“House full of insomniacs”
Friday, June 24
It had been easy, truthfully, to slip away from Grimmauld Place for the weekend.
All Sirius had to do was get drunk, or at least make himself look entirely pissed, throw the greatest tantrum to date, catch some curtains on fire, scream belligerently, cry, grab five bottles of whisky from the cabinets, and lock himself in his room.
It was so simple it was nearly insulting.
Well, he’d also had to do a complicated bit of brewing to get Remus’ cute little jinx off him, but it wasn’t likely he’d get through a whole weekend without Harry or Tony saying Harry’s name in front of him.
Sirius left Buckbeak a whole pile of chickens, packed a bag of his muggle clothes and some of Harry’s stuff from his trunk, slipped under Harry’s cloak, and that was that. Once he was sufficiently packed and prepared, he snuck down the stairs, eavesdropped on conversations until he was satisfied that the adults in the house thought he was raving mad and ‘best left alone’, and he left.
Straight from the dull street of Grimmauld to the posh and private plane with Stark painted down the side.
Sirius stayed under the cloak, as instructed by an incredibly bossy Tony, but he relaxed in one of the seats and helped himself to the drinks and snacks laid out in the cabin for him. He did wonder how peculiar Tony was to work for when the pilot closed the loading ramp and took off at the scheduled time, seemingly with an empty cabin.
Not that it was his problem, all Sirius had to do was relax, wait to land, and then have a heart to heart with his godson, assure him he couldn’t wait to have his name cleared and Harry’s safety assured so they could live together, and that was that.
Sirius picked up a grape out of a bowl, silently snickering to himself as the crew would surely notice the disappearance of the food and drinks. He popped it in his mouth and smiled to see the ocean flying by beneath him.
It was all so easy.
Sirius had dozed through the bulk of the flight, the easy rocking motion of the plane and the soft music playing through the cabin like a sleeping spell for him. He woke when the turbulence from landing jolted him and he got his first look at Tony’s ‘place in Malibu’.
Good Merlin. It was a bloody mansion- complete with a pool big enough that Sirius could see it from the sky and a landing pad for the plane he was in. If Sirius’ mother saw the type of place that Tony lived, she may have changed her views on muggles.
…no, she wouldn’t have, hateful woman.
But still, Sirius was practically giddy with knowing that his godson would get to spend vacations and getaways in places like this. God knew Harry deserved it after spending ten bloody years in a cupboard.
Tony was waiting in front of the door that led off the landing pad when Sirius disembarked from the plane. He looked just as casually attractive at forty as he did at twenty-five, dressed in his jeans, AC/DC shirt, and sunglasses. And, as Sirius lost his youth and good looks to Azkaban, he decided to take it out on Tony by sneaking up around him and screaming in his ear while covered with the cloak.
“What the fuck is wrong with you?” Tony yelped, jumping away from where Sirius dramatically whipped the cloak off and likely glaring behind his silver mirrored sunglasses. “I have a heart condition.”
Sirius glanced at his chest where a faint glow emitted above his heart and smirked before looking around the area where they stood more carefully. “Where’s Harry?”
“Swimming,” Tony said shortly. He held a hand out, gesturing to the door. “Let’s get you settled and we can go either piss him off to Bruce levels of aggression or make his eyes go all warm and fuzzy.”
“Probably both,” Sirius quipped. He stuffed Harry’s cloak in the rucksack he carried over his shoulder and followed Tony as he led him through the door.
Sirius’ brows rose as Tony led him through the house. He was used to stuffy and outlandish pureblood mansions with thick drapes, heavy and antique furniture, and an overall sense of ‘rich’ to make him sick. Tony’s place screamed wealthy just as loudly as any manor did, but in an open, light, and refreshing way.
“Nice place,” Sirius said as they walked through a sitting room so big and so open that Sirius could fit three of the expansive libraries in Grimmauld in the single room.
Tony turned down a hall and opened a door halfway down it across from an identical door. “It used to be home,” he said. “You can stay here, the kid’s room is across from you.”
“The kid now, is he?” Sirius barked out a laugh as he tossed his bag on the ridiculously large bed with the soft looking white cover. “What happened to ‘my son’ and ‘I think I love him’?”
Sirius had actually been surprised to get that message from Tony earlier in the week. He’d assumed that Tony had fallen instantly in love with his son just as Sirius did the first time he met Harry. Of course, Harry had been a sweet little newborn with a head of dark hair and soft cries when Sirius met him, so maybe he’d been easier to fall in love with back then.
“‘The kid’, ‘my son’, carburetor, Cabernet,” Tony waved his hand and flicked his sunglasses up on his head. “It’s all the same. By the way, you’re a complete surprise, so if he starts screaming, you’re on your own. We’re at a truce, I can’t lose my progress for you.”
“How’d you get to a truce?” Sirius asked. He let Tony lead him back out of the room and hopefully toward wherever Harry was swimming at.
