Harry's mouth was dry, his heart was beating wildly and he could barely keep his hands still. He should have known that taking Mr. Weasley's car would be a bad idea and that he could easily have waited for Sirius to find a way back through the barrier after he finished helping Fred and George with their bags. But no. He had gotten into the euphoria of driving a flying car with his best friend and hadn't thought about all the things that could have gone wrong.
The adrenaline gained to escape from the clutches of the Whomping Willow was starting to run out and an excruciating anxiety was replacing it.
“Look on the bright side, Sirius is cool. Surely he has done something worse during his years at Hogwarts and will compliment you.” Ron whispered comfortingly as both boys waited outside Snape's office for their potions teacher, McGonagall and Dumbeldore to finish talk to their parents.
A small part of him hoped that Ron's words were true and that Sirius would be proud of him for carrying on the Marauders name, but the much bigger and more realistic part knew it was hard to beat a resounding crash against one of the most prestigious properties of the school.
Ever since Sirius rescued him at the age of 6 from the Dursleys after fleeing Azkaban and clearing his name with Remus' help, Harry had never angered Sirius, or at least not in ways that couldn't be done resolve with sincere apologies.
However this time he had the feeling that apologizing would not have been enough and when the dark wooden door creaked and Harry caught his godfather's gaze, he knew he was right.
Sirius was livid. His brows, usually relaxed, were now curled into a frown and his lips were closed in a thin line. Harry was sure that, if a look could kill, he would now be pulverized and fed to some particularly violent creature. Beside his godfather, Arthur and Molly Weasley looked equally pissed, yet Harry couldn't compare them to Sirius. Maybe it was because he had already seen Ron's parents angry or because he knew their anger was not meant for him.
"I think we're both in serious trouble ..." Ron whispered, pale as a sheet, not soft enough not to be heard by the adults.
“Oh, you can swear it. Come on kid, get up, ” Sirius said as he grabbed Harry's thin arm and dragged him into the empty potions class a few steps ahead.
The young wizard couldn't help but feel panic start to overwhelm him because he had never seen his dad- Sirius, so angry, not at him. He usually always reserved for him the warmest smiles and the kindest and most affectionate touches he had ever received in his life, so far removed from the brutal and cruel treatment of the Dursleys, who did not scruple to beat and punish him whenever they felt like it.
But now ... as Sirius's strong hand continued to grip Harry's wrist and there was no hint of warmth or love in his eyes, the kid briefly returned to the days when his Uncle Vernon dragged him into the closet under the stairs and he longed to be in his best friend's place.
Harry only came back to reality when he heard a loud bang that caused Sirius as he closed the classroom door. Now his angry gaze was completely focused on his godson, the silver gray color had been replaced by a gray similar to that of storm clouds and Harry felt the need to explain to him what had happened because he knew that Snape had certainly made the whole thing worse than it already was.
"Pads-"
"Don't you dare use nicknames to get away with it, Harry James Potter" Sirius' frustrated and enraged tone was so distant from everything Harry connected to him that he had the urge to take a few steps back but the iron grip on his wrist did nothing but squeeze and he felt the corners of his eyes begin to pinch.
“I-I didn't want to-"
Sirius didn't know what was happening to him right now. He had never felt such anger before. He knew it was the fear of losing the baby who was now his son, but he couldn't calm down.
When he heard Harry's faint voice a part of him just wanted to hug him and make sure that damn tree didn't hurt a single hair but a much larger and more uncontrollable part wanted to let him know what he felt when McGonagall contacted him urgently to tell him that his beloved child had crashed a fucking flying car in the canopy of the whomping willow.
“You didn't want what, Harry? Getting to Hogwarts simply by train like all your mates? Because I noticed this too, otherwise I guess you wouldn't have driven a damned enchanted car to the courtyard.”
He desperately wanted to tell Sirius that it was not his fault that the barrier for platform 9 and 3/4 had closed but he had the impression that in this situation it would not do much in his favor, so he remained silent and looked down.
"Eyes on me when I talk to you, kid" Instinctively Harry met Sirius' gaze and tears began to cloud his sight.
"So? What do you have to say in your defense? "
Harry was starting to panic. Usually, when Vernon scolded him, he didn't want to hear a word or else the punishment would have been worse. But Sirius wasn't Vernon. Sirius was the sweetest and most understanding person he had ever had the pleasure of meeting.
Yet now he felt that no phrase or story would make things better for him so, again, he remained silent as he tried to look at anything in that room other than his godfather's cold gaze.
"Harry, I won't repeat it again. Do you have the opportunity to invent an excuse, even a minimally plausible one, and instead you choose to remain silent?"
When the child did not respond, Sirius began to seriously lose his temper and let Harry's wrist go roughly, starting to pacing back and forth as he gestured in anger, not even noticing that the poor boy had immediately brought his sore wrist to the side chest as she squeezed it with her other hand.
"Do you have any fucking idea how many things could have gone wrong ?!" Sirius's voice was rising higher and higher and Harry felt that breathing was becoming difficult.
