Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

It’s perhaps the strangest thing in a long string of utterly inexplicable events that finds Harry Potter, not quite dead and not quite alive, in King's Cross with Professor Dumbledore. As he sits there and questions the very dead man, he finds himself at a bit of a crossroads. 

“I've got to go back, haven't I?” 

“That is up to you."

"I have a choice?"

"Oh yes." Dumbledore smiles at him. "We are in King's Cross, you say? I think that if you decided not to go back, you would be able to...let's say...board a train."

"And where would it take me?"

"On," says Dumbledore simply.

On. Whatever - wherever that is. With his parents, probably. Sirius would be there, with them. Remus. Tonks. Fred. God, he wants to cry. Can he cry, here? Dumbledore would know, but then Harry wouldn't have the strength to ask. 

"Voldemort's got the Elder Wand."

"True. Voldemort has the Elder Wand."

"But you want me to go back?"

"I think," says Dumbledore, "that if you choose to return, there is a chance that he may be finished for good. I cannot promise it. But I know this, Harry, that you have less to fear from returning here than he does.”

Right. Because whatever’s just happened, whatever choice Harry makes, one of the horcruxes keeping Voldemort immortal will die underneath that seat. If he goes back, it dies alone, and if he moves on, it goes with him. 

“But it's not the last,” Harry realizes, thinking of the farewells he'd left unsaid just before turning himself in. “Nagini. The snake, she's a horcrux too. I…I told Neville, just in case. Before coming here.” 

Before I went to die, he doesn't say. It’s obvious enough to the both of them. 

“I see,” Dumbledore says with a tilt of his head, folding his hands together. “If, indeed, he has another horcrux left, both he and the snake would be waiting for your return. I apologize for my early supposition.” 

“So…so if I go back, it's not over,” Harry says, swallowing around a lump in his throat. Despite the bright, clean station around them being completely empty, he feels as if he's being caged in, and his fingers twist round themselves as he lets that thought sink in. 

More fighting. More dying. Not necessarily him, exactly, but maybe the other students and professors. People he went to school with, ate with, studied with. Kids who might not have even lived as long as he did, for whatever definition of living you can consider Harry's life to be. Kids like Colin Creevey, whose face Harry suddenly can't remember beyond the giant camera he always held. Did he have freckles? It feels as though Colin had, but the uncertainty digs at him anyways.

“Is this all in my head?” Harry asks, breaking apart the pensive air between them. “Or is this real? This place, me, you, all of it?” 

“My dear boy,” Dumbledore chuckles, spreading his hands with a beam. “Just because something is in your head doesn't mean it's not real!” 

For a split-second, Harry is not seventeen and almost dead, feeling as though he's sitting in the Headmaster's office at Hogwarts and staring up at a man he thinks of as a mentor and grandfather alike. In that split-second, he feels rather as if he's a young boy again being told something wondrous and magical, and no one knows better than Professor Dumbledore how truly great magic is. 

And then his years catch up to him as the broken little thing that used to be a soul cries out again, leaving Harry cold and horribly lonely. 

There's another question at the tip of his tongue, heavy as can be, but it’s the kind that even Albus Dumbledore can't answer. Can't be trusted to answer, one might say, after years of untold plans and immense secrets and grief; it seems that when he finally has the man ready to answer any question at all, Harry has found that he doesn't have any more answers worth hearing. Or even that the questions Harry has left can’t be answered because they're not meant for Dumbledore, really. But maybe there are others who can, waiting for him somewhere here the same way Professor Dumbledore is. 

Just as he thinks of it, there's the sudden weight of something slipping into his robes, a sensation eerily reminiscent of the day he received the Philosopher's Stone from the Mirror of Erised. He wants to be surprised, but a numbness has settled into his limbs that hardly leaves room for any other emotions.

It's worth trying, at any rate. 

“Right,” Harry says into the immense silence, jerking his head in what might generously be considered a nod. “If you'll excuse me, Professor, I think I have an appointment with someone else.” 

“Do you really?” Eyes glittering with fascination, Dumbledore stands up and looks around as if he might be able to see someone coming around a corner to visit. “Well, my dear boy, I certainly won't keep you. If I may be so bold, I should like to think that whoever you meet would feel the same way I do. That is to say, we should both believe that whatever choice you make is the right one. I do hope you keep that in mind, Harry.”  

There's a sort of look about him that makes Harry feel like he's waiting for a response, but he can't think of one worth saying out loud, so he nods again as best he can while his stomach churns heavily. 

“Well then,” Dumbledore says with a beam, “I shall head out the train station, as it were.” 

And with a slight bow of his head that sends his hat tilting, he takes off to the right with the beginnings of a hum under his breath.  

Watching as the professor heads out farther and farther into the endless white before disappearing into a haze of mist that somewhat resembles doors, Harry reaches into his robes to pull out a small stone the size of his pinky nail.

Taking in a deep, steadying breath, he turns the Resurrection Stone over in his hands three times. 

“Hey there,” he says weakly, hands clenching around the stone as they appear before him once again. Blue-white, rumpled clothes, the same faces he’s seen a thousand times by now and yet doesn’t quite know the way he should have. “I know it's only been a minute, but I wanted to talk to you again.” 

“Hey there,” his mum echoes, the smile on her face so warm it hurts. 

“Anytime, kiddo,” his dad says, grinning widely as he throws an arm around Lily. 

Letting his knees fall out from under him, Harry flops down onto the seat from earlier and gives them a shaky smile back. 

“I, um, met Professor Dumbledore,” he begins, eyes lowering so he doesn't have to meet their gaze for too long before they fall on bare feet. He frowns at the sight of them instinctively until a pair of socks and runners blink into existence around them, and he loses his train of thought. Shaking his head, Harry tries to keep on track. 

“He, er, explained a lot of things to me. The blood magic, his plans, my wand, and about the Hallows and things. I mean, I only have the stone and the cloak on me, but apparently the Elder Wand is mine because I won its allegiance or whatnot when I disarmed Draco and he's the one who disarmed Dumbledore back then on the Astronomy Tower. Classic stuff, really.” 

His dad snorts then. Harry can see an elbow dig into ghostly ribs from the corner of his eyes when they jerk up, and his parents nod encouragingly. 

“Go on,” his mum says, looking as if there's nowhere else she'd rather be than here, listening to him ramble. 

When you're a bloody orphan who killed himself to take down a Dark Lord at seventeen only for it to half-work, it's a bit difficult to move past that without wanting to bawl your eyes out. But Harry does his best. 

“Well,” Harry swallows, “he told me I have a choice. To go back and fight, or…to move on. Catch the train, and all.”

Belatedly, he adds, “This is King's Cross. Dunno what platform or anything, but. King's Cross.” 

There's a sort of shuffle, almost, where if his parents were flesh and blood there might have been clothes rustling and hair falling. They make their way over to him and crouch down, the white glow of their bodies falling into his vision beside his knees. 

A pair of small, thin hands rests on his right knee, and a broad palm comes up to wrap around his shoulder. They aren't warm, and the touch is barely there to his senses, but it still feels as though he can feel it grounding him. 

“It's okay, love,” his mum whispers, a curtain of hair slipping over her shoulder to brush his robes. “It's a hard choice to make either way.” 

“You can be honest,” his dad adds, so full of confidence that Harry envies him. “We're bloody proud of you no matter what, Harry. Right chuffed, actually. Look how far our baby boy's come!”  

It's not really funny in the least, but it earns an amused huff from Harry that has both of them smiling widely with delight. 

Staring at his knees again and taking a deep breath, Harry feels terribly small when he admits it. 

“I don't want to go back.” 

There's no shocked gasps, no sudden strike of thunder condemning him, no rumble of earth beneath his feet as if the world is disturbed by the very notion of his selfishness, and the tight knot that was wrapped around his ribs loosens immediately. 

“I'm so tired,” he whispers, voice cracking halfway. “I'm so tired of fighting, and dying, and figuring things out. I'm tired of being the one who handles it all, I'm tired of being the reason people die. I should go, I know I should, because I'd never forgive myself if I moved on and left my friends to die alone taking him down, but...the only thing I can think of is that if I go back, I'll have to figure the whole world out again. I'll have to fight him, really fight him, to the bloody death, and then if I don't die again in all that I'll have to figure out what to do after the fighting stops - but I don't know how! I don't know how to go back and pretend like I never died when there's so many other people out there who deserve it more than me - people who've got families, you know? People whose lives deserved more than this at the end. Like, Fred and the Weasleys, Remus and Tonks and their baby who won't ever get to know them, Si-” 

Breath hitching, Harry slams his eyes shut and croaks out, “-Sirius. He spent 12 years in Azkaban and then-” 

Pressing the heels of his palms into his eyes as he takes a shuddering breath, he sits there and tries to pull himself together. 

“I just don't get why it has to be me,” he says desperately, brokenly, tragically. 

His parents close in around him, shushing him gently, and Harry lets them because he's gone and died at seventeen, which means he rather thinks he's earned the right to be coddled by his parents at the moment. 

“It's not your responsibility, Harry,” Mum - she's got her arms around him and his eyes and a look on her face that's endlessly affectionate, and it's sinking in now that she's his mum again, that these two sort of ghosts are his real, dead parents with every bit of their memories and personalities and love for him - tells him, pressing a hand to his cheek. “You’ve done more than enough so far.” 

“You've done more than people twice your age with all the experience, training, and magic you never got,” Dad says, his tone leaving no room for argument. It's perhaps the most serious version of him that Harry's ever seen. “You lost just as much as anyone else did in this fight, if not more. Just because you didn't get to know what you lost before it was gone doesn't mean you're better off. You should have had family and friends and a childhood and a proper education, and you got this far despite going without.” 

“And you did it with such a kind heart,” Mum whispers, her voice so very soft and gentle. “You went through so much, my baby, and you still remembered to love. I don't know that we could have ever raised you to be kinder, braver, and stronger than you are now, and you did that all on your own.” 