“Oh I gave a very motivating pep talk last night,” Tony said. He spoke in an airy manner, but Sirius heard the slight pride to his voice. He hadn’t actually considered what a learning curve raising Harry would be for him. And Sirius could give him as much information about magic and Harry’s history as he could, but damn if Sirius had a lot of general parenting advice.
If Tony was giving pep talks and feeling proud over it, then good for him. Sirius sucked at pep talks; he was better at ‘venting your problems and commiserating together’ type of talks.
And revenge, he was decent at that. Speaking of which…
“Have you killed the Dursley’s yet?” Sirius asked casually.
“Hm? Murder?” Tony gave Sirius a politely confused look over his shoulder. “That’s the best you could come up with? They made the kid miserable for nearly fourteen years and you think we should just kill them?” Tony clicked his tongue disapprovingly, “You used to be more fun, Sirius.”
Sirius grinned and turned down a hall that smelled like chlorine. “Spend twelve years in Azkaban, mate, it sucks the fun right out of you.”
“Now that carries a lot of potential for payback,” Tony said. “We just drop them off in a prison full of- what were they? Soul sucking demons?”
“Dementors.”
“Same thing,” Tony said. He stopped at the end of the hall and pointed to a thick white door. “Harry’s out there, I’ll be in here, good luck.”
Sirius eyed the door with trepidation coiling in his gut. He didn’t used to need ‘luck’ to talk with his godson, they’d clicked ever since they got to reunite at the end of Harry’s third year.
Harry sent Sirius a letter, Hedwig had delivered it the day that Sirius had been planning on leaving for Majorca. It had been light hearted, just saying hello, discussed his plans for the summer, and right at the end, an odd little question:
‘Is there a way to link a Gringotts vault to a store for direct owl orders? Are there even wizarding grocery stores? Probably not.’
Sirius canceled his plans to hide out in a different country and instead, very damn carefully, made his way to Surrey to find out why his godson needed to spend his trust vault on groceries.
And it had been the best damn summer of Sirius’ life. Sure, he spent a lot of his time as Padfoot, but he also spent almost all of his time with his godson. When Harry went back to Hogwarts last fall, they’d been nearly as close as Sirius had been with James and Harry even took James’ old mirror to school with him and they got to continue to grow close.
Sirius didn’t used to need ‘luck’ to talk with Harry, and he hoped that rapport would come back as soon as Harry saw that all Sirius had done was make a decision regarding his safety just as he should have been doing for his entire life.
“Here we go,” Sirius muttered before opening the door and stepping out into the ridiculously bright sunshine. Sirius barely had time to let his eyes adjust against the sun reflecting off the pool that had to be the size of a quidditch field when there was a gasp-
“Sirius?!”
Sirius smiled, feeling his worries melting away, as his eyes focused on his godson. Harry was gaping at him from the steps of the pool, his soaking wet hair was plastered to his forehead, and even in just three weeks, he looked healthier, happier even. At a minimum, he didn’t have any bruises on his face, his nose and cheekbones were pink from the sun, and the bags under his eyes weren’t gone, but were certainly diminished.
Sirius lifted his hand, keeping a safe distance until he knew Harry’s mood. “Hey, kiddo.”
Harry blinked with his mouth open. He shook his head, his hair flying around and sending little droplets to the area around him, then he looked down, drawing Sirius’ attention to the little pup splashing in the water in front of Harry.
“Does Arsehole know how to swim?” Sirius asked, breaking Harry from his shocked reverie and causing him to narrow those expressive eyes at him. It was funny; Harry had no true blood relation to James, but Sirius could read his emotions just as clearly through his eyes as he always could James’, and right now that emotion was hurt. Which meant that Harry was about to toss him a sneer and an insult.
Sure enough…
Harry curled his lip up, baring his teeth in irritation, and held his soaking wet dog against his bare chest while he looked down at the dog. “He doesn’t,” Harry said, imitating Sirius’ own disdainful drawl. “I considered tossing him in, letting him drown all by himself, simply abandoning him, but as I’m not an utter prick, I decided to stay with him instead.”
“I love a good analogy,” Sirius said, unbothered by the cheek. He walked over near them, his heart twinging to see Harry clutch the squirming and barking dog a little closer, and sat cross legged on the sunny cement not far from him.
Sirius closed his eyes and hummed for a moment, his hands palm up on his knees. “What if you were a weight to Arsehole? What if you were going to cause him to drown? Would you let him swim with someone else then?”
“I wouldn’t drown him,” Harry said, his voice heated. Sirius didn’t have to open his eyes to know he was surely scowling at him. “You see, when you care about someone, you stay with them. You wouldn’t understand, of course, but it’s a pretty standard idea.”
It was dirty, but Sirius rather wanted to skip the ‘fuck you’ stage and go back to the ‘best mates’ stage. He opened an eye halfway, and peered at Harry through it.
“Shame,” Sirius said, sounding bored and disinterested. “And here I thought you rather liked the Weasley family.”
Harry’s cold look masking his hurt crumpled instantly. Sirius held firm, forcing himself not to immediately assure Harry that he knew he cared about his friends; Harry would only retreat if he caved now.
