And one way Harry found out
Harry climbed out of the fire at Number Twelve, Grimmauld Place happily. He still didn’t enjoy the feeling of traveling by floo powder, but at least it was over.
Sirius wasn’t expecting him for Christmas Break until tomorrow, but Harry had thought it would be fun to surprise him tonight, and the Weasleys had agreed to it. Sirius was expecting that he was going to spend the night with them before coming to Grimmauld Place in the morning.
The place was silent, which Harry wasn’t used to. He wanted to call out for Sirius, but he didn’t want to risk waking his mother’s portrait, or any other freaky creatures that might be laying in wait.
Harry set his trunk to the side of the fireplace, and surveyed the living room. No sign of Sirius here. He crept quietly down the hall, stepping carefully to stay as silent as possible, and poked his head into the kitchen. No sign of Sirius there, or in the dining room. Harry walked further down the hall to the study.
There! He spotted Sirius at once, only he didn’t say anything, because Sirius wasn’t alone. He also wasn’t awake.
Lying still on the couch were Sirius and Professor Lupin, curled up together. Sirius’ head lay on Professor Lupin’s chest, and moved ever so slightly with every breath Lupin took. Lupin’s arms were curled around Sirius, with his right hand resting in Sirius’ hair.
The scene was very cozy; their tea mugs lay forgotten on the table, both still full of tea, but presumably long cooled off. Professor Lupin must have been reading, because his book lay next to them on the floor, just where he may have dropped it.
Harry stared at them for a long moment. He tried to remember if they had ever looked like this before - not on a couch exactly, but cozy together - and drew a complete blank. He couldn’t recall any time they’d seemed particularly intimate, only that they’d very clearly been old friends who had gotten on well at Hogwarts.
He wondered whether this was new for them, then, or if they’d been hiding it. Because it seemed intimate in a way that had to be romantic, Harry thought.
Come to think of it, Harry could not remember either of them ever mentioning anything to do with romance or dating women, so perhaps they were both gay.
There was nothing wrong with that, Harry thought, except that he didn’t want to wake them up out of their peaceful sleep to say it.
He crept back out of the room and back to the living room.
He grabbed his trunk and made his way up to his bedroom, unpacking just the essentials.
It wasn’t really time to sleep - it was only just after dinner, after all - but Harry hardly knew what to do with himself. Who knew how long Sirius and Lupin would remain asleep downstairs.
Harry determined that he would grab a book and read for however long it took. He grabbed Quidditch Through the Ages and dove in, trying to pretend to himself that he was reading it because he was interested, rather than because he was avoiding something.
Eventually, as always, he did find himself immersed in it, but not so much so that he didn’t notice when the voices started up downstairs.
Harry heard Sirius say his name brightly - something about being excited that he’d be back so soon - and Harry couldn’t help but grin. He loved his godfather, and loved that for the first time there was an adult who cared about him too.
He burst through the door to his room and raced downstairs, staying just quiet enough to avoid waking the portrait.
“Sirius!” he whisper-yelled when he reached the landing.
Sirius and Professor Lupin looked up at him. Sirius grinned, looking for all the world like he was the happiest he’d ever been, but Lupin looked skeptical. He pulled out his wand at once and pointed it at Harry.
“What did I give you on the train on the way to Hogwarts in your second year?” he asked quickly.
“Chocolate,” Harry responded immediately, “after the Dementor attack.”
Lupin put his wand away and grinned. Tension lifted, Harry ran down the stairs to hug Sirius. Sirius hugged him back tightly, and Harry was once again overwhelmed with the thought that this was someone who loved him by choice, rather than put up with him out of obligation like his professors or the Dursleys.
When Harry pulled back, Sirius was still grinning that wild grin. But there was something hiding in his eyes that Harry couldn’t read.
“When did you get back?” Sirius asked. “Can I get you anything? Tea?”
“Tea’d be great, thanks,” Harry replied. Sirius went about busying himself on getting the water to a boil. “Just got back a little bit ago,” Harry replied, “By floo. You weren’t here in the living room or kitchen, so I put my stuff upstairs in my room, and then I heard you so I came down.”
Harry left out the hour in between, for Sirius’ sake.
Sirius’ shoulders seemed to relax, and Harry realized at once that that was what had been plaguing him. Harry wanted to assuage his fears at once, but wanted the tea first to calm his nerves.