There are tears slipping down his cheeks, but Harry hardly has the presence of mind to be embarrassed of them. “I just…I wish it could be someone else. Someone who wants it, someone who can make the most of it instead of the idiot that doesn't even know what a normal life is. It'd be nice if someone else could finish the fight, too, but that part's less important. I'd do it, though god only knows how I'm supposed to go about actually killing someone. Mostly been accidental so far, so that'll be new. It’s the - the living and the being…” 

He trails off without finishing the sentence, hands twitching in his lap. The faintest sensation of hands rubbing up and down his back comforts him, and Harry lets himself fall apart underneath the touch for a little longer. 

“Well, love,” Mum finally says, “I'm not an expert here, and I'm definitely no Rowena Ravenclaw, but maybe things aren't quite as you think they are.” 

Scrubbing at his face with his robes, Harry vaguely feels her pull back so she can look him in the eye. 

“It's a train, is it?” she asks, tucking a strand of blue-ish white hair behind her ear. “That's how you choose?” 

“I guess,” he replies slowly. He gestures to their surroundings as if somehow they'll be able to see the same train station he does, though Dumbledore clearly didn't. 

“Is it the Express, then?” Dad asks out loud, distracting the both of them. 

“Honestly, James,” Mum rolls her eyes, but she's smiling at the corners of her mouth, so she can't be too upset with him. 

“Dunno,” Harry says with a shrug of his shoulders, but he frowns thoughtfully as he considers the idea. “Might be, since going back means I'd be in the Forbidden Forest again. If I'm still there, and they haven't done something to me yet anyways.” 

Mum pats his cheek gently, even though they both know he'd hardly feel it regardless of what she puts into it. It's nice, this bit. It felt embarrassing when Mrs. Weasley tried to do these kinds of things, and he'd much preferred hugs, but this doesn't feel so much awkward and too intimate as it does...right. 

“Hogwarts Express or not,” she says, “I think it's more important that it's a train in the first place.” 

Pursing her lips slightly as if she's figuring out what to say, Mum hums considerately and nods. 

“You say we're in King's Cross,” she begins, “and it's a train. So where is it?” 

“Oh,” Harry blinks. “Um, it's not…here yet? Because I haven't decided, I think.” 

“But no matter which way you go, it'll be on a train,” Mum says. The look on her face reminds him of nights long ago, studying with Hermione over textbooks and flashcards while she eagerly waits for him to reach the answer. God, how long has it been since his biggest worries were school exams? “So why isn't one here?” 

“Huh.” 

Harry doesn't actually have an answer for that, so he cranes his head around to observe the area better. It's just endlessly clean flat floors and pillars, and there's only a few more benches near them before they come to an abrupt stop. The noticeboard he's used to passing by when he arrives every school year is missing, as are the ticket offices, and there's no map with the various lines he remembers staring at in first year to find the Express. 

“There's not even tracks,” he realizes, growing more confused. “But that can't be right.” 

And as he thinks it, there's a ripple of light that unfolds to let the floor nearby open up and lay down a brand new set of train tracks, a platform and all its usual signage popping up at the side. A noticeboard flickers into existence across from them, and a paper announcement slides in with the words ‘Arriving’ neatly printed in black. He blinks again, turning to his parents and feeling even more lost than before. 

“That's what I thought,” Mum nods, looking pleased. She strokes his hair from front to back and laughs when she can see the obvious lack of understanding written across his and Dad's faces. 

“You didn't have shoes on,” she tells him inexplicably. “But you looked down and noticed, and then they were there. Just like that! And we weren't here until you called us here, but of course this isn't actually King's Cross. We're - not in your head, maybe, or maybe not exactly, but something close to it.” 

He hadn’t put that together the way she did until just now, but it makes sense enough. It was the same with the robes and the Resurrection Stone, and it’s probably why everything started popping up around them when he wondered where it all was. It reminds him a lot of the Room of Requirement, actually. Maybe it works close enough. Neville and Seamus had said something about how it could do nearly anything you wanted as long as you were really clear about it, earlier in the castle. 

Leaving her thumb to rest on his cheekbone after she strokes his head again, she smiles with an almost childish glee, and it makes Harry realize once again how bloody young his parents are - or were - when they died. The expression makes her look like someone he could have been in classes with if he'd managed to attend seventh year, cheeky and delightful in the sort of way brilliant people get when they know they're right and they're about to show you something extraordinary. They were only four years older than he is now. The thought hurts as much as it does comfort him, because it means they died young just like him. Probably not the comparisons most people would have liked to earn with their parents, but Harry's never been allowed to be most people in the first place. 

“You run this station, pumpkin. It's up to you. The train, the choice, the life you live, it's all up to you. And even as silly as he is with Muggle contraptions, your Dad, he knows a bit about trains-”

“I'd better,” Dad laughs, shaking his head ruefully. “I only rode one about a dozen times a year to get to school. I hope you don't mean about the steam or parts, darling, because I certainly don't know enough for that.” 

“-and part of that means knowing there's more than just the Hogwarts Express. It doesn't have to be a nonstop, one-way trip back to school.” 

“Okay.” And then, “So what's that mean?” 

Mum laughs too, the sound washing over him, and Harry quirks a grin at his parents instinctively. 

“It means,” she wheezes, just holding back a giggle, “that there's more than one train in the world, Harry. You can go on any train you like, and it'll go anywhere you want it to.” 

“What, like London?” he asks stupidly, and she breaks out into laughter again. 

Dad's biting his lip trying desperately not to do the same, which Harry appreciates but doesn't particularly think he'd mind. It's not like he's had a great many chances to hear either of them laugh, though he's seen it plenty of times in some of their photos. If all it takes to make them laugh is this, he's perfectly willing to make a clown of himself. 

“Not quite, love,” she says, rolling her eyes again. It should probably be embarrassing but mostly it just fills him with a curl of warmth right under his ribs. “Or, well, it might be an option if you really wanted it to. But, more than that, I think you might just be able to choose your schedule.” 

“My schedule?” 

He probably sounds like a right idiot, but he's mostly confident that neither one of them will judge him for it. Much. In fact, he's pretty sure they just look at him even more warmly, kind, love and affection and pride in their pale eyes instead of frustration. They're certainly more patient with him than Hermione would be in a situation like this, though he's not sure if that's because they think of him as a child or because he's their child. 

“Well, if there's multiple trains out there, then they certainly don't all arrive or depart at the same time now, do they?” 

“Oh,” Dad says, jaw dropping a little. “I do believe I'm catching on now, you absolutely brilliant woman.” 

“You are?” Harry asks, taken aback. “I thought-” 

He cuts himself off and flushes when they both look at him curiously. 

“Sorry,” he mumbles, “I'm, er, used to only one of us knowing what's going on at a time, I think.” 

It's rather funny to think of it that way: a pureblood, a muggleborn, and a halfblood. There's even still a redhead and two dumb blokes to one very smart girl, which makes him crack a tiny smile. He wonders absentmindedly if his parent's relationship is anything like Ron and Hermione's, then promptly shakes the idea off because they're still staring at him.

“My friends,” he offers as an explanation, and they nod as if that's answer enough to move on.

“I think what your lovely mum here is trying to say,” Dad tells him with a roguish grin, “is that you're the Station Master here, Harry. And conductor, and ticket agent, and whoever else is in charge of making trains go about, for that matter. Which means you get to choose when you leave, where the train goes, and when you'll get to wherever you want to be. It can be on with us or back with your friends, or even anything else you can think of.” 

It almost sounds like they're saying…but no, that can't be right. It doesn't work like that. 

But what would Harry know about how the world works? He’s bloody dead and apparently still gets to go back to life. Maybe Chosen Ones and Boys-Who-Lived are special enough to break laws of the universe like everyone else suspected all along. It’s not like he ever learned enough about magic to say what is or isn’t possible, given his history with school and the fact that most people don't even know things like horcruxes exist. 

Chewing on his lip, Harry turns their words over in his head a few times. “So…London. Or Surrey, Devon, Cornwall - anywhere I’d like to be. And maybe…maybe when I’d like to be? Is that it?” 

“Seems like it,” Dad nods, rolling back and forth on the balls of his feet. “Like she said, it’s all up to you, Prongslet.” 

Ignoring the stuttered breath that nickname earns from his lungs, thoughts of Sirius and Remus at that kitchen table in Grimmauld long left behind to focus, Harry wonders if there’s a way to make sure of it. 

“Try imagining it,” Mum encourages him, noticing the uncertainty in his eyes. “Think of a ticket for your train.” 

Alright. Seems easy enough. He’s never ridden any other trains or taken the tube, but he still remembers the ticket he was given in first year for the Express clearly enough, so that’s what he chooses to think of as a template. Folding one hand over the other, Harry remembers the ticket and thinks of London. For a moment, nothing happens. 

Then there’s the sudden whisper of paper as something slides across his palms, and he opens his hands to a ticket with confident gold lettering and filigree round the edges. 

“Hogwarts to London, 1998,” he reads aloud, “King’s Cross Station, one-way ticket. Platform 9 and ¾.” 

“Looks real enough to me,” Dad hums, eyes squinting as he peers over Harry’s head to study it. “Lils?” 

Right. He'd forgotten that tickets were only for muggleborn or muggle-raised children, since they would have otherwise grown up knowing how to get to the train. Hermione had said as much during one of her endless Hogwarts: A History spiels. 

“Just like I remember,” she agrees from the other side of his head, “though we did graduate quite a bit before 1998.” 

Turning the ticket around in his hands, Harry closes his eyes and tries something else. When he opens them again and takes a good look, the words have changed from before. 

Mum scoffs in derision when she sees Privet Drive, Surrey instead of London, but she doesn’t have time to make any opinions known before Harry changes it again to The Burrow, Ottery St.  Catchpole, and then Grimmauld Place, London one after another. 