It was like playing chess sometimes, talking with Harry.
Sirius wondered if Tony did much better than he did.
“I do care about Ron’s family,” Harry finally said, very obviously forcing himself to speak calmly, still worried about repercussions for ‘disrespect’. “You know that.”
Sirius did know. He knew that the Weasley’s were the first people to ever make Harry feel like he was a part of a family- it was one of the only reasons Sirius didn’t evict the annoying group out of his house. That and he was fond of the twins.
Sirius only shrugged though, closing his eyes once more and looking up at the sky, letting the sun warm his skin. “You left them, so, by your own logic, it means you don’t care about them.”
Harry hated having his snark thrown back at him during playful conversations, he certainly wasn’t going to like it when he was tense and hurt and furious. Sirius didn’t mind pissing Harry off, not really. It had been a real milestone in their relationship the first time Harry yelled at him and saw that Sirius wasn’t going to retaliate for it.
“To fucking keep them safe!” Harry snapped. “You think Voldemort will target them with me gone?”
Truthfully? Yes.
The Weasley’s were all public blood traitors who were aligned with Albus. Sirius was certain it was open season on ginger wizards.
“No,” Harry went on. “They’re safer without me in their life.”
He sounded so confident, so assured, a stranger wouldn’t know that Harry hated himself for leaving. Sirius knew though, because he knew Harry, and he knew his resolve was cracking.
“And you’re safer living away from me until we get this pesky war and rat squared away,” Sirius said, full of actual confidence. Sirius was a lot of things, but he’d be damned if he’d go back to being a shit godfather. This separation that hurt Harry so bad? It was nothing compared to twelve years in Azkaban or the short life Sirius would live if he lost his godson as a casualty to war.
“I’m not,” Harry said. His voice was soft, painfully soft. There was a flash of something in the back of his eyes, a shadow of the misery that always seemed to be clinging to the poor kid. “Everything sucks without you, Padfoot.”
Sirius smiled sadly, if he was Padfoot again, then they were moving in the right direction. Sirius scooted closer, an arms stretch from Harry now.
“What sucks about it, kiddo?” Sirius asked him. “Is It the cute dog or the cute boy?”
“The crazy people,” Harry said drily before swallowing and licking his lips, one of his adorable nervous habits he never seemed to notice. He moved his pup to the ground, letting him run around the fenced in area while he jumped up to sit on the edge of the pool. “MACUSA found me, by the way, if you care.”
Sirius snorted. “You’re such a shit,” he said fondly. “Tony told me they’re pretending you aren’t here. I wouldn’t normally trust a bloody politician, but you’re still a mystery in England.”
Harry looked skeptical, “Dumbledore and Voldemort have no way of finding me?”
Sirius hesitated. He was certain that Voldemort would start tracking Harry soon. Snape told them that he’d been furious to discover Harry was missing, and Snape would always carry the scars to prove it, much to Sirius’ delight. Voldemort wanted to find Harry as badly as Albus did, and he had a hell of a lot more ways to find him given he didn’t have the same hang-ups on legality and dark magic that Albus did. Albus knew it too, he merely told Snape to inform him as soon as Voldemort asked him to begin brewing and then they would work from there.
Albus was a fool if he thought Snape would give him Harry’s location before he gave it to Voldemort. The only saving grace was that Sirius was entirely confident that all of Harry’s belongings, an item nearly every tracking spell needed, were in his or Harry’s possession.
“As of now? No,” Sirius told Harry firmly. “Let’s play a game called I tell you what all you’ve missed while you’ve been dodging my messages and you tell me about last weekend?”
Harry’s expression shuttered closed immediately. His straightened his back out and squinted directly up in the sunlight. “I don’t actually care about what I missed,” he said flatly, a pretty clear message that he didn’t want to talk about his damned suicide attempt.
Tony downplayed his actions, but Sirius owed him his life for saving Harry’s.
“Why are you here? How’d you get here?” Harry asked instead.
Sirius gave Harry a full smile, knowing they were going to be just fine. “To have a little holiday with my godson,” he said, truly happy to have the opportunity to do it. He reached over slowly, making his movements obvious to give Harry time to move. His smile stretched when Harry clocked his incoming hand out of the corner of his eye and didn’t duck, allowing Sirius to ruffle his wet hair.
“And I flew kiddo, don’t be daft.”
Sirius’ shoulders relaxed entirely at the tiny sigh that came from Harry’s mouth, it felt a lot like an acceptance.
“Now, teach me to swim and tell me everything I’ve missed.”
As it turned out, Harry was sitting on the steps because he didn’t know how to swim either.
“You swam to the bottom of the Black Lake!”
“You sent me gillyweed, Sirius, have you forgotten?”
He had, actually.
They spent another hour out in the sun, sitting in the shallow end, splashing the hell out of each other and taking turns helping Harry’s little puppy learn to swim. Sirius could have stayed out there all day, splashing Harry every time he refused to answer a question, but Tony had his ‘robot bloke’, as Harry called the disembodied British voice, to tell them lunch was done.
