Sirius Black
Life without risk was like being in prison. And since Sirius just broke out of prison last summer, he didn’t fancy living like he was still in one.
The sun was shining, the birds were singing, the hippogriff that Sirius should quit flying in the daylight was tied to a park tree… and Sirius was off to see his godson.
Harry Potter was just Sirius’s favorite person in the world really. Sirius nearly flew right past Surrey on his way to Majorca, but just the thought of surprising Harry was too much to pass up. Plus, when Sirius had been mentally moping over the time it would take owls to pass letters, he had an excellent idea.
Buried under a bunch of rubbish in Grimmauld Place (and honestly screw Remus for moving Sirius’s belongings from the flat they shared back to Grimmauld Place) were the mirrors that Sirius and James shared. They could connect instantly, didn’t require any additional spells, and would keep Sirius and Harry in contact all the time!
Sirius was dying to really get to know his godson. Twelve years apart had felt like a millennia. Sirius knew some things, things he picked up on portraying a lovable stray or a demonic sign of impending death (depending on who saw him). Sirius knew Harry was a brilliant flier, a world class seeker. Sirius knew Harry hated that swotty little Malfoy brat. Sirius knew that Harry was a moody bastard who tended to enjoy long walks alone.
There were other things too, things Sirius learned a few weeks ago in the Shrieking Shack and things Remus told him when he was kissing Sirius’s arse (“I knew you’d never betray James,” rubbish. Remus thought it was Sirius just as Sirius thought it might have been Remus).
Sirius knew Harry had Lily’s temper and friends that would die for him. Sirius knew Harry’s boggart was a dementor - a likely shared characteristic with Sirius. Harry’s patronus was a stag, like James, and Harry hated Snivellus, like… everyone really!
Sirius adored him, but Sirius didn’t really know him. Harry didn’t know Sirius either, which was why the scrapbook and mirrors would just patch over the twelve years in… two weeks, tops.
Yup.
Sirius had high hopes as he trotted through the town Harry lived in during the summers. Sirius thought it was strange that Harry didn’t spend his summers with his dad and brothers, but maybe it was split between his aunt and John? Or… Sirius growled when he considered it… maybe John was still a bigoted arse and cut Harry off when Harry started showing signs of magic.
If that was the case then Sirius’s next stop would be the States on his way to Majorca.
Sirius shook off his plans to kill a man who historically had proven difficult to kill as he entered the block where Harry would be. The muggle town Harry’s relatives lived in was drab, boring. Sirius rather liked it last summer when Harry blew a woman up to add some interesting decor.
The only thing of interest in the tidy town was a teenage boy sitting on the front stoop of a house. Sirius’s tail began wagging when he saw thick black hair that was messed up with sweat and the side view of his favorite person.
Sirius couldn’t help himself from barking and Harry’s head snapped up immediately. Where there had been a frown on Harry’s face, a smile immediately lit him up. Sirius was yipping away when Harry jumped to his feet and rushed down to the sidewalk to meet him.
“What are you doing here?” Harry asked quietly as he started scratching Sirius’s ears just in the right spot. Sirius let his eyes close for a moment as he just enjoyed the moment.
It was just like when Harry was a baby and he would cry and cry until he saw Uncle Padfoot. Harry hadn’t been crying, and he probably didn’t fit in onesies and nappies anymore, but still. Harry saw Sirius and he smiled.
Sirius subtracted two days from the two weeks they would need to become proper godfather and godson as they were already on an excellent start. When Sirius looked up to turn his head, indicate Harry follow him to a more private spot, he whined instead.
On the side of Harry’s face, just above his jaw-line, was a bruise. Harry must have sensed what Sirius was whining at because he rolled his eyes and grinned sheepishly.
“Lost a fight,” he muttered to Sirius. “C’mon, we’ll walk to the park.”
Sirius barked a laugh and trotted behind Harry. Sirius didn’t know who Harry reminded him of if he lost a fight… maybe Sirius when he was a kid lost a lot of fights, but child vs parent wasn’t fair to start with.
Harry kept sending quick little looks at Sirius as he practically jogged to the park. Every time he looked over and saw Sirius was still beside him, he grinned and his green eyes gained a new sparkle. By the time they reached the treeline for the woods where Sirius left Buckbeak, Sirius thought he counted precisely fifteen sparkles in Harry’s eyes.