“Huh,” Harry whispers, still somewhat surprised that it’s working. He turns around to take a look at the empty platform behind them again and dares to bring forth memories of white, curling steam over dozens of gleaming red carriages. 

A faint whistle echoes through the tunnel that forms on the other end of the station, and he can hear the distant sound of wheels rattling over train tracks; within moments, the sounds grow loud enough to fill up the room, and it’s arrived before them just as magical as it had the first time he ever saw it. Where there used to be a gold and red plaque declaring it the Hogwarts Express, the school insignia has been replaced with one of a deep brown stag, and the words below it read: Harry Express. 

“Ew,” he wrinkles his nose, none too pleased with the self-declared title. The plaque trembles and flips itself twice quickly, revealing a name change. “Potter Express? Even worse.” 

There’s a sort of indignant air about the plaque as it flips again, but it gives off a satisfied hum when he nods in approval at “Magic Express.” 

“Good enough,” he figures, turning back to his parents. 

“I rather liked Potter Express,” Dad says reflectively, but he grins all the same. “Not my train, though, so I’ll keep quiet.” 

“I’ll believe that when I see it,” Mum mutters under her breath. “Good on him for having a normal-sized head instead of that lug of yours. Alright, Harry?” 

Caught staring at the ticket with furrowed brows, he blinks green eyes twice and looks up with an odd expression. 

“Oh, dear,” Mum sighs. “I know that look.” 

“So do I,” Dad smirks, looking as pleased as a child who’s just been given free reign in Honeyduke’s. His eyes are sparkling and filled with delight. “That’s the look of mischief! Mayhem! A face to summon-” 

“Chaos and destruction,” Mum cuts him off in exasperation, but she doesn’t deny his words. “What are you thinking, then?” 

Despite being taken aback by their reactions, Harry scratches his neck absent-mindedly and says, “Well…I was just wondering, you know, since Dumbledore called this my party, and you said it’s my station, and everything’s been coming exactly the way I think of it…” 

Running a thumb over the slip of paper in his hands and hiding his gaze, Harry admits, “I’m pretty sure you’re right. I - it doesn’t have to be 1998.” 

Beneath his fingertips, the golden letters switch around to form ‘1989’.

“But if I go back and do it all again, I'll really have to do it on my own. I won't have Ron and Hermione. Not the ones who've done it with me. I'll be a kid again, and no one will listen to me, and I’ll have to figure out everything on my own because that's the way it's always been, and I'll still have-” 

Biting his cheek and relishing in the pain for just a moment to keep himself together, Harry mumbles, “-to die. For the horcrux in me. And that just sounds so bleeding miserable. I mean, I'd do it because I wouldn't wish being me on anybody else, but it'd be even harder. Lonelier. And it doesn't make sense that I get to have these choices at the very end while no one else does. Everything about this feels so wrong, like…like some giant game that pulled me in against my will.” 

“But now I'm thinking that if it doesn’t even matter when, maybe it doesn’t matter who,” he continues, glancing up at them from underneath his fringe for any sign of disapproval. “So maybe, y’know, I give my ticket to someone else who deserves it, someone who knows enough to make a difference, and then I won't have to keep walking into all…this.” 

He waves a hand around at the train station, lingering for a moment where the shriveled babe is still crying, unable to catch its own breath. 

“And if I give someone else my ticket, then I can go with you instead,” he finishes somewhat lamely, chancing a glance upwards. 

They look decidedly shocked, but not in a bad way. In fact, as the seconds go by, their surprise melts into something a lot more considerate, and Dad even pulls away from Mum to cross his arms while he chews over that. 

“I suppose the smart thing to do is send back someone who knows enough to make it matter,” Mum says slowly, obviously running through a list of the possible options. “Someone like Dumbledore, who knows about the horcruxes and how to get rid of them. Cut out a bunch of the slog, yeah?” 

Shuffling his feet, Harry nods. “Yeah. That's the smart thing to do.” 

“But that's not what you're planning.” 

“Nope.” 

“And if you're planning on leaving with us, it’s not me or James.” 

Harry pauses, then shakes his head without a word. He hadn't even considered that, but he knows even as she mentions it that it wouldn't be possible. He might be able to change things up as he'd like over here, but Harry can feel with a strange certainty that there's only one ticket available. One ticket for one person who died, and that's as fair as it can be. But even if he could, it wouldn't feel right to send only one of them back and have the other two move on when they've finally gotten the chance to be all together. 

It's Dad who gets it first this time while Mum keeps guessing wrong answers - Ron, Hermione, Sirius’ brother R.A.B, Kreacher for some reason, and even Snape, though they each make a face at the idea for their own reasons. He's not even sure living people are options, but he lets her talk just to hear her voice. A head of messy black hair just like his tilts to the side, Dad staring at Harry like he can find the answers to the universe if he can only find the right angle right before hazel eyes suddenly go wide from behind his glasses. 

“Oh, Merlin,” he gasps, “Harry, you-” 

The flickering muscles of his apparition flex as if he's going to jump forward and wrap Harry in a hug, but he just takes two jerky steps instead. 

“You're going to give it to Sirius,” he whispers, his voice fraught with so many emotions that it can barely be recognized as his own.

It's - it's love and pride and awe as much as it is grief and guilt, everything that James Potter associates deeply with his brother and son wrapped in a gloriously tangled knot. The second Harry hears it, he knows he's making the right choice. Dad knew Sirius better than anyone else in the world, and the way he's looking at Harry as if it's Christmas and Easter and his birthday all at once is sign enough that it’s a good idea. The best one he's ever had, most likely. 

“Yeah,” he admits, buoyed by the validation from Dad's reaction. 

“But-” Hesitating, Mum bites her lip and holds back whatever she was going to say originally. “Harry, he doesn't know about the horcruxes. He, um, wasn't able to watch over you like we were. On the other side, I mean. We don't even know if he'll have memories from here, he could wake up only with whatever he left with.” 

Dad shakes his head at her, fond and strangely wistful. “He's not sending Sirius back because it's the smart thing to do, Lils.” 

“What's that mean?” she asks, expression more befuddled than before. 

“He's doing it because he loves him,” Dad says, shooting Harry a small, gratified smile. “Isn't that right, sprog?” 

Harry shares the smile, chest growing warm at the obvious approval. Flipping around the ticket and holding it up without a word, he shows them the most recent change he's made. 

Hogwarts to Godric's Hollow, October 31st, 1981. King's Cross Station, one-way ticket. 

“Oh,” Mum says, her voice thick and strangled. 

“It's the furthest back I can make it go,” Harry tells them with a plaintive shrug. “I figure it's because that's when I became a horcrux and being a horcrux is what brought me here.” 

He can see that she's lost for words. Dad's been good enough about it that he figures an explanation won't sit with them the wrong way, so Harry tries. 

“It's just that if I have to be a horcrux, and I've got to go through the whole hunt and fight for my life and probably die again, then I want,” he swallows, clenches his jaw, speaks up again, “to be happy first. To live the life I never got to have. And I know you guys loved - love - me now, but it didn't really hit me until I was already fourteen, when I saw you at…at the graveyard. I mean, I didn't even know you loved me as an idea until I found out you died for me instead of abandoning me in some booze-induced car accident. But Sirius, he...he was the first person in my life that I could ever tell loved me, with every bit of him. He broke out of bloody Azkaban to keep me safe, he checked in on me when he was half out of his mind, came to watch me play Quidditch, and bought me a broom while on the run! The first thing he asked me after we thought he'd be free is if I wanted to live with him. And then even when he was finally free from prison and could've been anywhere, he moved to a godforsaken cave for an entire year, living off rats and grass because he wanted to be close to me during the Triwizard Tournament! He went through twelve fucking years in Azkaban for something he didn't do, and he had to live somewhere that reminded him of that, and then when he finally left he got killed trying to save ME.” 

His eyes are wet again, choked sobs spilling out of him as he rambles on. He's never had the chance to fully explain these feelings to anyone because they hurt too much to say out loud, just like he'd spent years grieving before he could even vocalize missing Sirius; even when it was just him and Hermione sitting in a tent pouring themselves out to each other in tiny, broken whispers to fill in the silence Ron left behind, struggling to stay afloat, these thoughts were kept behind lock and key. Harry isn't sure that he'd ever be able to say it if he doesn't now, though, and the only audience here is his parents because he's been hit with a Killing Curse for the second time in his life. 

It doesn't kill you to express the worst pains of your life if you're already dead. 

“I - I didn't have p-parents,” he stutters, desperately hoping they'll understand this isn't a complaint, to understand what this choice means to him, “I didn't know how to be someone's s-son. But he didn't know how to be a dad either, so we could be something else, something easy and good. He could be anything in the world and I just had to be me, and nothing else has ever come close to that. Sure, sometimes he thought I was you, dad, but sometimes he'd think I was mum too, and I knew it only meant he could see you both in me. He didn't want me to be you both, he just couldn't stop seeing you everywhere…that made me happier than it ever did hurt. He'd say sorry, sometimes, when he was more with it, and then I could listen to him say that no matter what the world did to me they couldn't take you both from me in the ways that matter. Like, I've got you in the way I scowl, the way I eat my favourite foods first on a plate, how I'm allergic to pecans, that sort of thing. Padfoot used to say that the main reason I reminded him of you-” 

He points to James.  

“-was because mum never looked pleased to see him, so obviously James was going around with glamoured eyes to make a match set again. No one else knew that, no one else bothered to tell me those things. Everyone always went on and on about how he wasn't good for me because he was mad or, or irresponsible, but plenty of them looked at me like I was a ghost without ever going mad in Azkaban now, did they? And, a-and! I didn't have to explain the Dursleys or hide the really bad parts like I do with the Weasleys or Hermione or anyone else, really, because he just got it, understood what it was like and never made me feel like it made anything different…I love all of them, I swear, but none of them would ever know how to do that. Sirius and I, we didn't talk about it, but we didn't have to, and he made sure that if I had to live like that they were gonna bloody well know he was looking out for me.” 