And if Sirius had been mildly worried that spending time with Harry and Tony together would hurt him- remind him of Harry’s other dad too much, make him feel unnecessary in Harry’s life, cause him to question if Harry was adjusting at all- those worries were put to ease during lunch.
Tony was an affable bastard.
He kept up a steady stream of conversation, mostly about his robot muggle tech that Sirius couldn’t comprehend if his life depended on it, but with occasional tidbits to force Harry to talk.
“Your godson refuses to be a Ravenclaw,” Tony said toward the end of the meal. He stabbed a carrot on his plate and pointed it at Sirius, “Guess what color he painted his room?”
Sirius grinned at Harry, “Red?”
Harry shrugged, opting to remain mostly silent through the meal when not directly forced to speak. “It is my favorite color,” he said as he inspected the remaining salad on his plate with all the curiosity of a true Brit. “Can you only eat California Cobb Salad in California?”
“I usually do,” Tony said, nonplussed by the topic shift. “No one in New York makes it just right.”
“Thank God,” Harry murmured.
“And guess what color his bathroom is?” Tony said to Sirius. “Gold. And now poor Peter is going to have to have a Gryffindor bedroom even though he’s clearly a Ravenclaw as well.”
“Yeah?” Sirius nudged Harry’s ankle under the table with his foot and wiggled his eyebrows playfully. “He’s better looking than Bill, then?”
Harry’s face turned a sudden fiery red and he glared at Sirius for all he was worth. “Is this a cute new thing you’re doing, Padfoot? Co-parenting with Tony?”
Sirius caught Tony’s eye and saw him quirk a brow up in consideration.
“Yeah,” Sirius chuckled, feeling absurd that a bloke he once used to close down pubs with was now the one raising his godson for him (with him? something like that). “I suppose we are co-parenting a bit.”
“Dibs on being the hot mom who buries her post-divorce depression in wine,” Tony said brightly.
Sirius laughed again, more genuinely as he was brought in by Tony’s effortless charm. “Suppose that makes me the post-divorce dad?”
“You’re the every other weekend parent,” Tony said, pointing at Sirius with a teasing look in the set of his lips. “I send my kid to you, you try and get him drunk.”
“You told me to do drugs if they had any at that party,” Harry muttered as he moodily pushed his food around his plate.
Sirius leaned back in his chair and raised his brows challengingly as he locked his hands behind his head. “Try and get him drunk?” he scoffed. “I’ve got big plans when Harry turns of age, and they all involve getting him so pissed in a pub that he can’t remember his name.”
“How could I? People keep changing it,” Harry scowled.
“Yeah?” Tony crossed his arms smugly across his chest and smirked at Sirius. “I have three words, my friend: Central African Republic on August first.”
“And I have three words for you,” Sirius drawled. “I don’t know what that means, I don’t care what that means, and that was more than three words.”
Harry pushed his plate back and rolled his eyes as Sirius and Tony continued to banter.
“It means getting Harry legally drunk at fifteen.”
“Not without me you’re not.”
“Oh? You have a passport? You can come watch me get my son drunk.”
“Piss off. I’m buying him his first drink, I promised his dad I would.”
“Huh, I just remembered, when we were in bed one night, James told me ‘Tony, if I ever have a son that you fathered, I want you to take him to get his first legal drink’. It seemed awfully important to him, best not to ignore his request.”
“Is that so? Because I swear Lily wrote in her will, just above the bit about me being godfather, ‘Sirius, you have to buy Harry his first lager or I’ll haunt you’, and you know she’d be a bloody menace of a ghost. I’d never get laid again.”
“Good looking guy like you? Good looking ghost like Lily would be? I’m sure you’d have plenty of takers.”
Sirius laughed and eyed Tony appraisingly. “Would you shag a bloke being haunted by a ghost? A bloody loud ghost too, Evans was never quiet.”
“Hmm…” Tony looked at Sirius with a tiny quirk of his lips and a light in his eyes that Sirius hadn’t seen aimed in his direction by another human being in years. It was gratifying that it came from Tony now, because Sirius was just vain enough to be occasionally depressed every time he passed a mirror.
“If he looked like you? Yeah, I could ignore a ghost for a night.”
Sirius threw his head back and laughed until he felt tears watering up in his eyes.
Harry, apparently, didn’t see the humor at all. He jumped to his feet and snatched his plate off the table. “This has been fun, but I’ve got plenty of things to do besides listen to the two of you…” Harry trailed off and looked back and forth between them for a moment suspiciously. “Do whatever it is you’re doing,” he said slowly. “I’ll be in my room.”
Tony held a finger up when Harry stormed off toward the kitchen with his dishes to keep Sirius from calling him back.
“Hey, kid, so you don’t want to go on that tour of the city I promised you today?” Tony called to Harry with a smug grin aimed at his back.
Harry froze mid-step. Sirius could practically hear the wheels turning in his head. Harry turned his head and glared at Tony, but his eyes were too excited to bring any true heat to the look.
“I’m having you brought up on charges of blackmail,” he scowled.
