Love Letters to You

They should have never touched that weird ass artifact. 

It is Sirius Black's first thought as he falls with a grunt, landing on James. Thank Merlin for his best mate, he wouldn't want to land on his face and ruin it for the girls. 

"Padfoot, get your arse out of my face!" Prongs grunts from beneath him.

Sirius smirks. "Why, Prongs, you should enjoy your opportunity. Ladies would kill to be in your place." 

Someone coughs behind them. Sirius glances back and immediately straightens. For all her flaws, his harpy of a mother did manage to instill manners in him. Sirius only chooses when to use them, and in front of their Headmaster, it seems to be a good idea. 

"Headmaster." Sirius greets with a respectful dip of the head. 

James wiggles a bit, shoving Sirius off his chest. "Merlin's balls, Dumbledore you got older!" he exclaims. Sirius refrains from hitting his head at his words as the Headmaster smiles in amusement. 

He looks as unreadable as he ever does. "James, Sirius." he greets with a nod and twinkling eyes. "You boys are far from your time." 

James nods. Sirius blinks. 

"Time?"

"What year do you think it is, my dear boy?"

"1977?"

"1996." 

"The years haven't been kind to you, Headmaster." Sirius grimaces at his own words but Dumbledore chuckles as if it is something particularly funny. 

"And your humor hasn't changed, dear boy. You too, James."

James rubs the back of his head, a sheepish smile on his lips.

"Now, Mr. Potter and Mr. Black. Till we find a way to send you back in your time, you can be transferred students. Of course, I will arrange so that you cannot learn of your future. We will also have to keep your identities a secret lest we interfere in the fabric of time itself."

Sirius Black, self proclaimed best prankster, snorts. "I don't think we can hide our identities, headmaster." He ruffles Prong's hair, a bird nest that only Potters manage to have, and gestures to his own eyes, grey and steel like all Blacks have. 

Dumbledore gives them a secretive smile, waving his wand. "That won't be a problem." 

Alright, Dumbledore's rules are simple. 

Lay low. 

No research on their future self. 

Try not to cause too much mischief. 

Simple enough, if one might forget the third rule but alas, Sirius thinks it wouldn't be such a great idea to antagonize their only ticket to the past. 

Of course, they are sorted into Gryffindor under the reserved applause of the red and gold House. Sirius cannot help but think poorly of his House's next generation.

Where is the fun and the mischief? 

He sits down next to a student that leaves two spots open close to him. 

"Hi, Seamus Finnegan, here." He greets. 

"Elvis," Sirius greets. Next to him, James smothers a laugh like he always does once he hears the name Sirius has chosen for himself. Like he can talk to himself, having chosen Robert.

Honestly. 

What a boring name. 

Seamus nods in greeting. "Hope you guys will enjoy your time at Hogwarts."

It is James that answers and anyone who knows him would be immediately wary. "Oh, we will." 

"Look at him, Padfoot. All grown up and captain of the Quidditch Team," James wipes away a tear like the poor sappy sod he turned into since realizing that Harry is his and Lily's son. Not that it wasn't easy to notice, Prongslet was like a miniature, cuter version of him. 

"And what a captain, he is." Sirius remarks. 

Poor Prongslet, too good and left bereft of Marauder's influence, is uselessly trying to make the team quieten, without much results. 

Sirius has half a mind to just interrupt, though he is already busy holding back James from jumping and jinxing the guys that laugh off Harry's directions. Yet, they need not to interfere, for suddenly, there is blissful silence. 

Blissful and horrified. 

You would be too if met with mouths sewn together to keep them shut. Strings stab into their lips, shutting them close in a portrait of macabre, and Merlin, the sight is horrifying. 

There's a horrified, high-pitched scream from somewhere. 

Same, lady, Sirius thinks with wide eyes. 

Yet, Harry doesn't seem that fazed.

Now, Sirius is all for Gryffindor bravery. In fact, he encourages it with cheer and glee.

But still.

One would think that having his teammates quite literally shut up would warrant more than a lazing blink, almost exasperated from Jame's precious pup.  

Instead, his little Prongslet sighs, eyes zeroing in on the bleachers as he casts a Sonorus. "You didn't need to do that," he says impossibly fondly.  

"I don't know what you mean, Potter." 

Sirius almost falls from his seat. 

