Summer part 1
Remus Lupin was not used to waking up to an empty bed.
In fact, he hadn’t spent more than a night or two alone since his fifth year, which is when he started sleeping with (and sleeping with) Sirius.
But tonight was the fifth night in a row he had found himself reaching out towards someone who was not there. By the looks of it, Sirius had never gotten into the bed in the first place. Remus looked to the clock and saw that it was nearly one in the morning.
Remus grumpily sat up. If Sirius was awake drawing again, he was going to hex him!
But Sirius wasn’t in the living room, the kitchen, or the bathroom. Remus frowned, and then he realized the obvious.
He crept back up the stairs and down the hall, stopping in front of the furthest door. He slowly pushed it open. Sure enough, there was Padfoot, curled around Harry’s tiny sleeping form. Harry had one arm thrown over the dog’s neck, fingers tangled in the fur by his ears.
Izari looked up from her perch on the headboard, tongue darting out to scent him. Remus just stood there in the doorway watching his family for several minutes before going back to his own bed.
Despite knowing where his husband was, Remus still couldn’t fall back to sleep. He sighed, rolling over and flicking the lights back on again.
It had been less than a week since Harry had come home from Hogwarts, and none of them had really felt much like celebrating the summer yet. In fact, the summer thus far had been a bit of a bummer for Harry.
Harry’s friends, for the most part, wouldn’t be able to visit him. Blaise and Hermione were both out of the country, and Draco’s father had forbidden Draco from entering the home of a werewolf. Sirius wasn’t about to let his recently traumatized nine-year-old go to the home of a Death Eater, so the boys had quickly realized they wouldn’t be sharing much more than letters for the next three months.
Remus had tentatively asked about Theodore Nott, but had been informed by both Harry and Sirius that Theo wouldn’t not be visiting. Apparently, after the stunt at the castle, Theo’s father had expressly forbidden Theo from being friends with Harry. (What Sirius knew and the children didn’t, however, was that the reasoning was not that Nott Sr. thought Harry was too dangerous to be near. It was that Nott Sr. was still avidly loyal to Voldemort, even more so than Lucius, who had lost much of his fanaticism upon his son’s birth. Nott Sr. would absolutely try to kill Harry if given half the chance.)
Nonetheless, Harry had put on a brave face, saying he wasn’t used to having friends to invite over (or a place to invite them to, for that matter) anyway, so it wouldn’t be that big of a deal. Besides, the Weasley twins were still around, and Molly had already agreed to let them visit. In fact, they were expected to come over the next day.
Hopefully they would cheer Harry up a bit. Merlin knew the boy needed it.
At first, Sirius was a bit concerned about why two boys nearly five years older than his godson would want to hang out with Harry so frequently. He had carefully watched the Weasley Twins on their visit over Christmas, and he had been happy to see that the boys treated Harry like a younger brother. They gave hugs freely but not excessively, they teased without being cruel, and they pranked without causing harm. Most importantly, they always watched out for Harry, seeming to be able to sense when he was overwhelmed and just needed a few minutes of quiet safety.
So, with that in mind, Sirius agreed to open the floo to the Weasley’s, so that Harry could invite them over whenever. Harry had happily done so almost every day for two weeks after their first visit, and soon Sirius had simply given the boys their own password for the floo. As long as they checked to make sure the Lupin-Blacks were actually home, they could come over whenever.
The men had been a bit surprised to find the twins at their house literally every day after that. Some days they were only there for a few hours, but most days they arrived shortly after breakfast and left shortly after dinner.
That in and of itself was not concerning, but the reluctance the boys had towards going back home was beginning to be. Sirius never thought he’d have to be worried about a Weasley’s home life, but Fred and George had begun to paint a picture that Sirius very much did not like to see.
The boys always left after dinner, never pushing for longer. Harry usually started yawning around 6:30, and the boys would always ruffle Harry’s curls before wishing him a good night. But Sirius could see the longing in their eyes when they watched Remus carry Hadrian up the stairs to read to him before bed. He could see the resignation in their eyes as they stepped into the fireplace and called out “The Burrow!”