Tony smiled innocently and batted his lashes at Harry. “One text is all I’m asking for,” he said cryptically.
It was cryptic to Sirius anyway, who watched the interaction curiously. Harry seemed to know precisely what he meant though because his cheeks flushed and his scowl deepened.
“I’m telling Pepper,” he said before resuming his juvenile stomping to the kitchen.
Sirius waited until he was gone to give Tony a curious look. “What was that?”
“Blackmail,” Tony said shamelessly. He pulled his phone out of his pocket and placed it on the table, pressing a few buttons and watching it carefully. “I told him if he sent a text to that kid I told you he likes, Peter, setting something up for next week that I’d let him drive one of the bikes in the garage. Aaaaand, done!” Tony slid the phone across the table to Sirius, “Parenting is so damn easy.”
Sirius gave him an incredibly unimpressed look. “He jumped off a bloody roof last weekend,” he hissed.
Tony gestured impatiently toward the phone. “And he’s got a date for next weekend now. Oh, are wizards that aren’t you and your friends all homophobic or did the kid develop that on his own?”
Sirius snorted and slid the phone back, not much interested in spying on Harry’s messages like Tony seemed to be. It was fine for Tony to be an overbearing prat, in the length of time he’d known he was a father he also thought Harry had been molested by Sirius’ neighbor and hung out with a terrorist, anyone would be a bit paranoid there.
“Wizards and witches don’t give a damn about sexuality as long as you eventually make a polite marriage for heirs and keep your good lays quiet,” Sirius said. “It’s Lily’s bloody sister that used to rile James and I up by calling Rem a poof.”
“‘Rem’?” Tony stroked his face thoughtfully. “Which one was that?”
“Moony. You’ve met him, quiet, tall, cardigans and puppy eyes.”
“Oooh, the one who looked like he wanted a go but was too shy to speak up?”
Sirius felt a surge of irrational jealousy, though he wasn’t entirely certain who it was aimed at. “Probably not,” he said evenly, “since we were together back then.”
Tony didn’t do contrite just as Sirius didn’t, he shrugged and leaned forward with a grin. “What happened? You went to jail and ‘Moony’ didn’t feel like being the Bonnie to your Clyde?”
“Something like that,” Sirius said vaguely, having no real desire to cloud up a holiday with the betrayals Sirius and Remus committed against one another time and time again. He smirked at Tony and raised a brow, enjoying the game he used to be so good at. “Why so curious? Interested in filling the position?”
Tony chuckled that time, and Sirius didn’t think he was uninterested, but Harry chose that moment to breeze back in the room, now dressed in a pair of jeans and a white tshirt, both fitting him perfectly, and he had a jacket hung over his shoulder.
It was hilarious, seeing Harry standing in such an arrogantly casual way. It was like looking in a mirror and remembering himself at Harry’s age, forcing a show of cocky confidence when he felt his most uncertain.
Harry wiggled his phone by his face, pressing his lips together in a tight line as he did.
“Done,” he drawled. “Don’t forget you said you’d teach me to drive.”
“You don’t know how to ride a bike?” Sirius asked, his chest aching that his godson missed such a normal milestone in his life.
Andromeda had taught Sirius to ride a bike when he’d been a kid and saw other kids, muggle kids, riding theirs. It used to be a hoot in the summers Sirius spent with the Potter’s, going for bike rides with James, Remus, and Peter.
He should have taught Harry to ride a bike ages ago.
“Piss off, and that’s not what he promised,” Harry said. “Motorcycles, Padfoot, he’s got a bloody garage filled with motorcycles.”
The sound Sirius made wasn’t decent, but neither were the rows of motorbikes that Tony had filling his garage.
“A Ducati,” Sirius moaned, running his hand tenderly down the side of a bike he’d already fallen in love with. He flicked just the battery on and moaned once more as he could practically feel the body pulsing with power. “Do you have any idea how fast this can go?”
Tony had been giving Harry a thorough lesson on one of the smaller bikes he had, a plain black and silver Harley, and barely even glanced at the bike Sirius was losing the plot over before flipping his hand around.
“When we find that rat, it’s all yours,” he said distractedly, not even blinking at the cost of what a bloody classic Ducati in pristine condition cost in the way that only ridiculously wealthy people could. “Oh, take it out later though, I need you to wreck one of the others, if you don’t mind.”
“You want me to wreck one of your bikes?” Sirius asked, bemused.
“Yeah, if you don’t mind. It’s for a project.”
Harry spun his finger in a circle beside his temple while Tony went to grab him a helmet and Sirius grinned.
He missed his godson so much.
Teaching his godson to drive a motorcycle was also one of the most fun things Sirius ever got to do as well.
“You’re going to be steadier if you go faster,” Sirius called to Harry as the three of them drove slowly around the paved roads weaving through Tony’s giant plot of land. Sirius drove one of Tony’s cheaper bikes, which was still bloody expensive, while Tony seemed content to glide along quietly on the other side of Harry.