His vision is blurred from tears, but he can tell that Mum's hands are held over her mouth. Dad is shaking, slightly, and he's wrapped himself round her from behind, still bravely meeting Harry's eyes. He isn't smiling anymore, but he gives a firm nod as if to confirm that they're listening to him. To the very end. 

“I would have died to bring him back,” Harry confesses, fresh tears escaping him. “If anyone had said even once...had suggested that maybe something would bring him back, I'd have done it in a heartbeat. I just couldn't…I couldn't see a life where I survived losing him and still got to be happy. Honestly? I-” 

He pauses, unsure of the words until they actually come out of his mouth with an unbearably heavy truth. 

“-I think I figured, if Sirius couldn't be happy after everything he went through, then neither could I. Ever since third year…he was supposed to be my happy ending. When I lost him, I lost that too.” 

It's only now that he says it aloud that the realization strikes Harry so. Sirius had been just like him, but the struggles he went through meant nothing in the end. All that fighting and surviving only to never see a proper end. Harry's been afraid to have anything good ever since, always waiting for the other shoe to drop. The one, deep desire he's always had for a family vanished in the wind then as he prepared himself to die miserably in some subconscious way. It feels good in a terrible way to admit it: like having to cauterize a great, gaping wound in him and knowing that he'll be able to heal after the excruciating burn. 

Fairly certain that the waterworks have finished, Harry cleans his face with his robe sleeves and tries to regain some semblance of composure. “So. I'm going to give him the life he deserves, and I know he'll give that back to me. This way, even if I die and don't get to come here because I've used up my one chance, it'll all have been worth it. I'll do the work, die, fight the tosser, whatever it takes, and I won't whine once.”  

He's astonished to see that even as pale apparitions of the long dead, his parents are still capable of crying. The parents who didn't cry at the graveyard, or in the Forest, or even when they died, stand crying before him now. 

“Okay,” Dad says, his voice clear and confident despite the tear tracks faintly visible on his translucent cheeks. 

“Okay?” Harry parrots, still processing the sight before him. 

“Okay,” Mum croaks in agreement, wiping away glimmering drops of silver-y liquid from her cheeks. “It's your choice, little love. A damn good one, too.” 

“Right,” Harry says, getting onto his feet with stiff jerks. “Er. How do you suppose I do it, then? Get him to board?” 

“I don't think you have to worry about that,” Dad chuckles wetly, raising his hand to point at the train. 

Lo and behold, Sirius Black sits in the carriage nearest them, his sleeping head leaning on the corner between the wall and window. 

“Wha-?” 

“He showed up somewhere between the bit about breaking out of Azkaban and living in a cave,” Dad explains, a wry grin crossing his shimmering face. 

Harry barely hears it, drinking in the sight with a terrible greed that rises from the very soles of his feet. It's Sirius as he last saw him, clothes tattered from the fight and hair frizzy from the humid London air outside the Ministry, as colourful and fleshed out as Harry himself is instead of the younger, handsome, soul-like specter that appeared in the Forbidden Forest. He looks like he's been through the wringer, beat up and haggard, and somehow he is still one of the best things his godson has ever seen. 

Harry takes a few dazed steps towards the carriage before he realizes there's still a train between them. It takes every inch of restraint he has left to stand there on the platform instead of running to the nearest door and clambering inside. Even placing the ticket on Sirius physically seems like too great a temptation, so Harry does his best to come up with a method that doesn't end in him clinging to the sleeping body of his dead godfather. 

Like magic, his wand appears in an outstretched hand. Harry lets out a rather dry laugh that seems more of a cough. 

“Alohomora,” he says, pointing it at the window. The latch inside clicks free, and with another flick of his wand, opens up for him. He debates doing this last part with his own hands, but it feels much too vulnerable right now. “Wingardium Leviosa.” 

Watching as the ticket floats away from his outstretched hand into the carriage, he lets the paper tuck itself into a waistcoat pocket snugly, its gold print shining cheerily out of the corners. 

Harry steps back, then, and starts when his parents settle in line next to him on both sides. 

“I think he's all set,” Dad announces, eyes soft when he looks at Sirius. 

“He travels well, for a mutt,” Mum sniffs, earning a cut-off giggle of surprise from her son. Both of them turn to look at him, so he shrugs with a smile playing at his lips. 

“Better than you know,” Harry says, and they smile as if they think he's quite right. 

“Any last words, then?” Dad asks. There's a note of finality in the way he says it. 

“Seems wrong to say them when he can’t hear it.” There's a whistle of steam as the train prepares to leave, and a bell jingles from the front end for the last boarding call. 

“Maybe he can,” Mum points out, “and he'll just wake up to them and know.” 

“Like a message from the beyond,” Dad jokes, clearly referencing something Harry doesn't have context for. Even so, the words spark an idea in his mind, and green eyes light up underneath tousled black hair. 

“A message,” he breathes, looking all seventeen of his years in the best way. “Dad, that's it! Here, let me-” 

With a pop of noise as Harry furrows his brows in concentration, two familiar wands find themselves in the hands of Lily and James Potter. 

“How did you-?” 

“Huh?” 

Beaming with delight that it worked, Harry twirls his wand suggestively. “Dunno if it'll seriously get to him, what with this being maybe my head and maybe the way to the afterlife, but it seems worth the try! So that he doesn't wake up feeling like he's just been bludgered from being dumped in the past with no warning.” 

“What are you talking about?” His parents trade confused glances, their newly found wands held loose in their hands. 

“A patronus,” Harry explains with the same beam, looking between the two of them eagerly. “To carry a message from us! So he's not alone when he gets there!” 

“Is that even possible?” Mum wonders right as Dad yells, “Bloody brilliant!” 

“By Godric, Harry, you might be even smarter than your mum here,” Dad laughs, immediately raising his wand. “Better head on your shoulders than the both of us, really, I mean!? A patronus!” 

“Mum?” Harry asks, gaze flitting between the train vibrating with energy and the woman still pondering his idea. 

“Why the hell not,” she says finally, a smirk blooming with something wicked. “Like you said, it's worth trying. If he can come back from the dead over a decade into the past, why can't we send some magic with him? This whole thing is mental anyways!” 

The whistles begin anew as the bell jingles farewell, and three hands rise as one to greet it. 

“Expecto Patronum!” 

In a blinding flash of white light, three deer spring from their wand tips and bound forwards to follow the train as it begins its journey. 

Lily sends a fierce demand for a better future carried in a beautiful doe. 

James sends his warmest comforts to soothe a friend in dire need, his stag heavy with purpose. 

Harry sends a letter filled with every bit of heart he can spare, feeling light with the knowledge that this is the best thing he’s ever done. 

Even as the train enters the tunnel with their patroni running alongside it, Harry breaks into a brisk jog so that he can watch the exact moment that Sirius falls out of view. His parents join him, though this time he can feel fingers threading between his own in both hands, silently supporting him. When he looks down in surprise, he realizes that he's begun to fade out of colour and into the blue-white of the dearly departed. 

“Alright, Harry?” his mum asks without looking, and he feels a squeeze. 

“Yeah,” he whispers, a strange calm washing over him. “I'm alright.” 

For the first time in a very long time, Harry means it too. 

“Do you think I'll disappear?” he asks casually, having only just thought of it. “Since he's changing the past?” 

“Somehow, I don't think so,” Mum snorts before pressing a kiss to his cheek. “You're a very special boy, Harry Potter.” 

“Fear not, sprog,” Dad says with a solemn slash to his mouth that doesn't match his twinkling eyes, “you may spend eternity in my loving arms safe from all this time-travel, resurrection nonsense. No fun, no adventure, just the three of us stuck together forever.” 

“I think I'd like that,” Harry says, entirely sincere.  

“Yeah?” 

“Yeah.” 

Reasoning dictates that they should board a train too, to move on, but Harry's starting to feel tired now. There's a dreamy, hazy quality to the station that wasn't there before, and it makes him yawn. Yes, trains seem a lot of work right now. How did Dumbledore leave again? It must have worked since he isn't around anymore. He spots the exit and nods, decided. Before they can make it to the double doors that appeared when the once headmaster left earlier, something occurs to Harry suddenly. 

“Wait,” he says, steps coming to a halt. Letting go of their hands to jog back, he crouches down by one of the benches. 

“It's okay,” he mumbles as fabric wraps itself around the sniffling horcrux in something like a swaddle, “you'll be alright. Come on, now.” 

It's still a disturbing sight to see, covered as it is in warped, reddish skin and purple bruises, with limbs not quite the same as a real babe's, but he picks it up despite that. It never had the chance to be anything else, just like him. Harry might not be able to save it, but that doesn't mean he has to abandon it here while he moves on. Clutching the bundle to his chest in the closest thing he can manage to a proper embrace, Harry shushes it once more and walks back to his parents. 

Dad ruffles his hair gently. Mum smiles. 

Taking one last look back over his shoulder as they wrap their arms around his back, Harry smiles at the paper announcement that's changed from ‘Arriving’ to ‘Departed’ and leaves King's Cross Station. 

Four things happen as Lord Voldemort enters the Potter's cottage on October 31st, 1981. To be more specific, a great deal of things happen that night as a result of Harry Potter surviving a rather horrific murder via a Dark Lord, but only four things happen that didn’t happen the first time. Peter Pettigrew still betrays his best friends, James Potter is still wandless, Lily Potter still uses an arcane ritual based on blood and sacrifice to save her son, and little Harry still cries as a jagged, bloody shape carves itself into his forehead as a mark to his survival. Almost the same story, but not quite. 

The first thing that changes is that as James dies, a silver stag leaps between time and space to arrive before his dear friend Remus Lupin with a message: “I’m sorry for not trusting you, Moony. We should have told you Sirius was the decoy and Peter the Keeper. Stay proud, stay kind, stay brave, and I shall remain forever yours. I love you, old boy. Give me a howl at the next full for old times’ sake. Goodbye!”