It wasn’t even as though they spent all of their time with Harry, despite always coming over. Sure, they were always in the same room as Harry, and they would always drop whatever they were doing if Harry had a plan for the day. But Harry wasn’t the type of child to really play with others, and mostly preferred to read, color, or do puzzles if they weren’t outside flying. More often than not the three students would simply be sharing a space as they focused on separate things. Not once did Fred or George complain about boredom or restlessness, not even if Harry declined to go flying. They seemed truly happy to just sit on either side of Harry at the table, quietly planning various pranks.
Remus had questioned their presence a few times, checking to make sure that their mother knew where they were all the time, and he had not been happy with the answers he had gotten as the weeks went on.
“She doesn’t even notice we’re gone most of the time,” Fred said once.
“As long as we’re in bed when she checks the clock, she doesn’t care,” George said another time.
“I don’t think she’s even realized we haven’t been at the dinner table for two weeks,” Fred added.
Both adults had vowed to keep an even closer eye on matters, and the evidence they were gathering was not looking promising.
The Twins, while loving pranking with a frankly disturbing amount of passion, had not pranked Sirius or Remus once since they started visiting. The men had been prepared (somewhat immaturely, to be honest) for an all-out prank war, seeing as the Twins knew their legacy as marauders, but not once had they found themselves falling victim to a prank. The house itself had ended up victim to a variety of color-changing spells, “hauntings,” and other tame jokes, and Harry had once ended up speaking only in rhymes for a day, but there was nothing near the level Harry had reported from Hogwarts. There was also nothing even in the realm of what Molly had warned them of. She had spoken of destroyed furniture, food that was no longer edible, and belongings that could never quite be trusted to work the same anymore. In fact, the first time Sirius had gone to collect the twins, Molly had lectured them for a near 20 minutes in front of him about what exactly she was expecting them to do and not do while they were out of her sight. It was as if they were a totally different set of twins than what Molly had described them as.
Sirius had reluctantly let that one go, however, trying to convince himself that the Twins were probably too shy to prank the marauders, or even scared of being banned from the house as their mother had threatened.
Fred and George also never refused a meal, even if they had just come from one at their own house. They’d floo in after breakfast at the Weasley domain, and if Harry was still eating, they’d happily accept his offer to join him. In fact, Sirius had seen them eyeing the kitchen several times throughout their visits, and he had taken to subtly offering the boys ‘study snacks’ at two-hour intervals. Fred and George always made sure Harry accepted first, but they never turned it down once Harry was eating. Remus had overheard George saying that their mum had warded them out of the kitchen, only allowing them in during family meals at breakfast and dinner. When Harry had asked why, George had flushed and muttered something about her being afraid they would prank the food. After that, Remus had started sending the boys home with “leftovers that Sirius and Harry won’t touch, such a waste,” hoping that they wouldn’t go hungry on days they weren’t able to visit between meals.
Sirius had noticed that the boys craved hugs and verbal affection almost as much as Harry did. Although they never hugged Harry without asking, they never denied the contact either. Anytime Harry needed comfort, the boys were there, arms open. Sirius had absently patted Fred’s back one day while passing by where the boy was sitting, and he could have sworn Fred actually melted at the contact. George had grinned for nearly an hour after Sirius had said “good thinking” when the boys were explaining a prank.
The men had also seen how the boys coveted anything given to them, especially if it was new. Every item seemed to be a precious treasure to them. Sirius had given them a new rucksack bag in mid-June, having disliked it in person after ordering it out of a magazine. The boys had tried to refuse it, saying it was far too nice and that Sirius should just return it. Sirius had countered that he was far too lazy to go through that trouble and that if the boys didn’t take it, it would just end up on a pile of junk somewhere in the house. The boys had reverently accepted it from him, acting as though it were a priceless keepsake, not just a 30-galleon bag from a Muggle catalog. Sirius would almost be amused by how carefully the boys treated the bag if it weren’t slightly pitiful. Yet another red flag went up hearing Fred confess that literally every one of their belongings (other than their wands, thankfully) was second, third, and even fourth hand, because “mum says we’ll just ruin everything with our pranks anyway, so it’s not worth spending money on us when she can spend it on someone else who will actually appreciate it.” Having seen the way Ron tended to treat his things, neither Harry nor his guardians were really buying that logic.