Harry’s knuckles were white where he clutched his handlebars. “If I go faster, I’m going to tip it over and Tony’s going to be pissed.”
“Kid, I want someone to wreck one of these,” Tony told Harry. “Not you, preferably, because I’d rather Sirius get hurt than you, but I’m not going to be upset over a few scratches.”
Harry seemed skeptical as he continued to wobble along in first gear, so Sirius appealed to his Gryffindor side instead.
“Hey, kiddo, race you!”
Sirius took off while Harry sputtered; they were sticking around Tony’s place for now, waiting for Harry to feel more confident before they moved on actual streets. Tony’s property was beautiful though- all curves and palm trees and peeks of his private stretch of the ocean.
Sirius whipped around a curve, not going too fast, mostly just fast enough so Harry would try and catch up, and he let out a whoop when Harry raced right past him on a long stretch beside the beach.
They raced around the property for a good hour, Harry’s confidence growing and growing, before Tony suggested they go tour the city on the bikes. And Malibu was beautiful, Sirius genuinely couldn’t imagine why anyone would live in any other city when this one was so brilliant.
Harry slowed down when a police car passed them, but Tony merely laughed.
“They aren’t going to pull us over,” he told them. “Come on, I’ll show you guys the pier.”
By the time they made it back to Tony’s place, after seeing the pier and grabbing dinner at a posh little sandwich place, Sirius had a sunburn and a wide smile.
It was brilliant getting to just enjoy time with his godson- not hiding, not acting mad, not worried about a war or meetings or anything.
“I need a motorcycle,” Harry said after he dismounted his in the garage and patted it appreciatively.
“Sixteenth birthday, kid,” Tony said as he pushed his back to its original position. “Sirius, are you going wreck that one for me or just be a pain in my ass?”
“Both,” Sirius quipped. He winked at Harry, brandished his wand, and climbed back on the bike. “Totaled or just scratched?”
“Totaled, I want to see what happens when you repair a muggle machine with magic and I don’t want you messing with my important toys.”
Sirius laughed at the implication that the bike wasn’t important, but he saluted Tony with his wand and kicked the bike back to life.
“Avenge me if I die,” Sirius told Harry with mock-solemnity.
Harry leaned against one of the posts in the garage and smirked. “If you’re daft enough to go driving into trees, I won’t be avenging you.”
Sirius pouted, but it was fair. He didn’t mind being a little daft though, he’d wrecked loads of bikes before. His own motorbike had been wrecked more times than Sirius could remember.
“You bloody moron,” Harry laughed when Sirius returned thirty minutes later, the destroyed bike levitating in front of him.
“Any injuries?” Tony asked, sounding more curious than concerned, as he pointed toward a place in the back of the garage for Sirius to put the bike down. After Sirius shook his head and dropped the bike, Tony grinned at him. “Fix it.”
“You’re bossy,” Sirius chuckled. He obliged him though, curious as well considering his bike was mostly magical after all the tinkering he did to it. Harry drifted over, his curiosity overtaking his desire to remain aloof, and Sirius waved his wand, sending all the broken pieces back to their positions.
Tony let out a delighted laugh when the bike stood before them, entirely repaired.
“Moment of truth, gentlemen,” he said as he pulled the clutch in and started it. Sirius and Tony let out cheers when the bike started right up.
“You can have the honors,” Tony told Sirius. “Just do a quick lap, make sure it drives.”
Sirius hadn’t been certain what the point of the test on the perfectly working motorcycle had been, but he found out later that night.
After tossing and turning for a few hours, Sirius finally gave sleep up as a bad job and went wandering about Tony’s house.
“Can’t sleep?” Sirius asked Tony himself when he ran into him in the kitchen.
Tony scoffed and got up from where he’d been slumped over a drink to grab another glass. He poured Sirius a few fingers from whatever bottle he had laying on the counter. Sirius hummed appreciatively after trying It. He hadn’t had good good muggle booze in years.
“I don’t actually sleep much,” Tony said after refilling their drinks. He said it in his airy and arrogant manner, but Sirius reckoned everyone had something that kept them up some nights.
“House full of insomniacs then,” Sirius said. “Harry and I used to have our best talks in the middle of the night.”
“Yeah?” Tony picked his head up and propped his chin in his hand. “He sleeps here.”
Sirius smiled wryly. “Does he? Or does he just stay in his room all night?”
Tony tapped his fingernail on his glass and stared off in the distance for a long moment before he huffed. “Great question, short answer, I’ve got no idea.”
Sirius raised his glass to Tony before swallowing it down. “He doesn’t sleep,” he said bluntly. “He remembers his parents being murdered, dreams about it. He saw his classmate die and dreams about that too.”
“Hmm…” Tony abruptly finished off his drink and got to his feet. “If nobody’s sleeping anyway then, come on, let’s grab the kid and you two can help me on my project.”
Harry had been awake when they peeked in on him. His hair was a mess, his eyes were bleary, and he was as bemused as Sirius was when Tony told him to quit pretending to sleep and help ‘revolutionize magical technology’.