The second thing is that as Lily dies, a silver doe leaps into the Great Hall of Hogwarts amidst the gloomy end of the Halloween Feast to announce, “We switched Secret Keepers, and Lord Voldemort is coming. The only way for Harry to stay safe is with Sirius. If anything happens to my son under your care, I will make death a kindness. Heed my warning: the war is not over!”  

The third thing is that Sirius Black trips in the doorway of Peter Pettigrew’s house, gasps, and immediately spins on his heels to Apparate to Godric’s Hollow with a head full of memories that haven’t been made yet. He pays no mind to the twinge of pain where he’s surely splinched himself by refusing Healer’s orders to recuperate before attempting magical travel, still recovering from his last Order mission. When he arrives to the town square free of anti-Apparition wards, he runs straight towards the house with a crumbling roof and magic leaking out of it like a popped balloon. He does not, this time, bend over in grief at the sight of his best friend’s cooling corpse through the front door, nor does he falter when he sees his dear friend, James' wife Lily, fallen in front of a cot. He cries out, a dreadful sound that echoes throughout the night, but does not stop running until he sees the fourth thing that has changed since he last lived this night. 

And this fourth, impossibly possible thing is a glorious stag that’s waiting for him within little Harry Potter’s room, having arrived at the exact moment a lightning-shaped scar formed on the baby’s forehead. 

“Hullo, Sirius. It’s me, Harry. Grown up Harry, I mean. Not, uh, the baby. Seventeen, not one. You get the idea.”

Perhaps it is the adrenaline leaving his body in a great rush, or the shock setting in, or the fact that the last time he heard this voice it had been much more broken from puberty and anger at the world, but almost at once he crumples to the ground with tears streaming down his face. He remembers living and surviving and dying, he remembers a young boy with James’ looks and Lily’s eyes, remembers hiding behind knobby knees as the boy fights a swarm of Dementors, remembers holding this boy through a tearful confession of dark rituals that took his blood, remembers disregarding explicit orders to go save this beautiful, foolish, brave boy who charged through the Ministry of Magic to save his godfather, remembers the wide-eyed horror of Lily’s eyes watching him fall through the Veil of Death. 

Sirius Black is twenty-one years old, and he remembers the boy that made life worth living past that. A boy he left behind, a boy he failed, a boy who deserved the world and only got the barest of kindnesses. A boy he loved more than anything. 

“I dunno if this’ll even work, but I wanted to let you know that this is real, that you’re actually back in time. Things pretty much went to shite when you, er, left, and when I got a chance to send someone back, I knew it had to be you right away.”

He’s rushing through the words as if he’s afraid to linger on them too long, a single fragile thread keeping his thoughts together. Sirius wishes he would never stop talking. 

“Sorry for shoving this all on you, but I know you’ll make the most of it. It’ll be everything we ever wanted, you and me against the world. Family. And that’s all I need, honest, so just remember that, alright? Even if I’m a horcrux, even if I’ve got to die in the end and I don’t get a choice to come back, I want you to never forget that it was worth it. And if I’m not the one who finishes off old Voldy, I want it to be you - for me and everyone else, even if you can’t remember everyone who's gone. Um, make it something dramatic, for our sakes. Oh, by the way, you should start with Grimmauld, since your brother and Kreacher already have a headstart on you.” 

As if receiving delayed instructions, the stag moves closer and dips its regal snout to brush against his cheek, for all the good it does coming from a spell that cannot transmit touch. 

“I’ll be okay no matter what. I promise. I’ll have mum and dad on the other side, that’s where I’m going now. Oh, erm, on the off chance it happens earlier, tell Remus I’d make a terrible godfather, yeah? Kid is probably better off with someone responsible, or someone much less…me. At least if he was a werewolf I'd actually be able to help with something. Dunno what they were thinking, honestly. At least if this works out, he won't need a godfather to take him in anyways.”

There’s a genuine peace to the voice that lets you know he’s smiling as he says the words, and Sirius chokes back another sob as a hand claps over his mouth. He has a great number of things he’d like to say to all of this information, but he’s loath to miss a single second of Harry’s message. Because he's apparently in 1981, his Harry is likely dead, and these might be the last words he ever hears from that ridiculous, precious kid who sounds so grown up right now. There’ll be time enough for that later, but later comes quicker than he thought when the stag speaks its final words after a drawn silence. 

“Love you, Padfoot. Goodbye, and good luck. You’ll need it.” 

Even knowing it’s useless, he lunges forward to catch hold of the dissipating patronus and falls straight through the mist onto the floor. One year old Harry, who’d been distracted from his pain by the shiny toy that reminded him of his father and the fun they used to have, breaks out into a wail and clutches his head. 

“Fuck,” Sirius whispers, shaking from head to toe as the wind blows through the hole in the roof. James is dead, Lily is dead, and the Harry he knew and loved is gone with them. He has failed nearly everyone he ever loved, and Voldemort isn’t dead. 

Rising to his feet and lifting the baby - tiny, chubby, toddler Harry who can’t even begin to understand the events of tonight - to his chest, Sirius desperately breathes in his scent to soothe the violent ache betwixt his ribs that resembles being skewered on a spit. Safe in his arms, Harry lets his wails peter out to focus on the gentle hand running down his back repeatedly. 

“Oh, bubba,” Sirius whispers, wet falling away from his eyes and onto the blue romper, “I’m sorry, I'm so sorry.” 

There’s the tell-tale crack of someone Apparating poorly nearby, a rustle of robes as they run towards the house. Stiffening as the world bleeds into high definition around him, he runs through a series of half-made plans before realizing that most of them involve leaving the baby in his cot while he gets ready for a fight, and that isn't an option at all. Setting Harry on his hip with one hand, Sirius makes his way to the ruined staircase with his wand held aloft in the other. Using the smashed fourth step as a boundary line, he moves his hands quickly. 

“Protego Maxima. Fianto Duri. Repello Icinicum.” 

They feel like only the barest of failsafes for him, but he knows they'll stand through much and that he doesn't have enough strength to fight if he puts up any other protections. Belatedly realizing he's bleeding from the splinching earlier when it drips down his ankles and pools onto the top step, he adds, “Episkey, Ferula.” 

No use in a fight if you're bleeding out everywhere, but any healing more thorough than that will take a concentration and delicate touch he cannot bother to summon. A man appears in the door, too tall and too good, which means that it isn't his enemy.  

“NO!” Remus cries out when he sees the body from the front door, voice hoarse and hair windswept. “James, no, James-” 

Wood creaks as stray pieces of rubble are blown out of the nursery, and he whips his head up with desperate hope. 

“Oh,” he says, the hope fading visibly when he catches sight of Sirius standing in the shadows. A scarred hand rises to half cover his mouth, as if pretending that if he doesn’t ask, the answer can’t hurt him. “L-Lily?” 

Grey eyes staring blankly above damp cheeks, Sirius slowly shakes his head. “Harry.” 

The intense amounts of grief and joy warring inside him weakens his knees, and Remus bends them willingly enough. 

“Thank god, thank Merlin,” he chokes, clutching the banister for support. And then, “Oh, James, Lily, it shouldn’t have been you-” 

He spews sick all over the rug Marlene bought Lily as a housewarming present, but there’s no one left to scold him for it. Sirius lets him, somewhat jealous that someone here gets to vomit out their emotions. He shushes Harry absent-mindedly when the toddler begins to cry anew, wand still trained on the door that Remus came through. 

“Moony,” Sirius says, “how did you know to come here?” 

Wiping at his mouth with a ragged sleeve, Remus takes a deep breath to steady himself. 

“James,” he says, blinking back tears. “He sent me a patronus.” 

“Huh. What’d he say?” 

“Goodbye,” the werewolf whispers, shutting brown eyes and letting the cool wind chill his tear-stained face. “It must have been - just before.”

“That’s it? No words of wisdom? Some tips, maybe?” Sirius is distantly aware that his voice has left calm to verge on hysterical, but only just. Clearing his throat, he tries to sound less like he’s about to lose his mind. “Anything useful?” 

“Stay proud, stay kind, stay brave,” Remus parrots, staring at his sick like it’ll give him the answers to living through this tragedy. “Sorry for not trusting you, old chap, Peter was-” 

He goes so suddenly still that Sirius takes his eyes off the door to check on him, terrified for a moment that he’s let his guard down and things have already gone wrong, but he’s pulled back by the loud thump of two solid feet landing right outside the house without any warning. There’s a soft swear as the person takes in the sights, and he relaxes again minutely. 

“Hagrid,” Sirius says, chin dipping into the tiniest nod. “Dumbledore.” 

If he clutches Harry tighter to his chest, it’s none of their business. They’ll have to walk over his dead body before he lets go of the baby now. 

“Oh my,” Dumbledore whispers, closing blue eyes to mourn the violence that occurred here. Behind him, Hagrid falls on his arse with a wail, trembling with sorrow. 

“Not them, not James ‘n Lily! Oh, no, no, no!” 

“Indeed, Hagrid,” Dumbledore says, opening sad eyes again. “The world is worse off without them. Certainly I know this to be true for those of us here.” 

“..eter,” Remus mumbles, lifting himself off the floor with a barely contained tremble. “Peter, it was Peter.” 

When Sirius sees his blown pupils, he realizes it’s rage that’s gotten ahold of his friend now. Good. They’ll need it soon enough. 

“Peter,” Sirius agrees, clenching his jaw. “I went to check on him, found the place empty. No signs of a struggle. Came straight here. It was too late.” 

He remembers the events of this night well enough to let them haunt him forever, and it’s hardly a lie. It’s exactly what would have happened if it weren’t for Harry. Biting his tongue to keep from falling into a deep pool of memories, Sirius tightens his grip round his wand for lack of anything better to do. 

