Sirius Black I
Child’s laughter echoed as the child itself floated in the air. It grew extra loud each time he released the spell only to catch the boy a second later. Sirius grinned at his godson, Harry had truly crawled out of his shell these past months. It had been hard in the beginning when he could go from being rambunctious to eerily quiet in a second if any grown up would feel hostile. Raised voices was a big no which itself was a hard thing to accomplish. Sirius didn’t regret inviting Remus to live with them but he can’t deny that he’d hoped that his old friend would warm up to him more than what he’d done. Sirius even found himself jealous of Harry sometimes, it had been such a long time since Remus had shown Sirius one of those real smiles. The smiles where his eyes would crinkle, and the corner of his teeth stick out like small fangs. He had always loved those smiles, they had always been few, but they had been there. He hadn’t gotten one of those directed to himself since Hogwarts.
“Bloody hell”
The shout surprised Sirius enough to lose concentration of the levitation charm a second longer than he’d meant to. Harry shrieked delightfully at the longer drop. Loving it. Sirius levitated him towards the ground and conjured a rabbit, Harry didn’t have a chance to pout about not floating anymore. He instead stood on unsteady legs and started to chase the poor rabbit.
“Thought you’d be longer” Sirius said with a smile, Remus was standing and clenching his jaw as always. It was no wonder that it was so defined.
“Are you mad? You can’t go about and levitate a toddler. He could have been hurt!” The words were spat through clenched teeth. Sirius snorted and smirked at him. “I had it under control, you know he loves it”
Remus threw his hands up before walking to Harry, he banished the rabbit and carried the toddler on his hip. It was quite the endearing sight, it brought familiar butterflies. “I’m giving him a bath. Do you think that you could start with the lunch?”
“Of course,” Sirius said before standing up and following Remus and Harry to the house. They had been spending the whole morning beneath the willow tree while Remus had bought some new stuff for Harry. The house where they lived was big and spacious, one of the brighter properties. And it had a wonderful yard surrounding it, big enough to play quidditch.
Not a house could be seen for miles, the Black’s owned quite a lot of the land to make sure that no neighbours would be possible. One could not be bothered with neighbours while visiting the summer house, after all.
Sirius decided to do his speciality. Steak with chips. It was one of two dishes he could cook, the other one being steak with spaghetti. James had always complained about how he could eat steak with simple spaghetti. According to him it just wasn’t done, Lily had tried to convince Sirius to make a sauce and cut the steak to bits and having it in the sauce. She claimed that it wouldn’t be as dry, but Sirius would never disrespect steak in such a way.
He knows that some would call it prudent to learn how to cook now that he was raising a child, but he didn’t see why he should bother. Remus could cook and if it really became a problem then he just had to buy a house-elf. He had been thinking of purchasing one for a while now, but the creatures were hard to come by. His grandfather only had the ones taking care of his own household while his mother lived at the townhouse with good old Kreacher. He would rather starve than allow Kreacher to touch his food. House-elves didn’t breed often and would have to be purchased from a household, there was no stores harbouring them. And Sirius would rather stay away from smarmy lords.
It didn’t take long to cook everything; he may have used a tiny bit of magic to help in on the way. He put everything on the table which he had set before taking a seat and waiting for the rest of the inhabitants. The heating charm would keep the food at the right temperature.
Remus seemed to be in a much better mood when he entered the dining room with Harry. The toddler had wet hair that resembled a mop. Both he and Remus knew that it was no idea to use a drying charm on it, they could still remember the disaster that was James’s hair after that one quidditch game when one of the team-mates had tried to be helpful and dried everyone up. Sirius hadn’t believe that the Potter hair could get any worse until then – he was proved wrong
The werewolf didn’t say anything about the chosen dish, instead opting for placing Harry in the children’s seat and preparing a plate for him. They sat and ate in relative silence, if one would ignore the babbling of the almost two-year-old.
Sirius vanished the plates when they were done and decided to pick Harry up and make his way to the sitting room. “It’s such a waste to vanish the plates Sirius” Remus said in a exasperated tone while following the other man. “We can just conjure new ones”
“Yes, that would disappear. I am quite sure that the ones you vanished were real ones”
Sirius rolled his eyes. “Then we’ll buy new – real- ones” He drawled as he put Harry on the mat and summoned his box with toys. His godson light up at the sight of the box and started to rummage through it. Sirius laid down on the sofa.