Sirius passed around mugs of tea, and all three of them stood around the kitchen table drinking them.
Professor Lupin asked about the end of term, and Harry filled him in on how horrible Umbridge had been, but how well he’d managed to do in his classes so far.
Sirius asked about his friends, and Harry had only good things to report on that front.
Eventually, as conversation petered out, Harry found he could no longer resist asking Sirius.
“When I came in, I, ah-” he began, “well,” he steeled himself, and he could tell at once that both Sirius and Lupin understood what he was saying. “How long has that been going on?” he finally finished. He smiled at both of them, to try to express that he had no judgment or ill will towards them.
Professor Lupin ducked his head, but Harry thought he caught a nervous smile.
Sirius grinned, and Harry felt his own expression match Sirius’. He just wanted Sirius to be happy after all. He’d had a really hard time of it so far. Whatever made Sirius happy was what was right, Harry thought.
“On and off since our sixth year at Hogwarts,” Sirius told him.
Lupin’s head snapped up and he looked at Sirius reproachfully. Harry wondered if “off” largely referred to Sirius’ time in Azkaban, and he felt terribly sad for them. After all, Sirius had been locked up for the vast majority of their time since their 6th year. It was horribly sad for “on and off” to have been broken up in that way.
Suddenly, Harry realized what that meant: they’d been together while they’d known his dad. He felt a little nervous wondering what that had been like. He knew that the 70s weren’t exactly queer friendly, and he hoped that his dad hadn’t been mean about it.
He shrewd down at his tea. “Did my dad know?”
Sirius nodded, getting that familiar haze of nostalgia in his eyes. “Yeah, he knew.”
Harry looked up at him, and could see from the fond expression that his dad hadn’t been a bigot.
“Cool, that’s nice,” he said. He offered a smile to Professor Lupin too. Both of them seemed a little trapped down memory lane.
“And you’re together again?” he prompted.
Sirius nodded. “Yeah, since I got out.”
Harry smiled at him, but they were all quiet.
Harry felt a measure of warmth inside of him; he was glad that Sirius wasn’t alone. He worried about him a lot; Sirius hated this old house, and for him to be trapped here seemed sort of sad. But if he wasn’t alone, if he had someone who made him happy, that could only be a good thing. Even if they had to stay here, at least they would be here together.
They spent the rest of the evening catching up in the living room in front of the fireplace.
And now that Harry knew to look for it, he could see that there was something in the way that they looked at each other. Lupin sometimes looked at Sirius in a shy, fond sort of way that Harry must have missed before. Now that he knew to look for it, it seemed so obvious.
There was nothing shy about Sirius, ever. But he sometimes looked at Lupin possessively, in a sort of carnal way that reminded Harry of his dog form.
Eventually, Lupin went off to bed, leaving Harry and Sirius sitting alone by the fire.
“Is he why you’re wearing that ring?” Harry finally asked. He’d noticed that Sirius was wearing a ring for the first time today, and had wondered about it all night, but it had felt wrong to ask.
Sirius looked down at it and fiddled with it. “Yes, it’s new, he actually just gave it to me.” His eyes seemed fixed on the band. “He has one too.”
Harry felt silly, that he somehow hadn’t noticed. But in the dim light of the fire, he’d noticed Sirius’ because it was right next to him, and missed Lupin’s because he’d been on the far end of the couch.
“That’s nice,” Harry said quietly, staring into the fire.
They were both quiet for a while.
“I’m glad you’re not lonely here,” Harry finally said. He hadn’t meant to say it, hadn’t wanted Sirius to feel like he was worrying, but he just cared so much about Sirius, and he cared about how he was doing, and it was important to him that Sirius knew that, at least.
Sirius nodded, and a ghost of a smile rested on his lips, but in the dim firelight, it wasn’t a cocky grin, just a calm sort of pleasure.
“Yeah, I’m glad he’s here,” he said.
“What did my dad think?” Harry finally asked. He knew it couldn’t have been too bad, from the way both Sirius and Lupin had responded earlier, but he still wanted to hear it from Sirius. He always wanted to hear more about his dad from Sirius, since no one had known him better.
Sirius laughed sadly. “Well, we weren’t exactly a healthy couple all of the time - we were both hot-headed Gryffindors, you know - but I think he could tell we loved each other very much and made each other happy, and he wanted us to be happy.”
Harry nodded. That sounded right.
“Yeah,” he said simply. “I think he would have.”