“Th’ ruddy BASTARD!” Hagrid howls, waving impassioned fists in the air. “HOW COULD ‘E!”

“I see now,” Dumbledore nods tightly, his solemn face stark in the moonlight. “This is what she meant by switching Secret Keepers. It is a comfort that you remain alive and unharmed, Sirius. Lily said that Harry’s best claim to safety lies within you. Where is he?” 

“Lily?” Sirius unclenches his jaw and licks his lips distractedly. “When did…how did she-” 

“Her patronus arrived at the tail end of the Halloween Feast,” Dumbledore interrupts him, holding a hand in the air as if to wave off any further questions. “Quickly, Sirius, it is of utmost importance that we understand the circumstances of tonight’s events. Has Voldemort left? Will he return with reinforcements? I sense great magic has been performed here tonight, and we cannot remain here if it is unsafe.” 

“He’s gone.” Lips twitching into a sardonic smile, Sirius feels a dark laugh escape him. “He’s been done in by his own spell, Dumbledore, and he won’t be able to fight anyone for a while yet. His body’s been turned to dust so all that’s left behind is a pile of robes and his damn wand. No, Voldemort's going to have to magic his way into another body before he brings reinforcements.” 

Bending over as the laugh grows increasingly unhinged while all three wizards gape at him, Sirius gasps for breath and shoves his hair out of his eyes. “And I’m going to make sure he never comes back to touch Harry ever again, starting with the fucking Death Eater that let him in! He’ll be here any moment now, crawling back to see how his precious Dark Lord’s gone and murdered half of the only people who’ve ever loved him, the useless, pathetic worm that he is!” 

“You can’t,” Remus says at once, ignoring the furious glare it earns him. “You have to keep Harry safe, so obviously I’ll be the one that kills him.” 

“Like bloody hell I’m letting you do it without me,” Sirius hisses, rage bubbling inside him like a volatile potion on the verge of exploding. “You’ll make it too quick, Moony, and I’ll kill myself twice over before I ever let him have an easy go after everything he’s done-” 

The man speaking right now is not lost in rage because he’s freshly grieving the loss of people he considered his brother and sister-in-law, nor is he the mad man who escaped a prison after a decade of undue torture; the urge to murder Peter Pettigrew in a most gruesome manner is largely based on the knowledge that in Sirius’ last life, the rat tied his precious godson to a tombstone and bled him to revive the Dark Lord that killed his parents. It is born from the fact that he kidnapped a fourteen year old boy after directly orphaning him and carved his flesh to use his blood in the darkest of magics, killed a companion in front of him, gave him nightmares and horrors no child should ever face, and did it to bring back the monster that hurt every one of them twice over. No, there’s no such thing as mercy here for the sake of James and Lily’s memory, not anymore. Mercy in the name of goodness brought back evil from the dead and chewed up all the people he loves. Sirius doesn’t need to clear his name of betrayal this time because he's determined he'll stand here and take care of Harry the way he was meant to, no running and letting people get blown up in a big show for. There’s nothing preventing him from making Wormtail experience the worst kind of misery known to mankind on his way to hell now. He'll arrive soon enough, if Hagrid is already here. 

Rather charitably, or perhaps uncharitably depending on who's asked, Sirius thinks that if his friends didn't want him to murder Peter fucking Pettigrew then they should have sent him a patronus as well. In fact, he's starting to believe they haven't because they already approve of his plans. 

“-and he’ll bring the Dark Pillock back if he has the slightest chance, I know that for a fact-” 

“Give me a full moon with him and I’ll make him regret ever having lived,” Remus argues, eyes wild with the promise of pain. “We’ve two weeks, there’s time enough for anything you want in between-”

Hagrid pales dramatically when he hears the plethora of plans they toss about in return for Peter’s betrayal, but he turns round readily enough to keep an eye out for anyone approaching from the street.

“How do you know this?” Dumbledore asks, stepping in between them to physically attract their attention. “What have you learned about Voldemort, Sirius? What failsafe did he prepare for tonight?” 

“I have LEARNED that he isn’t DEAD,” he shouts loud enough to hurt, coming forward a few steps out of anger, “and the filthy RAT that brought him here will do it AGAIN if he’s given the chance! Why don’t we talk about what YOU’VE fucking learned, Albus, like the Merlin-forsaken prophecy that drew him here-” 

The prophecy that made his boy a target, the one that they spent the whole year guarding and hiding from Harry only to let him fall into a trap, the prophecy that possibly means Harry has to die before someone can kill Voldemort if what the patronus said is true-! 

It’s only because he’s expecting it, hyper aware of his surroundings on a primitive level aided by his enhanced Animagus senses, that Sirius notices it. There’s a slight twist in the air, the faintest beginnings of a loud crack, and a distortion of light where he knows someone will appear. 

Peter always was shite at Apparition. At least Moony has the excuse of grief-stricken panic. 

If he was still at the top of the stairs, he wouldn’t have the right angle to reach. It’s no matter now. His wand is drawn and pointed instantly, red light already blooming at its tip. “Stupefy.” 

The spell flies past Remus who's turning his head at the loud sound, past Dumbledore with his wand halfway through a movement, cuts right next to Hagrid's ear, and aims true at the short man that appears on the path to the house. It hits him in the throat the exact moment he realizes it's coming for him, and Peter Pettigrew falls to the ground without even the chance to take a breath. Before Sirius can add anything else, the others do it for him. 

“Incarcerous! Petrificus Totalus!” Good old Moony. His chest is heaving with restrained violence, and he rather looks as if he'll leap into the fray and tear Wormtail's throat out with his bare teeth. Sirius thinks it a fantastic idea, if only a little uninspired. 

Dumbledore doesn't use a verbal spell at all, but a pale yellow dome shimmers into existence over the body to prevent escape. And then, because he's a terrible old coot that can't mind his own bloody business, he disarms the both of them so that they can't do anything about the traitorous ex-best friend lying meters away. 

Things shortly devolve into chaos after that. 

There's shouts and hands pointing every which way, portraits clattering to the floor and vases shattering as tempers run too high for their magic to stay calm. He finds himself on the first floor without knowing he ever moved, sobbing filling his ears. Sirius threatens everyone in the room except Harry, Hagrid jumps ahead of Dumbledore to defend him, Remus abates to listen with a tense jaw, Dumbledore goes on and on about what’s right and good and how this isn't the solution to their problems, they've just lost their best friends, take a moment to mourn so they don't become monsters. 

That works on Remus because the arsehole bloody well knew it would, but Sirius only stops running his mouth when Harry digs sharp, tiny nails into his neck as he tries to climb over his shoulder. 

“Dada!” Harry says, wriggling so intensely that Sirius has to use both hands to hold him safely. He reaches out to the hall where James still lies, eyes open and dull, mouth spread wide. “Pa'foo, Dada!” 

He hadn't even noticed when Harry stopped crying, too busy yelling at the top of his lungs. Black curls mussed from sweat and dust whip around when he understands what the baby's looking at, and something cracks open inside his ribs. 

“Oh, sprog,” Sirius says weakly, staggering backwards from the weight of his emotions, “I'm sorry. Dada…Dada's sleeping, he can't play with you.” 

“Sheepin’?” Harry asks, his arms caught between their chests now. “Sheepy time?” 

“Yes, love,” Sirius croaks, swaying dangerously until Remus clasps a hand over his shoulder to keep him stable. “Sleepy time. Say goodnight, Harry.” 

Familiar with this, at least, dear little Harry gives a put-upon sigh, pouts, and says, “Gunnite!” 

Beside him, Moony chokes down a sob and folds them both into his wide arms, clinging to them as it might shield the three of them from the horrors of this terrible, dreadful night. It's a futile attempt, but it does good in the reminder that Sirius has people here he needs to take care of. Snaking his arm out of the embrace to wrap a free arm round a thin waist, Sirius holds the last of his ragtag family together and thinks of the last time he saw them while dying in a Department of Mysteries.

By the time he comes out of his mind and into the real world again, Dumbledore is upstairs casting spells and making his observations, Hagrid having already left with Peter while they were otherwise occupied. Portkey, most likely. Dumbledore steps out of the nursery to send them a partly disappointed but mostly sad look before he lets whatever's in his hands fly down the stairs before leaving. Only two wands remain behind as evidence of their time here, innocently sitting on the corner table Lily used to keep the picture frames they broke roughhousing two weeks and fourteen years ago. Of course. He'll take care of the arsehole later, when he stops falling out of his own skin. He's got important things here to do, important people to grab onto as reminders of this seemingly unreal life. 

“It's us against the world,” Sirius mumbles, recalling the patronus that sat upstairs only an hour ago. That's what they always said, tossing around old copies of the Prophet, making grand plans for their future. 

Here they are now: a time-traveling dead godfather, an orphaned baby destined to fight a certified Dark Lord, and their werewolf brother-uncle who apparently pulled himself together to find a bird and have a son right before counting worms. What a crock of shite, eh? 

Contemplating all of the ways he's sorely unprepared for this, twenty-one and thirty-six and still nowhere near good enough to be a father, Sirius thinks of his fifteen year old Harry becoming a godfather and says, “Fuck you, Moony.” 

There's a startled jerk of limbs as Remus lifts his head to sniff with no small amount of confusion. “Wha-?” 

“You’re a stupid sap,” Sirius explains nonsensically. “Don't worry, I'll fix it.” 

And then - because he cannot stop recalling each of the fascinating things he was told by a glowing stag, I love yous and Goodbyes and Even if I have to die again - he remembers the part that made the least sense of all. 

“What the fuck is a horcrux?”  