“Which would make the vanishing a waste of galleons”
Sirius sighed and closed his eyes. “What would you have me do? Clean them?” He asked, a bit horrified at the prospect. Sirius could hear Remus mutter something about spoiled aristocrats before seating himself in the armchair closest to the fire.
“No trouble today?” Sirius asked, opening his eyes, and watching the werewolf who seemed to enjoy the open fireplace that he had already managed too light. Remus had always loved warmth.
“Almost, Dumbledore saw me as I exited Borgin and Burkes. I had luckily gotten everything so I apparated home”
Sirius felt his lip curl at thought of the old man. He had lost any respect for him the moment he learned of the fate he had sent Harry too. He could have forgiven his imprisonment, but the neglect of his godson was unforgivable. “He never knows when to give up” he said with a growl.
“I think he knew about the scar”
Sirius stilled at Remus words. “What?”
He heard a tired sigh. “His interest in Harry is not normal, the-boy-who-lived or not. He seems to aim to control him, and it scares me to think that he almost succeeded”
Sirius sat up on the couch and cast a silencing spell on them, ensuring that Harry didn’t overhear. He was much too young to actually understand what they were talking about but who knew what his mind could snap up.
“Tell me”
Remus looked at Sirius with a tired expression. “I’ve been putting the pieces together quite a while now. Dumbledore’s been playing board with us” he drew a deep breath before continuing “He recruited us the last year of Hogwarts thanks to the fact that he is the great Albus Dumbleore. We weren’t even out of school Sirius. He sent me back to Greyback, convincing me that it would help the cause. I had to be with the pack during full moons, the things we did – I did” Remus stopped with a grimace before shaking his head. “You and the others were soldiers. He created an army of children, and no one said anything because we thought we were contributing to something bigger. James and Lily went into hiding and then Dumbldroe knew when they died. You said it yourself, he sent Hagrid to fetch Harry. How could he know that Harry was alive?”
Sirius felt a cold feeling wash over him, he hadn’t really thought back on the events that Samhain and the implications of Remus words drowned him.
“He should have given you a trial, it was his duty as high warlock and leader of the order. He stood up for Snape, a marked death eater but he dismissed you. He put Harry with Lily’s estranged sister and told everyone that Harry was safe and guarded, me included. The bloody bastard tried to compel me to stay away when his manipulations didn’t work as efficiently as he wanted. Harry was abused, there was no wards at all. His scar held malignant magic. Why didn’t Dumbledore bother to heal the scar? If he had done it then he would have realized that it was cursed. And say that he knew that it was cursed, why didn’t he do something? Instead, he hid the boy from the world while letting Voldemort’s essence claim him. I think that Dumbledore knew what he as doing, that he had some design for Harry that your custody and my involvement was in the way off. I can’t help but to think that he’s contacting us now to try to establish a bond with Harry, to keep us from alienating him from Harry”
Silence reigned between the two men. Sirius felt foolish for not realising these thing’s earlier, some part of him clearly didn’t want to believe that Dumbledore could be this much of an old coot.
“He can’t be allowed near Harry, at least not until he’s at Hogwarts. And I’m honestly considering if we should allow even that”
“Its years left until he’s eleven. Let’s worry about that later”
Sirius nodded and smiled when he realised something. “That’s why you got sloshed knowing that he would remain as headmaster?”
Remus turned a lovely shade of red, remembering how he’d not so gracefully risked alcohol-poisoning in the company of Sirius and his grandfather. Remus had wanted to bury himself the morning after, it was three months ago but he could still feel the headache. Sirius laughed at his friend’s grimace.
“You got me quite worried you know”
Remus groaned and massaged his temple. Sirius appreciated the way his fingers moved so delicately. They had lived together for five months’ now and it felt harder than ever to suppress his impulses of wanting to run his fingers through those brown locks while letting his lips explore that hollow of his throat. Sirius shifted a bit uncomfortable. Remus suddenly whipped his head to him, nose flaring. Sirius eyes darkened as Remus lips parted in surprise, he loved those lips.
“Bloody hell Sirius”
Sirius licked his lips, enjoying the way Remus eyes seemed to follow the movement. Remus blushed when he realised what he was doing.
“Stop it”
Sirius grinned before standing up, not bothering to hide his little problem. “I believe I am in the need of a shower”
He could feel the werewolf’s eyes glaring holes in the back of his head. He felt overjoyed, he had finally gotten a reaction. Who knew that it only took Sirius to react first? Blessed be those werewolf attributes, Remus had the most amazing nose just as he had the most amazing -.
Sirius groaned and hurried to the shower.