“What are you doing here?” Harry asked again, laughing when Sirius transformed back on his own two legs and pulled Harry in for a hug. Harry probably didn’t grow much in the three weeks they had been apart, but Sirius couldn’t be entirely certain either.
“Checking on my godson, of course!” Sirius pulled away from Harry and held him by the shoulders to look him over. Aside from the bruised jaw and grubby clothes he wore, he still looked like Harry.
Harry looked like a mixture of all the best features from his parents. Harry had Lily’s round eyes, a green that Sirius thought was Lily’s but she claimed John had as well. His nose was absolutely Lily’s though, there was no denying that one. Harry had James’s hair - an utter rats nest of cursed black locks. Logically, Sirius knew it had to be John’s hair or from one of Lily’s parents, but he didn’t live in a land of logic.
Logic would have gotten him a trial thirteen years ago and a lifetime spent raising his godson. If no one else planned to use it, then Sirius wouldn’t bother either.
“Oh! I’ve got a present!” Sirius said suddenly, remembering the entire point of the incredibly risky pit stop. Sirius dug in the satchel that held his belongings and pulled out the mirror he polished up for Harry. When he presented it with a flourish, Harry crinkled his nose up.
“Thank… you…” Harry said slowly, looking down at the gold finished cosmetic mirror.
Sirius chuckled and pulled his mirror out as well.
“Say my name,” Sirius said eagerly. Harry did as he was told and made a delighted noise when Sirius showed him his own face on Sirius’s mirror.
“Brilliant!” Harry cried, his voice echoed until Sirius ended the charm with a double tap to the bottom of the glass.
“James and I made them,” Sirius said eagerly, bouncing on the balls of his feet. It was nice to see his brilliance appreciated by someone. None of the dementors or cellmates in Azkaban ever truly appreciated Sirius.
“Now we can talk all the time!” Sirius went on, sharing his entire plan with Harry. “I can tell you anything you want to know about magic and your mum and James and you can tell me everything I missed in the last twelve years!”
Harry’s eyebrows twitched when Sirius mentioned James, which was understandable. Sirius missed him as well.
“Er… yeah, okay.” Harry smiled but it looked less cheerful than before, which reminded Sirius of his second present.
“Look! Look!” Sirius explained the thought process that went in the gift while he dug for it. “I know Remus said he sent you photos a couple of years before, but he didn’t have any good ones. I started a scrapbook when Lily got pregnant, I needed blackmail, you see? But this,” Sirius pulled out the ominous looking black scrapbook that said ‘Blackmail’ on the front and thrust it toward Harry, “is for you!
“All the things that your parents wouldn’t have wanted you to see are in here,” Sirius grinned. “There’s some from school even, I wasn’t even collecting blackmail then. I think there’s a few of James with dragon pox… poor bloke looked like hell that summer… oh! And your mum completely pissed on the honeymoon.”
Sirius laughed at the memories while Harry suddenly looked ill.
“I… there’s pictures of their honeymoon in here?” Harry asked, his grip firmly holding the book closed. It took Sirius a moment to figure out what the issue was, and he laughed when he had it.
“Not of the honeymoon,” Sirius wiggled his eyebrows teasingly. “It was the holiday we all took! So James thought he’d go on holiday without me, right?”
Harry looked a lot like Lily as he listened with patient exasperation as Sirius explained. It wasn’t anything major, it was just that Sirius couldn’t let James go on holiday without him because then Sirius thought he might die. Sirius had just lost Regulus a few weeks before James and Lily were married, Sirius had been a bit mental back then.
And even though Lily didn’t think she would have a fun honeymoon when Sirius surprised them in the States, they all had fun! Sirius even convinced Moony to go to truly make it a party.
Moony didn’t gamble or use magic when he forgot about being in a muggle city, but he did do a lot of drinking with Lily during those two weeks. In fact… Sirius remembered every goofy thing he and James did there was Moony and Lily in the background… drinking.
Alcoholics, honestly.
Harry cheered up by the end of Sirius’s explanation and began looking at the scrapbook with big excited eyes. It was beginning to get dark anyway, Sirius couldn’t keep Harry out too late. That would be irresponsible.
“Alright, pup.” Sirius ruffled Harry’s hair fondly, only a little grossed out by the greasy texture. Fifteen was old enough to be past the rebellious stage of not showering, surely?
Fourteen?
Sixteen?
Somewhere around there. It was best not to ask, Sirius didn’t want Harry’s feelings to get hurt. Sirius loved him no matter how old he was.