Chapter Text

Time waits for no one, and certainly not the dead. The Fidelius James and Lily used was a derivative instead of the original charm, and the magic has already begun unravelling. After Sirius’ brilliant idea to make Wormtail the Keeper meant he wouldn't have been able to tell anyone else should the worst come to pass, they'd wanted to ensure that Harry wouldn't have been hidden from rescue through its magic when they died. It's what allowed Moony and the others to come in despite not being let in on the Secret, and does nothing to prevent the growing crowds and shouts of alarm as the village comes to investigate what's happened. Obliviators are Apparating in to take care of the muggles running around asking questions, so Sirius figures he might as well give them a ruddy show. 

Harry would hate that he was involved in it, of course. But he would also likely appreciate the change in narrative his godfather is about to force onto the world, what with him being the only person in the world right now who knows what's happened. Unwilling to let go of him whatsoever, Sirius hides his little face and stalks out of the house onto the property line that's still rejecting everyone who hasn't been written into the door's wards. It’s not the sort of thing he'd have done in the original life or even as an addled Azkaban escapee given that dignified composure has hardly ever been one of his virtues, but Sirius is neither of those because it turns out time-travel rids your brain of all the icky bits long-term Dementor exposure sinks into it; he's a brand new, hitherto unseen kind of Sirius Black. One that's less mad, too smart, a good measure angrier, with all the power of knowledge that even Albus Dumbledore doesn't have yet. 

They're not ready for him. They weren't ready for him when he was eleven years old and a Gryffindor, when he was a pureblood that loudly proclaimed his love for muggles and muggle contraptions, and most certainly they were not ready for him when he became the one member of the Order of the Phoenix to show up to nearly every fight with his wand giving as good as he got. All this, of course, is to say that Sirius Black thrives in the spotlight, and he's a flair for drama that many cannot hope to compare to. He's in control here, and he's going to use that power to make things very comfortable for Harry and not at all comfortable for the rest of the world. 

Silencing the area around tiny ears so that Harry isn't disturbed from his well-earned sleep, Sirius casts a Sonorus and whistles loud enough for half of England to hear. 

“Oi! Listen up, you lot. Back away from the cottage or face my wrath. I've not got time or patience to deal with any shite today of all days.” 

Grief is familiar to him now. He's glad to say that it doesn't hurt him to think of as much as it did the first time, or the second, or even the five hundredth time he remembered that nearly everyone he ever loved was dead. It's still there, of course, but rather less debilitating. Might be the lack of Dementors chewing up his soul and spitting him out with only the nasty bits left. 

“My name,” he says, using his grief to make him stronger, taller, fiercer, “is Sirius Black, and I'm here to tell you that - that Lord Voldemort was here.” 

There are shrieks and screams, instinctive scrambles away from the ruins of the cottage as they process the double damage of knowing he was here and hearing his name. Some people, however, look above the cottage, and the distinct lack of a Dark Mark hovering above it fills them with a growing sense of hope. Everyone knows the Potters rejected He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named twice and got away with their lives afterwards from sheer value of talent, of skill. 

“He came here to kill James, Lily, and Harry Potter,” Sirius continues, ignoring the way Remus’ breath hitches behind him. “He failed. Lily Evans Potter, genius that she was, performed an extremely difficult magic that deflected his Killing Curse back to him to protect their son.” 

No one cheers, not yet. They're too caught up in the loss, the anger, the fear, the sorrow, the idea of a terrible war that seems to never end, to begin understanding what he's saying. They drink in his words with wide eyes that wait for him to continue speaking - to explain what all this possibly means. 

“Voldemort is not dead,” he says fiercely, remembering the way they'd all cowered and denied his return after their precious Boy-Who-Lived told them they weren't safe anymore. Too soft from peace to pick up their wands, too afraid of a fight to stand up, too willing to make it Harry's problem when he was just a boy and they should have been better than him. But they weren't. They'll never be. Because he's James and Lily's son, because he was born to be the kindest and strongest and best of them all before a Seer ever divined it; Sirius will take all of magical Britain down with him before letting that boy die for their peace of mind. 

“You can't successfully cast an Unforgiveable on yourself, and that means HE'S STILL OUT THERE! His body is gone, but that means nothing when dark magic exists to let him possess Merlin knows who can get any body he pleases. He's a wraith now, and no less dangerous for it. Mourn your dead, hug your living, cheer for James and Lily Potter for fighting the good fight, but don't you dare stop fighting! Do you hear me?! We've a few years of peace now, but the WAR IS NOT OVER until that vile son of a bitch is DEAD and in the ground!” 

There's a hand tugging on his elbow from behind, but he barely registers Remus coming close while he insists, “DO YOU HEAR ME, VOLDEMORT?! I KNOW YOU'RE OUT THERE, AND I'LL BE COMING FOR YOU! I'LL MAKE YOU REGRET EVER BEING BORN, Y-”

The hand moves to cover his mouth with a loud smack, dragging him back into the house so quickly that they're stumbling over each other's feet. 

“Padfoot, you have to stop, don't say anything else,” Remus begs him, slamming the door shut for good measure. “We have to - we have make sure Harry isn't hurt from earlier, keep him safe, we can't be egging people on and making things worse when James and Lily've just…” 

“Fuck,” Sirius swears, the consequences of his actions coming back to bite him in the arse. “I haven't - how do we check? We can't go to St. Mungo's now, we’ll be swarmed. Every loony Death Eater that's heard me will be waiting for me to walk into public!” 

“Well, you should have thought of that before yelling into the streets then,” Remus snaps, closing his eyes and actively trying to regain his composure. “Just. We have to be careful, Sirius. Even I don't understand everything that’s gone on tonight, and we have to make sure that Harry comes before everything else. They'd never forgive us otherwise.” 

“Of course,” he replies, stung by the insinuation that he'd ever do anything to compromise Harry's safety. All that he's done since coming back is make sure Harry will be alright, if not in a way Moony can understand as of now. “I'm not letting a damned thing touch him, Remus.” 

“Clearly,” Moony says wryly, pointedly looking at his arms. The same arms Harry hasn't left since this all began, too afraid to let go of him for even a moment. “We’ve got to get to a Healer, Pads. Someone who can check on him in a safe location, preferably discreet. I'd suggest Madam Pomfrey except that we'd have to walk up from Hogsmeade with all the floos closed.” 

“They are?” he asks, furrowing dark brows. “When did that happen?” 

“After the Hogsmeade attack?” Moony reminds him, taken aback. “Safety precautions, remember? They told us only a few meetings ago.” 

“Right,” Sirius says after a pause, his face smoothing out. He'd forgotten about that amidst all the different memories he's juggling of two wars with the same enemies. He’s still…fighting the last one. “So no Poppy.” 

He paces back and forth to come up with a good solution before he sees James again, and it takes the wind right out of him. 

“Prongs,” he says, staring stupidly. “We've got to…Moony, we can't just leave them.” 

He'd forgotten about this, too. Last round Albus was the one with Harry, and Sirius got shipped off to the Ministry cells only a day later. He's no idea who took care of these things on his behalf, things he was meant to do as a godfather and best friend. Things like getting Harry medical attention, burying Lily and James, cleaning up their belongings, doing the paperwork. You see it enough times in war to know how these things go, and the only difference across people is usually what amounts of your loved ones you've got left to handle. Sirius has been so busy trying to fix things that haven't happened yet that it's slipped his mind entirely that he has very real tasks to deal with in the present. He never thought to ask Moony when they were already struggling with so many other heavy reminders of the past. It was easy enough to pretend Dumbledore took care of it all the same he did everything else, leaving them to happily drown in sorrows during the aftermath. 

“Right,” Remus gulps, his expression revealing he's in a similar spot. He looks torn between running away with Harry and being sick again, so that means Sirius is left in charge. 

Great Godric, Molly Weasley would have a conniption if she knew about this. 

“It's better this way,” Sirius says after a pause, feeling strangely hollow. “I was never going to be able to sleep.” 

As if they're taking the mick out of him, a loud voice cries out from the village proper, “LILY POTTER DEFEATED YOU-KNOW-WHO!” 

Cheers run through the throngs of people and fireworks explode from their wands into the air. 

Remus bursts into tears again. Harry stays blissfully asleep. Sirius is left the lone man capable of taking care of everything. October 31st creeps into the morning of November 1st, and the world is not the same. 

Time-travel's pretty good to him beyond the part where it's completely bonkers. He knew to a small degree that Azkaban had changed him, but it's only now that he's completely free of mind that he understands it. There’s no blurry edges to the memories of his youth the way there used to be, no dark filter overshadowing the good thoughts and pushing the bad ones center. Sirius no longer has to focus on specific goals and thoughts to keep himself from being driven mad - can linger on whatever he wants for as long as he wants without fear of it being the final straw. His basic skill at Occlumency that was hexed into him in summers at Grimmauld with Bella and Reggie has returned in one piece, having never been tested by the strength of a Dementor's vile power. It leaves both past and future crystal clear, though the record store he built inside his mind is a more raggedy, unkempt version of what it originally was. Still, it's much better than the blown apart mess it was when Sirius was forced into hiding after Voldemort’s revival in Harry's fourth year. 

He spent twelve years not being allowed to grieve all he'd lost, then two years coming to terms with bits and pieces with the tricks he had left because the war was back on. It's funny now that his grief for Lily and James is much more muted, less heavy on his chest than he ever remembers possible. Their loss is familiar, and he clings to it as a life raft while taking care of all the things that people do in the face of death. 