“It is three am,” Harry hissed as he shuffled along behind them with his pup obediently following along.
“You weren’t sleeping,” Tony told him. “Come on, come watch your godfather shoot spells at me.”
Harry brightened up almost immediately, as did Sirius once Tony let them in his ‘lab’ and he put on the famous Iron Man suit.
“Don’t hold back,” Tony said, his voice robotic and flat through the mask. “Do your worse.”
“Don’t kill him,” Harry drawled, sounding bored despite the eager gleam in his eyes. He sat on the floor and played tug-o-war with a spare piece of rope with his dog. “I’d hate to be surprise adopted again.”
“It wasn’t adoption, it was—”
“Petrificus Totalis!”
Sirius watched the spell leave his wand, strike Tony right in the metal chest, and…
And do nothing but dissipate into thin air.
“Wicked,” Harry breathed. “Siri, do more!”
“Yeah, ‘Siri’, do more,” Tony egged him on. “Let’s see some real magic.”
Sirius was happy to comply. He sent as many spells as he could think of at Tony, causing Harry to actually laugh when none of them affected him.
“It’s a magic shield!” Harry laughed. He held up the dog and made it watch, “Look, Arsehole, magic shield.”
“It’s the tesseract,” Tony said from behind his mask. He spoke quickly, clearly excited about the results of his test. “It’s what the arc reactor that powers all my tech was based on, it’s from Asgard. Sirius, try something harder. I need to know if this works against everything.”
“I’ve done everything short of an unforgivable,” Sirius said. Aside from hexing Snape on occasion, Sirius hadn’t had a reason to cast so much magic recently. He hated to admit it, but he was out of breath and mentally cursing himself for letting Azkaban wear him down.
“So try one of those,” Tony said. “Don’t kill me, but you can do the torture one.”
Sirius couldn’t think of a real reason not to, even if it wouldn’t be powerful, he could cast a crucio to test the suit limits.
He stood up straight and focused, drawing all his power to his center and hoping he wasn’t about to torture Harry’s dad.
“Crucio!”
It was nearly slow motion, watching the red spell leave Sirius wand and travel toward Tony. Sirius staggered backward to sit on the stool behind him, Harry let out a harsh hiss of disapproval, and…
And nothing.
The crucio hit Tony’s chest and simply disappeared, just like all the spells before it did.
“Either Sirius sucks at magic or the arc reactor doesn’t recognize it!” Tony yelled jubilantly as he retracted his mask to show his face. “Do you know what this means? This changes— hey, where are you off to?”
Sirius turned to follow Tony’s line of sight and felt a load of weight settle in his stomach at the look on Harry’s face as he snatched his dog and began inching out of the room.
“I don’t actually give a damn about any of this,” he said. “Have fun with your fucking games. Spoiler alert, they aren’t much fun.”
Sirius sighed and wiped his face when Harry stalked right out of the room, closing the door gently behind him.
“I am missing something,” Tony said quietly. He removed his suit, a neat and easy removal that left him in his sweat pants and shirt. “What am I missing?”
“Me being an idiot,” Sirius said. He got to his feet, intending on going to check on Harry. “Harry got tortured by crucio back in May, he got all three unforgiveables, actually.”
“Fuck.” Tony aimed a kick at a nearby table leg and then scowled. “I’m doing excellent as a father, honestly I think my award should be in the mail any day now.”
Sirius laughed, it sounded as hollow as he felt though. “Nah, it was my fault, mate. I’ll go see if he wants to talk or yell or something, yeah?“
“Go ahead,” Tony waved him off and pulled a glowing screen out of a table. “I’ll just… see you later.”
Sirius gave him another sarcastic salute then set off to find Harry. He shifted into Padfoot just outside Harry’s door, keeping his wand clenched carefully in his mouth, and scratched on the door.
“Kindly piss off.”
Sirius whined and scratched harder.
It took nearly a minute of whining and scratching, but Harry finally threw the door open.
“You think being a dog gets you out of everything,” Harry scoffed, staring down at Sirius with narrow and red-rimmed eyes. “I’ve replaced you, Pads, Arsehole is much quieter.”
Sirius barked, drawing the attention of the tiny dog that thought he took Sirius’ position. The little pup jumped off Harry’s bed, stumbling and tripping, and bound over to Sirius with happy yips and a wagging tail.
“You bloody traitor,” Harry sighed, shaking his head at where Arsehole began sniffing Sirius curiously. “Piss off, both of you.”
Sirius barked, startling Arsehole in to jumping away, when Harry moved to throw himself on his bed. If Harry didn’t want to talk, it was fine, Sirius would just cheer him up instead.
Sirius growled playfully at Arsehole, waiting until the smaller dog crouched down, growling and wagging his tail as well. When Sirius leapt at the dog, the little one barked and darted off.
And the chase was on.
The two dogs chased one another for a while, barking and yipping and bumping into Harry’s legs that dangled off the bed as often as they could. They eventually made enough of a racket that Harry rolled on his side, watching them and working hard not to smile.