"You could have fallen from who knows how many meters high and become a pulp of flesh and blood, or not have all that luck in escaping the clutches of that tree! YOU COULD HAVE DIED, HARRY!”
Harry had already analyzed many of the incidents that could have happened while waiting with Ron outside Snape's office, but hearing them come out of Sirius's mouth made them all extremely real and a knot of terror at the idea of dying seemed to tighten his stomach.
He had always hated the potions class because of Snape but he had never had the desire to escape as hard as he does now.
"Because of you and your friend, Arthur will have to go through a trial at the ministry for your negligence and you should feel lucky that Minerva didn't decide to expel both of you."
Harry hadn't thought about what trouble Ron's dad would have to go through and that guilt was the straw that broke the camel's back. Tears started to make their way down his cheeks but he tried to stay still. Vernon hated when he cried. It infuriated him to such an extent that the slaps were no longer enough and the leather belt seemed the only worthy alternative. Sirius paused briefly and noticed that Harry had started to cry.
He wanted to go there and comfort him like when he'd just had a nightmare or accidentally injured himself, but some kind of thick, smoky veil seemed to have enveloped his brain, making him unable to reason.
“Now you cry, huh? Oh great, really great." His voice was steeped in stinging sarcasm and Harry used all his strength not to collapse to the ground and cry to the last tear.
Sirius's anger was slowly dissipating as he noticed that they weren't going anywhere like this. He walked over to Harry and raised a hand to run it over his face to try to relieve the tension but as soon as he did, Harry quickly backed away and tripped over the back row bench, finding himself slumped with his knees to his chest and his arms protecting his face.
“I-I'm sorry, I'm so sorry. I didn't mean to, please, I swear I-I'll never do it again. I swear to god. ”Now Harry had started sobbing violently and any residual trace of anger seemed to disappear completely from Sirius's body, only now making him notice the pitiful condition his baby was in.
The adult wizard felt nauseated as soon as he realized what had happened. Harry believed he was going to hit him. Harry, his lovely and wonderful Harry was convinced that Sirius would harm him as his uncle. The angry red mark on his thin wrist stood out from under his shirt sleeve and he realized that he had done it to him. By Merlin's beard… he had induced his son into a fit of violent crying because he couldn't hold his shit together for more than 5 seconds.
Ever since he'd taken his best friend's son James into his care, he'd vowed to himself that it would be the furthest and most different thing from both those stupid Dursleys and his family. He distinctly remembered Walburga's scolding and crying as a child as he tried to explain how things stood. Now he had made the same mistake with his godson. He had demanded explanations but had frightened him to the point of not allowing him to trust enough to share them.
"Harry ... Oh god, Harry"
Sirius moved all those thoughts to a remote corner of his brain for later. Now he needed to comfort his son. He knelt in front of him and with slow movements managed to untangle Harry's arms from his face. The child kept whispering pitiful apologies, periodically interrupted by high-pitched sobs. Sirius wasted no time and pulled him into a hug, wrapping one hand on his back and one on the back of his neck as he made comforting circles with his fingers.
“I'm so sorry pup, I didn't realize I crossed the line. I would never hurt you, honey, never."
Harry wrapped his arms around his godfather and hid his face in the crook of his neck as he continued sobbing. They stayed like that for a few more minutes until Harry's sobs turned into simple sniffles.
At that point Sirius gently grabbed the boy's shoulders and pushed him back and then put his hands on the soft wet cheeks of the young wizard to wipe the remaining tears with his fingertips.
“I'm so, so sorry, Harry. I behaved like a real asshole ”.
"It was my fau-"
"No Harry. Anything you might have done doesn't justify my loss of calm. I should have given you the opportunity to explain what happened because I'm pretty sure Snivellus overstated the whole thing as usual."
Harry snorted a wet laugh and leaned against the comforting touch of the soft hands on his cheeks.
“So I'm sorry I didn't let you. I behaved like my parents"
At this Harry's eyes narrowed immediately, seeming on the verge of berating Sirius himself.
“This is the biggest bullshit I've ever heard. You are the best dad there is, you have nothing to do with your lousy family."
When he heard Harry refer to him as his father, Sirius could swear he felt his heart melt like melted butter and gave a grateful smile to the little boy in front of him as he brushed the hair off his forehead with a tender gesture.
"I'm glad to hear you say that bud"
Harry threw himself back into his godfather's arms and decided that not having died in the car accident was a real good thing because he was pretty sure he didn't want to give up on this kind of hug.
"What if ... I forgive you for the fight and we pretend I never crashed a car on the school property?"
A sweet laugh came from Sirius as he gave his son a last kiss on the hair and pulled him back to be able to talk to each other face to face.
"Nice try Pronglet but I still want to hear the story of how things went and maybe, after you realize how wrong and irresponsible it was, I can compliment you on making the best school entrance since the Marauders." The warm smile on the adult wizard's face made Harry realize that things were going to be okay and maybe Ron wasn't totally wrong about what the scolding would be like.
"And please don't tell Uncle Moony I let you say a bad word."