Watching them with the bag made it clear that the boys took great pride in their belongings and were not destructive, despite what their mother said. Sirius and Remus took to “finding” random things that they had amassed and abandoned over the years, finding excuses to pawn them off onto the twins. Nothing too extreme, or too obvious, since they didn’t want to embarrass them, but enough to at least put some pride into their wardrobes. Remus swore George actually teared up when he tried on a brand-new pair of shoes Sirius had bought on a whim and never wore. They were boots, so not the most practical thing for summer, but George looked like he might never take them off.
“I haven’t had new shoes in eight years,” he admitted. “My feet are too big for Percy’s old ones, so Fred always gets them, and Percy always treats his shoes way better than the ones in the secondhand shops. I forgot what it feels like to walk without feeling someone else’s foot-print in my shoe.”
All in all, Sirius was sure that the Twins were not happy at home. The boys rarely flinched, never watched hands like Harry and even Sirius did, and they weren’t starving. Yet, they were clearly not being treated right. It seemed that Molly had lost her patience with her Twins a long time ago, and had fallen into a spiraling pattern of neglect with them. Sirius was unsure what to do about it, but it was getting to the point where Harry was starting to notice it too.
It was when Fred showed up with a black eye that Sirius really lost it.
“Where’d the bruise come from?” Sirius asked with forced nonchalance.
“Ron,” Fred grumbled.
“He hit you? Why?” Harry demanded, clearly already plotting his revenge.
Fred flushed a dark pink. “He was going off about you, again,” he muttered. “Saying stupid crap about you being a slimy snake that we shouldn’t trust.”
“What else,” Harry said flatly, knowing there had to be more. With Ron, there was always more. He was almost as bad as Pansy at this point.
“He—he said more stuff about George being, yanno, into blokes, and that I should make sure I don’t lose him to you.” Fred refused to look up at Harry, knowing that nothing made Harry angrier than people being prejudiced. “So I said he was probably just jealous that Harry Potter liked us better than him. That’s when he punched me.”
“I do like you better,” Harry said bluntly. “He’s stupid and annoying.”
Freed smiled a bit, but lost the expression when Sirius asked where George was.
“Grounded.” Fred glowered at the table.
“What the fuck, why?” Harry asked, not even bothering to try to censor himself.
“For shoving Ron off me. Mum walked in right as Ron hit the floor.”
“Let me get this straight,” Sirius said, nostrils flaring with anger. “Your younger brother started insulting my godson along with a quarter of Hogwarts’ population, and then made nasty and damaging comments about George’s sexuality, before punching you when you defended said insulted parties. Yet George is the one grounded for getting him off of you?”
Fred swallowed nervously, not liking Sirius’s tone. “Um, yeah. She said she didn’t want to hear a word of why we thought it was okay to harass him. She still thinks Harry and Ron are friends, because Ron told her they were.”
Sirius stood up from the table, chair slamming back.
“Boys, stay here. I need to have a chat with Mrs. Weasley.”
“Uh-oh,” Harry said, looking eager despite his words. “Do I need to go get Remus? Is this going to be like with Dumb-fucker?”
Sirius snorted. “No, I’ll be fine. Just stay put while I handle things, alright?”
Fred nodded nervously.
“I’ve got good news, guys,” Sirius said, stepping back through the floo with George in tow. “You boys are staying with us for the summer.”
Fred and George looked at each other, faces very much that of people not daring to trust that a good thing has just happened.
“We are?” They said in unison.
“Yep,” Sirius said breezily. “I may have yelled at your mum for a good chunk of time, then made it out like I thought Remus would be a good influence on you troublemakers, and then rounded it out by saying I’m hiring you as Harry’s babysitters.”
Harry scowled. “I don’t need babysitters.”
“Molly doesn’t have to know that, bucko.”