Sirius made a jump as he chased the puppy at one point, leaping up and licking Harry’s face, causing him to finally laugh.
“You’re disgusting,” he said. He wiped his face off and tried to glare, but his quivering lips only encouraged Sirius to try again. Sirius helped nudge Arsehole up on the bed, then Sirius climbed up and they attacked Harry with all they were worth.
They had Harry quickly reduced to a shrieking giggling mess. “I give!” he cried, pushing Sirius away as hard as he could. “I’m never going to get this dog drool out of my hair!”
Sirius hoped his bark properly portrayed how little he cared about Harry’s hair. He did settle down though, as Harry inched backward on the bed until his head rested on his pillow.
“Little late to sleep now, eh?” Harry said, glancing at the clock on his wall.
Sirius looked at it as well and barked softly then moved in a circle and settled down beside Harry while Arsehole curled up right on his chest.
“Lazy dogs,” Harry snorted. His hand moved over to Sirius’ head and he began scratching him in an absent gesture. “Missed you, Pads.”
Sirius whined. He missed Harry too. He wished it could be like this all the time-
One day, he tried to say through a bark.
“Things don’t tend to work out for me that well,” Harry mused quietly, apparently properly interpreting Sirius’ bark in the way Sirius suspected only Harry could.
Sirius whined and Harry yawned.
“If anyone tries to wake me up, bite them,” Harry murmured. His fingers still moved in Sirius’ fur and Sirius felt content enough that he thought he might sleep as well.
Sirius watched Harry through a sliver of a peek through his eyelids and didn’t close them fully until Harry’s hand rested on his head, his fingers still, and his mouth partially open as he slept.
He wished Harry could look as peaceful when he was awake as he did in his sleep.
One day.
The rest of their weekend holiday went by too quickly for Sirius.
He swam with Harry, sometimes in the pool, down at the beach twice. He walked around the property, occasionally as Padfoot to make Harry laugh as he barked and chased birds with Arsehole. He bantered with Tony, already missing the witty battles when he would be back at Grimmauld with no one to truly talk to.
He got Harry to talk a little about his jump from the roof, though Harry merely said it was a heat of the moment mistake and he ‘did not need therapy and fuck you for suggesting it’.
Tony assured Sirius during their late night drink Sunday that it was ‘a work in progress’. Which was the best Sirius could ask for, knowing Harry as he did.
Monday morning came too soon and Sirius had to fight back genuine tears as he stood outside on the launch pad with Harry.
Harry handed him an envelope, for his friends, he said, then stood there looking small and unhappy.
“You can call me again now,” Sirius said. He’d given Harry back his wand and his mirror, though Harry said he could keep the cloak for future trips out of Grimmauld. They always had the option to talk over their phones, but half of Harry’s communication was done through facial expressions and Sirius missed seeing his face during the talks they had before Harry began ignoring him.
Harry had his head ducked and shrugged his shoulders. “It’s not the same,” he muttered. He lifted his head and Sirius swallowed to see Harry looked as miserable at separating again as he did.
“I know,” Sirius agreed. His eyes flicked to where Tony waited in the doorway, his glasses concealing his eyes again. “It’s good here though, kiddo, better than where I’m headed, trust me. And- and as soon as it’s all done, I’m coming back.”
Harry tried to smirk, but it looked weak. “For the Ducati?”
Sirius sighed wistfully, trying to keep their goodbye casual and not as horribly gut-wrenching as it felt. “The Ducati and you,” he said. He clasped Harry’s shoulder and waited until he looked up again. “This isn’t forever, kiddo, the war has to end sometime.”
Instead of seeming comforted by that, Harry suddenly jerked forward and had Sirius wrapped in a desperate hug.
“Don’t die,” he whispered. “Please, Siri, if it ever comes down to it, be a coward and live.”
Sirius held Harry to him tightly, holding him as long as he could. “I will,” he said thickly. He looked at Tony, “And you live too, kiddo. Life is going to be so… so brilliant for you.”
Tony nodded and Harry released Sirius, allowing him to take the hardest ten steps backward on to the plane.
“Be safe, Harry,” Sirius said, yelling over the sound of the plane starting up. “Stay off ledges, and I’ll see you soon.”
“Don’t kill anyone in the meantime,” Harry yelled. He lifted his hand and Sirius watched as Tony stepped over closer to Harry. “I mean it, Pads, no dying or getting arrested! I’ll kill you!”
“Love you too,” Sirius laughed. He waved when the plane ramp closed and waited until it took off for the skies to allow one traitorous tear to escape him.
He could never leave this time if he didn’t see for himself how much Tony cared about Harry and his happiness and his health.
One day he wouldn’t have to leave.
Catch the rat, end the war, assure Harry’s safety, and then it could be all blue skies, easy banter, and bikes with his godson.
It was the mantra he repeated through the flight when he felt a weight return to his chest. He chanted it mentally before disembarking beneath the cloak and apparating to the street outside his prison family home.
One day he wouldn’t be there anymore.
One day he’d be with his godson and his godson’s family just as he always dreamt of.
One day. One day. One day.