not his greens, to setting the sofa on fire because there had been a spider on it. In all manner of fairness Sirius just wanted to incendio the spider but his aim was not the best when he was screaming bloody murder. Honestly, sometimes Remus wonders about his own sanity.
The most important thing though is that Harry loves his Uncle Padfoot, even if he is messy and chaotic and sometimes sets things on fire. When Harry was starting to learn how to walk, Sirius transformed into Padfoot and let Harry cling on to his fur for support. He lost quite a bit of fur that way. Remus had to listen to human Sirius later on, complaining that his luscious mane would never be the same. It’s quite endearing though, watching Harry and Sirius interact. Sirius teaching Harry how to throw a Quaffle as soon as he turned four three weeks ago. Harry throwing sticks that Padfoot would fetch for him, on their walks in the park. And Sirius telling Harry about his parents every night when he puts him to bed. That one is bittersweet too. James and Lily should have been there to watch their son grow up.
When Remus comes home on that particular day, he just wants to have a nice dinner and curl up with his little family on the couch reading Harry one of the muggle fairytales he likes so much. Instead he comes home to his husband levitating their godson around the living room. Remus drops his satchel on the floor and rushes over to pluck Harry out of mid-air. “Oh, hey Moony, you’re home.”, Sirius grins at him good-naturedly, utterly oblivious. Remus rounds on him, absolutely furious. “What the fuck do you think you are doing?”, he hisses at his husband. “Harry is not a snitch you can charm to fly around and play tricks with. Have you fucking lost you mind.”
Harry seems to be perfectly fine. He is gazing up at his Uncle Moony, smiling wide, his glasses a bit lopsided. Sirius does not seem to think he did anything wrong apparently. “Harry was pretending to be an owl. So he wanted me to make him fly. Because they do that. They are birds you know.”, Sirius shrugs.
“They are...” Remus pinches the bridge of his nose and takes a deep breath to compose himself. “That is not a good enough reason the levitate a fucking child! No, no, scratch that, there is no good reason to levitate a child. What the fuck where you bloody thinking! You could have hurt him, the charm could have failed, it only takes one second…” At this point Remus was rather yelling than talking. Sirius was getting annoyed now too. “Moony I don’t know what your bloody problem is. I know what I’m doing.” Remus scoffed at that. “Really, because anyone with half a brain would know not to levitate a bloody child. Harry wriggles in his arms. “No shouting.”, he says sternly. “Moony no shouting.” Remus breathes and looks down at Harry’s perfect little face. His eyes are wide and he is clutching the front of Remus’ favourite woollen jumper. Remus sighs and presses a kiss into Harry’s unruly hair. “Yes, Haz, you’re right. No shouting.” He looks over at Sirius. “Dinner?”, he asks.
Remus goes and makes dinner with Harry, who ends up having mashed potato in his hair by the time they are finished. Sirius, who cleaned up the mess in the living room, comes to inspect their handwork. He grins when he sees Harry’s sticky face. “Come on Haz, let’s eat and then get you cleaned up.”, e smiles. He ushered Harry out of the room and presses a quick kiss to Remus’ lips. Who knows that is as much of an apology for levitating Harry as he will get.
He follows the two into the living room, where Sirius set the table. Putting down the bowl with the steamed broccoli he goes to put some on Harry’s plate. Harry shrieks. “What the fuck are you doing.”, he cries, while trying to cover the plate with his cubby little hands so Remus can’t put something on there. Remus freezes. His eyes find Sirius’ over the dinner table. His husband is looking like he is desperately trying not to burst out laughing.
“Now, Harry, we don’t say that.”, Remus admonishes. Harry blinks owlishly at him. “But You said that when you told Pa’foot no.” Out of his peripheral vision Remus can see Sirius shaking with silent laughter. “Yes, Harry I did. But that was not nice of me. We don’t say words like that in this house.” Tears of mirth are pooling in the corner of Sirius’ eyes. “Yes, Harry, if you say a bad word like that, you don’t get any desert.” Harry eyes go wide at that. Desert is sacred in their household. “Monny and I don’t get any desert?” Remus represses the urge to throw broccoli at his husband. “Yes, Harry.”, he grits out. “No desert for us today.” Harry mulls that over for a second. “Okay. But Pa’foot was bad too, so he doesn’t get any desert either.”
The look on Sirius’ face is absolutely comical. Remus smiles at Harry. “I think that can be arranged.” Harry nods enthusiastically. He still refuses to eat the broccoli though. “That was uncalled for.”, Sirius whispers in Remus ear, when Harry is distracted with dipping his sausages into the mountain of mashed potatoes he insisted on. “You got me in this mess in the first place.”, Remus murmurs back. “And we promised each other, whatever happens, until the very end.” Sirius smiles at him, laugh lines crinkling the corners of his eyes. He grabs Remus’ hand on the kitchen table and places a kiss on top of it. “That we did.”
Then a ‘oops’ from Harry and a splashing sound burst the moment. Somehow Harry had managed to drop a spoonful of mashed potatoes into his juice.