Harry had fallen asleep on Sirius’ shoulder hours ago, the man finding comfort in the little snores the toddler let out into his ear as he snoozed. He doesn’t really know what he’s still doing wandering around town, but he cant quite bring himself to return to the coffee shop where the kid would immediately awaken at the sound of his parents voices, and he feels weird forcing the kid to sit in the dark tattoo parlour all day, with nothing to occupy his little brain. So he finds himself wondering through pretty much every quiet shop he can find, all the owners fawning over Harry as if they didn’t see him almost every day anyway, and pestering Sirius to finally visit the now finished bookshop at the end of the street.
It's not that he doesn’t want to visit the new shop owner. Gods he’s been dreaming about the cute guy who’d been moving in that first day for months. He just worries he’s going to do something wrong to scare the man away, everyone who’d come to the small town since Sirius had opened his parlour had told him that they’d once been scared of him, and he just doesn’t want the new Lupin to think of him in the same way.
“Oh, for Gods sake Sirius.” Regulus rolls his eyes at the man clinging tightly to his godson, spilling his stupid worries to his little brother. “I can’t take seeing you thirsting after him any longer. Just go ask him.”
“As if you are any better.” Sirius pointedly looks over at Barty, stacking some kinds of herbs on one of the shelves as he talks to Pandora, then back at Regulus, who’s now glaring at him intensely. If looks were murderous, Sirius would’ve been dead minutes ago.
“Piss off.” A smile ruins the look on his face when Sirius goes to shield Harry’s ears at the foul language, and Regulus rolls his eyes again.
Sirius silently wonders if his brothers eyes will ever fall out at the constant eye rolling that he receives. “Stop being a little prick.”
“I’ll stop when I see you and Remus at the pub. Tonight.”
But Sirius' head just shoots right back up, looking at Regulus as though he's insane. “Tonight?!”
Pandora appears at the mention of the night, a knowing glint in her eyes as she smiles up at Sirius. “Oh! Are you two talking about tonight, I heard-.” She begins talking about something Sirius doesn’t really understand, but he smiles and nods away until Harry begins stirring on his shoulder.
“I’ll be there Dora.” Sirius assures her when she slows down her roll, and he chances a look at his younger brother, who seems even less interested in the conversation, watching Barty intently across the apothecary shop. Sending his brother a smirk, he jokingly sing-songs a, “See you later lover boy.” And the reaction from his brother is worth the way Harry awakens in the jostling that comes from Sirius sprinting from the shop. And as soon as he’s away from Regulus’ attempts on his life, he’s lulling the toddler back to sleep in his arms.
But its only then, when Harry’s snores finally reach his ears again, that he’s realising what he just agreed to while accepting Pandora’s offer. He has to get Remus to the pub. Remus. Otherwise known as cute bookshop owner in Sirius’ mind. Or, the man that’s currently watching him walk closer, looking out the window of the little converted-mill he now owned, probably wondering what on earth Sirius of all people, was doing trying to come to his shop.
A little tentatively, Sirius calls out a short, “Hello?” as soon as he enters, as if he hadn’t known Remus had been watching, despite the fifteen times they’d made eye contact, and within seconds, Remus is falling out from behind a shelf of old books. Poetry? Sirius thinks he read on the sign when he’d been looking, but now, all he can think to look at is Remus. The other man hadn’t changed at all since the first time Sirius had seen him, still way too tall, with an old blazer hanging loosely over his skinny shoulders, holding himself in a way that already has all of Sirius’ motherly instincts screaming at him, and he knows it’s wrong to assume, but Sirius finds himself genuinely worried for the man’s health.
“Oh, hello!” But Remus doesn’t sound bad at all. Rather he seems perfectly healthy as he raises a hand to wave Sirius further into the shop, warm eyes quickly falling to Harry in his arms. “You’re on Harry duty?” Regulus laughs, but when Sirius just looks over at him a little confused, he quickly shuts his mouth, hands dropping to scratch at the other anxiously against his stomach. “Not that he’s a chore or anything, I just-.”
When Sirius finally understands what it was that Remus had been implying, his own laughter rings through the shop , and he quickly finds himself reassuring the other that he hadn't been wrong. “Oh!” He jostles Harry accidentally, and the toddler looks up from his shoulder angrily to send a tired glare in Sirius’ direction before he’s dropping back down. “Godfather duties you know.”
“You’re his godfather?” Remus looks almost shocked at the news, and that only makes Sirius laugh some more.