“Wait, we really get to stay here?” George asked, looking very eager.
“Yup. And you know what that means!” Sirius said chipperly, as if he hadn’t just had to confront a woman about the serious emotional trauma she’d been saddling her middle children with for over a decade.
“What does that mean?” Fred asked, eyes narrowing.
“It means the Weasley-Lupin-Black-Potter Prank War has officially started!”
“We are not calling it that,” Remus said, and promptly turned Sirius’s hair bright blue.
Now that the boys were staying with Harry (Sirius had used some borderline illegal expansion charms on the house to create an extra room next to his godson’s), the Twins no longer felt compelled to spend every waking moment in the same space as the boy. As much as each of them had enjoyed the company, it was kind of nice to be able to exist separately again.
It was nice for the adults as well because now they could spend a bit more time with Harry without feeling bad for the twins or impinging on the time the boys had with Harry.
As such, the house fell into a system of routines that was only disrupted by the occasional (or, in Sirius’s case, frequent) prank.
One of those such routines had swiftly become a favorite of Sirius’s. At some point, Harry had realized that Sirius could, and did, draw. He drew a lot actually.
Harry, still far too small for an almost 10-year-old, would curl up on Sirius’s lap in the evenings, listening to his heartbeat. He’d lay there for hours, soaking in the comfort of being held, while Sirius would happily create masterpieces with his fingers.
Sometimes Sirius would use charcoal, and the setting charms could only prevent so much smudging. Soon, both of them would end up covered in black dust, although it was harder to see on Harry’s darker skin. Other times Sirius would use markers and pens, and Harry enjoyed watching the bold lines scrawl across the pages.
His favorites, though, were when Sirius would grab his bag of multicolored inks. Giant blocks of color would overlap and come together to form snakes, wolves, mandrakes, motorcycles, anything he could imagine, and a fair amount of things he couldn’t.
Some drawings were sad; drawings of Harry’s parents, Sirius’s brother. A dying phoenix, a house in shambles.
Some were happier; Padfoot and Prongs, Harry and Izari. Remus. Lots and lots of drawings of Remus filled Sirius’s sketchbooks.
Other drawings were less personal, and Sirius would mutter to himself as he drafted four versions of the same image. These were tattoo designs, Harry swiftly figured out. He’d laughed when he’d first found out that Sirius worked at a tattoo parlor.
He’d stopped laughing the first time Remus brought him to visit Sirius at work. Apparently Sirius’s daily fights with the toaster and inability to dial a telephone did not hinder his ability to work a muggle tattoo machine.
No, Sirius was pure grace and talent as he methodically laid ink into skin. Muggles often commented that his tattoos were almost magical, and Sirius would wink at Harry each time.
Harry was stunned the first time he saw Remus without a shirt, and realized that the man’s torso was a network of tattoos, each one clearly done by Sirius. Sirius had a very unique way of outlining his signature pieces, and it always made the tattoos look like they were always a part of the body, not an addition.
It was the drawings that Harry missed most when Snape arrived in early July.
Watching Harry struggle with total blindness, even for just the few short days it lasted, was probably the worst thing Sirius had gone through in years. Even with the promise of perfect eyesight by the end, Sirius was not so sure it was worth it. Snape had assured Sirius that the total blindness would only last about 72 hours, and after that Harry’s eyesight would improve overnight.
Harry spent every waking moment with his back against the wall, Izari wrapped securely around his neck and hissing in his ears. Fred and George spent most of those first few days on either side of Harry wherever he went. They had quickly realized that while Sirius and Remus scared the shit out of Harry when he couldn’t see them, the twins were a much safer option.
Even harry wasn’t sure why that was, but Sirius had sadly concluded that Harry’s mistrust of adults, especially adult men, would always be there. He was more grateful than ever for the twins, seeing how Harry let them guide him around.
On the fourth morning after taking the potion, Harry woke up and cheered. Instantly, four heads popped into his doorway, and Harry happily confirmed that his eyesight was back and better than it ever had been.
And if Sirius anonymously sent Snape an extremely expensive bottle of brandy, well, no one had to know, did they?