He recognizes the posh, sneering voice that all pureblood, true and proper, use. It is like velvet on a blade, poison in honeycakes. The Gryffindor just doesn't know why a pureblood - a Slytherin he bets - would come here and not be chased away by a mob of angry lions. 

Merlin, it's Quidditch. 

The girl who spoke glides down from the bleachers onto the court. 

She's tall, and slender with her robes perfectly tailored, green and silver around her neck. She walks like she knows the world will bow as she passes, and by the way the students almost jump out of her way, it does. Sirius knows arrogance well. How can he not when he had been the Black Heir?

And that girl, the one who Prongslet looks at so fondly, with the same longing look that James would wear every damn morning, breathes that same arrogance.

There's something odd in Sirius's chest, a stirring, a longing call that makes his magic reach out almost eagerly. 

"Why's a Slytherin watching the Gryffindor's tryouts? Shouldn't anyone kick her out?" James asks aloud, and Seamus, seated not too far from them, snorts. 

"You try to kick out Elara Black and see what happens," he chortles.  

"Yeah," Deans adds, laughing. "We'll spend ages trying to scrub your corpse out of the floor afterward." 

And suddenly, Sirius cannot breathe. 

"Elara Black??" James lets out, strangled and so very different from the usual prankster and Potter heir that he is.

Sirius, for once in his life, remains speechless.  

Seamus glances at them weirdly, wrinkling his eyes in confusion at their surprise. "Yeah? Elara Vespera Black? Sirius Black's daughter? Pureblood Princess, Slytherin's darling?"

James just gapes his mouth open, and Sirius still cannot breathe.

He has a daughter? 

And by the Gods, she is beautiful.

He notices her hair, ebony like his own, and his daughter has his curls. They are softer, thicker with an emerald ribbon neatly tying the more rebellious ones away from her face. 

He doesn't even know what his daughter's face looks like.

It is surely breathtaking like Aphrodite has breathed beauty and delicateness into one's features. After all, she is a Black, and his flesh and blood, and there is shared perfection in their veins.

Sirius stares at his daughter - Elara was her name, wasn't it? - trying to stare hard enough for her to look back and see him.  

"And, Harry's sweetheart." Dean throws in with a smirk. 

Now, it's James's turn to stop breathing. 

Sirius falters, and for a second, a brief second, the Black's madness claims him as it has so many others. His hand reaches for his wand, knuckles white and a curse on his lips.  

"WHAT?" 

Sirius and James glance at each other, surprised at their synchronized horrified scream. 

Seamus is almost folded into two, laughing. "Man, you've been here for a week, and you still don't know about them?" 

"They're a couple?!" James looks half gleeful, but Sirius is horrified because that is his blood, his daughter and suddenly, he remembers all the times James just creepily stared at Lily and would constantly seek her like a man left without air and he swears to Merlin, if those traits are genetics, James Potter's balls are getting hexed off-

"No-" Sirius sighs in relief.

"Not yet"

And if Sirius has anything to say about it, never.

"Not for a lack of trying," Dean pipes in, laughing too. "Man, Harry got it so bad, I'm pretty sure he's going to try something this year." He rubs the back of his head. "At least, I hope so."

Seamus nods, in perfect agreement as if it is not Sirius's precious daughter they are talking about. She's what, sixteen? 

Way too young to date!

His future self better start cursing every boy away. The Black heir is sure that everyone and their uncles are falling for his little daughter like moths to a flame. Understandable, but still, it is an odious crime. 

"Same. Almost half of the school placed their bet by the end of this year."

"So, like everyone knows it?" James asks. He looks impossibly proud, and Sirius has half a mind to slap the smug look out of his face. "Did he stand up at breakfast and ask her out, yet?"

Sirius's right eye twitches. 

He's been there when James first did it, fresh off the shower, and way too exusberant for a Monday morning. 

It had been hilarious, though Evans hadn't thought so. 

Now, it suddenly doesn't seem too funny at the mere thought of his little Prongslet being his father's son. 

"Nah, but that's a great idea," Dean says with a considering smile. "Might suggest him that."

"No!"

The three looks at him weirdly for his loud and sure exclamation yet Sirius could not care less. 

That's it. 

James Potter's balls are getting hexed off. 

Sorry, not sorry, Prongslet.