“You’re off then?” Harry asked quietly, looking just like a puppy with his big sad eyes.
Sirius hesitated, trying to think for a moment. So much of Sirius’s mind focused on the ‘here and now’ that he struggled to remember…
“Majorca!” Sirius cried, remembering his plans then. Sirius grinned at Harry, sure he would see reason. “I’ve got to get to Majorca, pup. Sunshine and beaches and no extradition treaty with the United Kingdom?” Sirius whistled. “That’s the stuff convicts dream of.”
“Right.” Harry grinned back, but it wasn’t as genuine. Sirius would stay if he could… but every second spent around Harry was a risk. Especially with Snivellus knowing Sirius’s top secret animagus abilities.
“Call me later?” Sirius asked Harry, feeling rather guilty. It was meant to be a happy visit but Harry didn’t seem particularly happy.
“Sure,” Harry agreed. His smile was more true when he looked at the book and mirror he held. Sirius was pleased when he lunged forward and hugged him around the waist.
That was more like it.
Sirius hugged Harry for a long moment, feeling part of himself that the dementors took finally returning. Sirius lost a lot of himself in prison. Sirius lost years of his life, his health, quite a bit of his physical and magical strength. Sirius missed the funeral for James and Lily, he missed seeing Harry grow up.
It didn’t have to be that way forever. There were things Sirius would never get back, but Harry in the ‘here and now’? Sirius could have that.
When they parted, Sirius was quick to shift back on four legs to keep from sniffling and embarrassing himself by crying all over Harry. Sirius waited until Harry was out of his sight, a place Sirius didn’t care for Harry to be, and then he slowly made his way back to Buckbeak.
“It’s just us again,” Sirius said as he patted the hippogriff on the snout. As much as Sirius thought it would be a happy visit, his mood had certainly taken a sharp downhill turn.
Sirius felt as grey as Buckbeak’s feathers when they began flying away from the playground… Sirius should have asked if Harry wanted to go too… in fact…
Sirius just started to pull his mirror out to call Harry and see if he wanted to go holiday in Majorca when the mirror heated in his hand. It must have been some sort of godfather-godson mind link when Sirius saw Harry’s frown in the glass.
“Harry!” Sirius had to shout to be heard over the wind rushing him as Buckbeak flew through the sky. Sirius’s robes he swiped from Grimmauld Place were flapping loudly as well and he nudged Buckbeak carefully to guide him somewhere they could land for a mo’.
“Hey, Sirius…?” Harry was still frowning even when Buckbeak landed in an empty field, one where the lazy beast could stretch out as if he hadn’t been napping the whole time Sirius chatted with Harry.
“You want to come with me, right?” Sirius said eagerly. “Okay, listen, if I get seen- then I’m just a mad convict flying a hippogriff, but I think they’ll get suspicious if they see you with me. So grab James’s cloak, some clothes, and—”
“Wait! I can come with you?” Harry asked, lighting up at once. “You said I couldn’t before?”
“Oh, that’s because of Hermione and John,” Sirius said airily. He flapped his hand, pushing away his prior concerns. Hermione was a riot, the way she stunned Snivellus and screamed at Remus about being a werewolf. But Hermione had also seemed like a real worrier when it came to Harry and Sirius couldn’t say ‘hey Harry let’s go on holiday somewhere with no extradition treaty’ in front of her. And Sirius had thought Harry would spend time with John in the summers or something.
Remus hadn’t said anything, but conversation was still stilted between them.
“John?” Harry asked. He scrambled around and his face disappeared for a photograph to be held up in its place. “Is this John?”
Sirius squinted at the photo Harry held up. It was definitely from the Book of Blackmail. Sirius himself took it when they were on the honeymoon holiday. It was John, John Winchester. He had been sitting at the bar in Vegas and Sirius and James were suspicious of him. Lily had been bored of watching them rig the muggle machines to let them win every time they pulled the handle and she offered to go see if he was truly following them as James said he had been.
Sirius snapped the photo when Lily had been leaning on the bar, a silly smile on her face, her hand on John’s shoulder. It was to tease James more than anything as he thought James would be all about ‘free love’ and ‘polyamory’ until it was his brand new wife flirting with a stranger.
James didn’t mind a bit, as it turned out. Sirius had to entertain himself on the slot machines while James chatted up a cocktail waitress.
