Questions
It was harder than Sirius could have imagined. He loved the kid with every fiber of his being but he had no idea what he was doing. 3 weeks into bringing his 4 year old godson home, he was barely keeping his head above water.
“Pads…Why doesn’t Dopey have a beard?” Harry asked, at 10:47pm on a Thursday night, without a hint of sleepiness in his little voice.
“...What’s that?” Sirius shook himself, he’d nearly drifted off the sleep.
“You know. Dopey. From the film. He doesn’t have a beard.”
Harry had convinced Marlene that they needed a television and film playing machine. She was loathe to say no to the boy so they’d spent the better part of the day trying to figure out how to hook the thing up. Once they had it though, Sirius thought it was probably worth it. It was one way to assure him that Harry would be quiet and content for an hour.
“And you feel as though he needed one, do you?”
“Well all the other dwarves have beards. Is Dopey a girl?”
Sirius thought back on it, and the kid was right. The others had beards. But it was nearly 11 pm and Harry woke with the sun no matter what hour he went to sleep. He didn’t have the mental faculties to consider the gender of a cartoon dwarf.
“Dopey is a eunuch” fell out of his mouth.
“What’s a eunuch, Pads?”
Fuck. That was even worse than the previous line of questioning.
“It’s… someone who can’t grow a beard… If I promise that we can watch again tomorrow and look for clues to the great beard mystery, will you go to sleep?”
“Not tired….”
“You must be at least a little tired. I know I’m tired.”
“You’re old Pads. I don’t get tired.”
“Kid, I’m 24. This is the prime of my life.”
“Yeah but what’s that in dog years?”
“Touché”
Harry’s little face looked puzzled for a minute. He wasn’t quite sure what had just been said. He was pretty sure he’d just said something but he wasn’t even sure what that was.
“So why are grapefruits called GRAPEfruits? They’re nothing like grapes. And grapes are already a fruit.”
“Harry my boy, you know, I’ve never thought of it quite like that. Perhaps you should ask Kitty. I could help you write a letter tomorrow?”
He was half reminding himself that there were other people in the world that cared. He wasn’t in this alone. Aside from his wife and constant partner-in-crime Marlene, he had Minerva Mcgonagall. Harry loved Minerva as a sort of surrogate grandmother and called her Kitty.
Sirius wondered how terrible it would be to ask Kitty if she could babysit so he could take a nap. She’d probably remind him of some sort of sleepless night he’d caused her 10 years ago and tell him to buck up. Gryffindor spirit and all...
“I don’t know how to write letters Pads.”
“Well you’ll need to learn then. I can teach you. That’s my job.”
“I thought you made maps?”
“Sometimes. But I’m not going to making very many for the time being. I’m going to hang out with you and teach you to write your letters and whatever else a boy of your age needs to be taught.”
“Can we get a pet raccoon?”
“Absolutely not.” Sirius was used to complete non-sequiturs, but this one was new. Why on earth?
“Why? I’ve always wanted a pet and Uncle Vernon wouldn’t tolerate it. I figured you’d for sure get me my own raccoon.”
“Why not a cat or a toad or something?”
“I already have Kitty. She could get jealous.”
“Right of course. So it has to be a raccoon? You know the carry rabies?”
“What do they carry them in?”
He laughed to himself and shook his head. Life had gotten really strange in these past few weeks. It was a wonderful kind of strange. He’d never been more tired or more confused in his life, but he was so glad that Harry was finally home, where he belonged.
“Harry... it’s time for sleep…”
Sirius felt tired to the bone when he crawled into his own bed. Harry was an endless well of energy. But Sirius didn’t have the heart to leave him by himself for bedtime. He’d been deprived of a loving guardian for so long, he needed him there. So he stayed and tried to be patient while the little boy pulled at his hair and asked 7 million ridiculous questions.
“You look like you’ve been put through the ringer.”
“I’m wounded. I’m no longer Exceptionally Good Looking now that I’ve given up sleep?”
“Oh shut it. You’re just as Exceptionally Good Looking as the day I first blurted it out. But I’m worried you’re wearing yourself out. Perhaps I should take the night shift tonight if he has nightmares again.”
“That would be much appreciated, little duck.”
Sirius leaned in to kiss the top of his wife’s golden-brown curls. She worked hard all day as the face of animagus in wizarding Britain, and was proud of her work at bringing respect to the much-neglected branch of magic. Though she was the one with a career, it didn’t stop her from helping out with the harder tasks that faced them since Harry had moved in.
“Do you think the nightmares will let up? Should we talk to a healer about it?” Marlene asked. She had benefited greatly from seeing a mind-healer the year after her family was killed. Since then she had a tendency to think everyone needed mind-healing.
“It’s not surprising that he has nightmares… those people were awful to him, Marlene. He’s terrified. Or rather, he alternates between climbing the walls and trying to eat his weight in sweets and being terrified.”
“He’s adjusting. We all are. Maybe… put a cap on the sweets… but you’re doing a fine job. He looks at you like you hung the moon.”
“I have no idea what I’m doing.”
“Me either. Maybe that’s how all new parents feel.”
“Is that what we are?”
Her reply was wordless. She wrapped her arm around him, leaning her body into him. He followed suit and pulled her into his chest.
“I’m glad I’m doing this with you.”
“Because you know I’m lost without you?”
“Because Harry still prefers me as a duck. He’d hardly grow up well adjusted if his only parenting came out in quacks, now would he?”
“Well adjusted? That’s a bit ambitious. He’ll probably break into gringotts on dragon back or something. Hopefully we’ll do one or two things right and he’ll be a kind hearted little hooligan.”
“I should work on spending more time with him out of animagus. Maybe we can all go for a picnic in a muggle park this weekend.”
“What, so he can terrorize some other ducks?”
“You said it. Not me.”
“We’re going to be ok?”
“As long as we’re together, the three of us will be ok.”