“That I am. You’ve met James I’m assuming?” He asks, and Remus nods, “He and I are best friends. Brothers technically, his parents adopted me, but that’s a long story, and you probably don’t want to hear it, but yeah. I’m probably not the best of Godparents, but I like to try when I can.”
“You look like a great Godparent.” Remus smiles again, but Sirius just shrugs, not entirely believing the bookstore owner. “I, uhm, I don’t have all that many kids books around, but I’m sure if we have a look somewhere I might have something?” He offers Sirius something else to think of, and finally, the other man begins to smile again too.
But neither of them can even get all that far into their looking, before Harry begins to wake up properly. “’m hurngry. Siri.” Are Harry's first coherent mumbles from Sirius’ shoulder, and the man finally realises just how long he’s been away from the coffee shop.
“Oh, okay buddy. Do you want to go back to mummy?” Sirius eventually asks, not wanting the words to actually leave his mouth, because he really, really doesn’t want to leave the bookstore already, but it’s Harry, and he always has to prioritise the kid. Godfather duties and all that.
“No. Wanna eat.” He almost breathes a sigh of relief before he realises that Harry hadn't really helped him at all.
Remus just raises an eyebrow at the two, silently enjoying watching Sirius loose to the toddler. “What? Kid-.” Sirius tries, but Harry doesn’t even let him finish, already deciding to throw a fit in Sirius’ arms at the lack of action he's receiving in terms of his complaints. “Hey. Harry!” He warns when the kid gets just a little bit too close to a stack of books not get sorted on one of the side shelves, but Remus is quick enough to swipe it away before Harry can knock it completely. “Harry-.”
“Hungry Siri.” The kid just whines, seeming to understand his mistake, and beginning to settle to ensure no more flailing limbs could get him into trouble. But when Sirius looks up at Remus again, he’s gone.
“Remus?” Sirius calls out to the empty room, and it's silent for a few more beats until finally, Remus is sticking his head round the door frame behind the till. "What're you doing?"
But Remus doesn’t respond to him, just lifting up a punnet of something that Sirius can’t quite see, calling out to the kid instead. “Do you like raspberries Harry?” Harry perks up at that, and it only takes a look from the kid for Sirius to finally let him out of his arms, watching him rush over to Remus, almost knocking him over as he wraps himself around the wearier man’s legs. “Woah kid,” Remus laughs, using the hand that isn’t holding the punnet to lean against the desk holding the till. “Maybe we should go find somewhere to sit with Sirius, I don’t want raspberries getting all over my floors?”
“Okay!” Harry giggles, and he’s sprinting over to a little seating area near a window. He watches Sirius follow him, however he doesn’t raise his arms for his godfather to pick him up, and instead waits for Remus to sit down in his own chair before he’s raising his arms for Remus.
“Hey kid-.” Sirius goes to warn Harry, but Remus quickly shakes his head at the other man with a grateful smile on his face, appreciating the precaution, but picking Harry up anyway, doing his best to ignore the achiness in his arms as he tries to remember all the places, he has to support a child. Wait, were those even things? Maybe with babies, but toddlers-. Oh Gods, he has no clue what he's doing.
Remus tries not to worry about that kind of thing as he feels the kid lean up against him, hands already reaching out for the container. He looks up questioningly at Sirius, and the kids godfather just nods with a smile, something in his eyes that Remus cant quite understand. “You like raspberries?” He asks Harry when the kid manages to stuff one into his mouth, watching his face change before he’s reaching out for another. “Hey, you should do this-,” Remus picks a couple raspberries up himself before putting the bigger ones on all his fingertips, as though he has raspberries as fingers. He quickly eats a couple, then puts some of the smaller ones on Harry’s teeny fingers. “You try, see!” He laughs as Harry puts one of his own fingers in his mouth, and in seconds, the room is filling with both their laughter.
The sight is almost too much for Sirius as he watches his Godson giggle with Remus, eating raspberries and sticking them on his little fingers. “You should come to the pub tonight.” He blurts before thinking, and thankfully, Harry is too absorbed in his raspberries to notice Remus’ head shooting up in surprise. “I mean, everyone will be there, but you should join us. All of us with a business get together every now and then, it’d be nice to have you around.”
“Yeah. Okay.” Remus nods his head, then looks back down at Harry, already jumping back into his playing with the kid. And oh, Gods, Sirius is down horrendous.