The photo Harry had was an old one, but Sirius didn’t know why Harry didn’t recognize John. Surely he hadn’t changed all that much…
“Yeah?” Sirius said, rather confused. “That’s where we met him?”
The photo was lowered and Harry’s face replaced it, his dark eyebrows were pulled low in what seemed like his own confusion.
“Who is he?” Harry asked. “One of your mates?”
“Who…?” Sirius suddenly felt as if he and Harry were having two separate conversations. Sirius grinned a bit, thinking Harry was pranking him. “Are you having me on?”
“Why would I be?” Harry asked, sounding confused. “I’m not - you drew… why is there a picture of him snogging my mum?!”
Harry’s cheeks got flushed and Sirius had to carefully think through his memory until—
“Oh! Because they were snogging!” Sirius laughed as he remembered. “That’s right! Honestly, if it weren’t for the whole honeymoon thing, I think you might have been conceived that night!”
Sirius sighed fondly in memories of those days… they were all young, attractive, full of happiness, and certain they’d never make it to thirty. It tended to lead to a lot of ‘might as well try this in case I die in the war’ type of moments.
It was how Sirius got Remus in Vegas and how James convinced Sirius to jump from a hotel window twenty stories up with nothing but a levitation charm to keep him afloat. It was why James and Lily had married for love but agreed to be open to other sexual partners. It was also what led Sirius to doing three lines of cocaine and then—
“What the hell does that mean?!”
Sirius blinked and physically shook his head to rid himself of memories of the best thirty-six hours of his life. Harry was scowling at Sirius in the mirror with pink cheeks that Sirius couldn’t tell if they were from anger or embarrassment.
Sex wasn’t embarrassing, though Sirius could see how Harry hearing about his conception would sit oddly with him. Harry was still too young to listen to sex stories… probably… Sirius squinted and hated the fog that filled his mind when he tried to grasp solid and recent memories.
Everything before Azkaban was there, Sirius spent all his time thinking of it. Everything else was… clouded.
Except his emotions. Merlin, Sirius felt like he was going through puberty again with all the rage and love and overwhelming emotions.
Harry looked rather emotional too as he stared at Sirius and waited for an answer to…
“What are you asking?” Sirius asked as he slid off Buckbeak. It seemed like it was going to be a longer conversation than ‘Wanna go to Majorca?’ and ‘Yes!’ Sirius walked around Buckbeak in meaningless circles, still appreciating the fact he had more than eight feet of space around him.
“I’m asking who this bloke is?!” Harry hissed, waving the photo around. “Did - Sirius… did my mum cheat on my dad?”
“No?” Sirius leaned against a tree and idly wished for a cigarette. Sirius used to smoke, going through nicotine withdrawals in Azkaban had been a bitch though. As long as Sirius never got caught and shipped back, he didn’t see any harm in picking up the habit again. It wasn’t as if lung cancer was a concern to wizards.
“Then why did she kiss someone else?” Harry asked. Sirius squinted at him, just to be sure the mirrors weren’t foggy, and was certain those were tears in Harry’s eyes.
“Harry, love…” Sirius faltered as he tried to think, tried to remember… there was a cold feeling in the pit of Sirius’s stomach, but… surely?
Someone told him, right?
They didn’t wait until Sirius happened to break out of prison to break the news to him? It wasn’t a secret… James and Lily both knew, Remus knew… hell, even that rat Pettigrew knew…
They had all discussed the ramifications of the prophecy when they compared it to Harry’s biological parentage. Remus said maybe John Winchester had defied Voldemort three times as he was a talented enough witch hunter. James said it still applied to Harry because James was still Harry’s father, no matter his blood. Lily quietly admitted she hoped it meant another baby, Frank and Alice’s bundle of cells being the only other option at the time. Sirius said divination was a lark.
Peter didn’t say squat though… which… yeah, bit of a sign, really.
But it wasn’t a secret!
“You know…” Sirius cleared his throat and shifted his eyes to the ground instead of the green ones glaring at him tearfully, uncomfortable with the conversation suddenly. “You know James is your dad, but not your father, right?”
The sudden pained cry Harry made told Sirius that… no… he did not know that.
It struck Sirius then that James and Lily were dead. Pettigrew was a traitor from before Harry was even born. And Remus… well, damn Remus. He should have told Harry! Sirius was meant to be building a connection with his godson, not dropping bloody bombs on his head!
There was no way Harry was going to go to Majorca with Sirius and it was entirely Remus John Lupin’s fault.