He ignores the calls for interviews, the crowds of people demanding answers, the Ministry knocking at his flat, all the birthday wishes from friends and letters piling up at his flat. Not much to celebrate only three days after...after. The graves were lots already assigned to the cottage when it was bought ages ago, and Sirius thinks nothing of it. He can hardly picture them being buried anywhere else. The cottage, though - that’s not for the world to bear witness to. Not this wrecked ruin of what it used to be. Plenty of people protest his decision, but they've got no power over him and he's likely to bulldoze over their attempts regardless. If they want to ruddy honour the sacrifice and keep them in loving memory, they'll do it with the best parts of his friends and not their tragic ends. Remus helps, after the bodies are no longer left on the floors to watch them with their blank stare. They fix the roof, clean up the rubble, reinforce the rickety staircase. The pictures come off the walls to be packed up, as do the soft throw blankets Lily loved draping over every piece of furniture in the house, but the other decor remains where it is. It does Sirius good to have a project that makes the thoughts quieter and memories gentler, though it’s an admittedly heavy touch harder on Moony than it is on himself. When Remus finds James’ wand underneath the living room sofa, he stares at it for ten minutes and then tucks himself into his knees with a choked off scream. Sirius packs it with the jewelry and photos, turning down the option of it being buried with them. He thinks Harry'd like having those around to look at. Maybe even use one day. Nothing wrong with a spare wand when you’re fighting a war.

Harry mostly plays in a corner of the cottage while they work, but they start leaving him with Andromeda when it comes to the heavy-duty stuff. He's a curious little tyke who likes to stick his fingers in everything he sees, and sitting around in the house makes him miss his parents something dreadful. Somewhere around the fourth time he goes crawling to look for them, Sirius and Remus agree it can't go on like this anymore. It’s just as much for their sakes as it his, but it helps. 

Andy's the one who gives him a check-up after Sirius belatedly recalls her job as a Healer, what with her having retired by the time Dora joined the Order. She's got enough experience staying safe from Death Eaters while raising a kid of her own that it seems their best bet, and she's got time to spare since Dora's at Hogwarts until Christmas. She rather rudely suggests it's a miracle that the poor boy survived Sirius’ caretaking - as if he hasn't been willingly changing nappies and burping the sprog long before he was the only one left to do it. Remus defends his honour, cheeks flushed when he admits that Sirius is much better about the finicky bits of childcare than he is. Only one of them was off for weeks on end in hidden areas for secret werewolf recruitment missions, and it certainly wasn't Padfoot. He finds the two-way mirrors amidst the clean up and immediately hands one over to Andy, unrepentantly calling out every so often so he and Moony can take a look while being out and about. 

They silently agree to sleep in the sitting room downstairs throughout the process, neither one of them daring to enter the main bedroom or use the guest room when they're too filled with memories. The nursery is strangely exempt from this agreement, though it might largely be because they can see Harry any time they please with a quick shout. He's still alive, which means there's nothing bad to be seen where he used to rest.

Moony cracks three times, though Sirius is rather proud he's only folded once during the entire matter. He'd crow about it if anyone from the second Order was here to listen, but he makes do with a pat on the back. 

Which leaves them here, one week later, dressed in funeral robes as they bury their found family. There’s a separate memorial out in the town square for anyone else who'd like, but the funeral is for close friends only. It's a small, tidy affair. No speeches or grand processions. War tends to make those a bitch to handle, and no one seems bothered by their choice to keep it simple. Certainly none of them are offering eulogies and tearful speeches, which he's glad for. The caskets are made of the same wood as their wands, a Potter tradition, and there's a basket filled with flowers for them to lay upon the graves by the kissing gate. Heartstring lilies for James and poppies for Lily, though he already knows plenty of people will mix it up. 

“Your mum hated being given lilies, did you know?” Sirius whispers secretly while he bounces Harry on his hip. “That was back when every bloke in Hogwarts was sending her them. Said after sixteen years it wasn’t funny anymore and they’re much too dramatic. Whatever happened to roses or tulips? ‘Course, that means it was a perfect challenge for your dad. Think he bought a book on every other flower in the world to send to her in sixth year, actually, I never figured out how he knew so many kinds. Your grandpa Monty might’ve helped - he loved flowers. Lily did too when they weren’t, well, lilies. Or from James. He just couldn’t stop himself when he found out about these, though, right prat that he was: oh, Lils, but you’re tugging on my heartstrings!” 

“I think you’ll find that I’m quite capable of tearing your heart out without needing strings,” she used to snap back. At least before all the wooing, maturing, and good looks won her over. Then she mostly shot him dry looks. Terrible business, true love. 

“Stings!” Harry parrots, mildly entertained by the bouncing. His usual repertoire of words is only about a dozen long, but he's talking more and more everyday. Sirius wants to record every one and bring them out to admire later like a limited edition series of godson-shaped paraphernalia. 

Remus snorts, unable to help himself. A small smile plays at his lips when he says, “She charmed them to bite him for an entire hour on their anniversary, didn't she?” 

“Oh, yes,” Sirius adjusts the plain black robe they’ve managed to scrounge for the tyke. “Nearly bit his bollocks off when they fell in his lap, though I suppose that's why she had them stop. Think those were one of the only bits she liked about him, you know, couldn't let precious goods be damaged.” 

Moony chokes down a watery giggle, washing off the dead expression that's been stamped across his face this whole time. He still looks as if a stiff wind could blow him over, but Sirius takes the win for what it is. He conjures a toy for Harry to play with, grateful that he's been so well-behaved through this entire mess, and takes a deep breath. 

“Ready?” he asks, turning to Remus. 

“Never,” Remus replies, opening the gate latch anyway as people begin arriving. 

There's not many people left from all their old friends, but everyone who's been told makes it. There's what's left of the Order, a few old school friends that had gone into hiding, most of the professors, and Andy, who takes Harry off his hands at one point so they can handle the actual burial. She's offered to take him for the day, but Sirius thinks he would want to know he was here, when he grows up. His Harry would've. Many sniffles and bitten down sobs break out when they float the open caskets over, and Sirius knows why. Rarely is there a funeral with the bodies in good enough shape to display, and they look quite good for the dearly departed. He's closed their eyes and mouths, letting their hands rest by their sides. They look peaceful. Asleep. Only James can never snore like a dragon again, nor will Lily ever throw her limbs out over the nearest warm body. They’re wearing their wedding robes because Lily had sworn up and down that if they died in the war and had those horrid white-gold robes everyone else seemed to wear, she'd come back to life to kill them herself. Sirius doesn't feel like testing her. 

“They'll wash me out,” she'd argued, drunk on Firewhiskey and flushed bright red as they laid about Sirius’ flat. He always did have the largest collection of spirits and wines, a remnant of his high pedigree that couldn't be stamped out. “Me, in white? I'll look like a ruddy corpse!” 

“Fitting, that,” James had toasted somberly, snickering when she slapped him round the head without even looking. “What! You said it, not me!” 

It's so strange, all the things Sirius can remember now. He doesn't even realize he knows them until they come to him, like the opposite of searching for a word on the tip of your tongue. He wonders, sometimes, how long it would have taken him to recall them in his last go at this life. Wonders if some of those memories would have been lost forever even if he lived past that battle in the Ministry and had the time to grow well again. 

No one ever tells you that unlearning what makes you mad can be so maddening. 

“Sirius,” Remus whispers, nudging him with an elbow. 

Drawn out of these thoughts, Sirius jerks his head in a nod. “Right. Yeah. Sorry, Moony.” 

No one calls him out for being distracted, and together they bend their wands in a fluttering dance. Golden sparkles flutter down onto the wood in spirals, leaving a gentle glow as they shut the caskets with a sigh and lower them into the ground. Soil is transfigured into the beautiful, brown figures of a stag and doe, whose appearance makes Minnie stifle a hearty gasp. The two animals walk towards the graves and nuzzle one another affectionately before leaping into the graves as they return to dirt; the soil smooths itself over without a sound, covering the caskets entirely. 

“Look, she’s got a doe,” Sirius remembers James yelling at the extra NEWT prep lessons that offered teaching them how to cast a patronus. “We’re bloody meant to be, lads! Fuck, cover me, I’ve got mud on my robes from Herbology - I can’t let her see the future love of her life like this!”

Well. James Potter was the love of Lily Evans’ life, though Sirius thinks he won’t mind being covered in mud now that they’re lying in it together.  

With a last, final flick, the white marble headstone that came with the plot floats from above and slots itself gently into the ground. Names and dates carve themselves into the marble soundlessly, though the quote isn't the same one Sirius saw when he finally got to visit their graves with Buckbeak and Moony. He's certain Dumbledore chose it. Sirius has no qualms with it being muggle or Christian given that Lily was half both, but it doesn't seem apt for James and Lily specifically. Well-meaning, but perhaps more a message for the others left behind rather than the dead. A riddle, even, fond as Dumbledore is of them. He wants something better, something that suits the people he loved and grew with. Something personal without any of the inane phrases they've seen over and over again at other funerals. Remus is the one who came up with this one, and Sirius thinks it rather fitting. 

For even in the face of death, they reminded the world to stay proud, stay kind, and stay brave. 

He wishes he'd gotten a patronus from James too, but it's alright. He wouldn't give up the one he did get for anything else in the world. Moony deserves this one, really. A proper apology and goodbye the likes of which it took Sirius twelve years to give originally. He's heard the gist of Lily's message, but not the entire thing. A question for later. 

The graveyard is too small for chairs or any other displays, which is why they'd settled on doing things in this manner. Everyone else stands in a group near the entrance, waiting for their chance to give condolences. There's not a dry eye in sight. When they finish up now, Andy brings Harry to them with flowers in hand so that they can be the very first ones to go. He can't quite stand on his lonesome yet, so Remus crouches down and supports him while he clumsily drops the flowers like he's told to. There's a hard blow of a nose into a handkerchief that sounds suspiciously like Hagrid, a squeak that can only be Flitwick, and mournful sighs all around. 

Sirius turns and nods to their audience, who take the sign as permission to move. They come up the path in ones and twos while he steps aside, grabbing Harry on the way. The sprog starts fussing because he wants to play in the dirt, and Remus’ attempt to please him by hoisting him high up on his own shoulders only makes him more cross. Struck by inspiration, Sirius flicks his wand while muttering under his breath. 

A soft melody rings out just around them as flowers rise in the air to dance around with one another, their leaves tangling cheerfully. He leaves them to dance by Remus’ head when Harry becomes entranced, his back straight when the first person arrives - Minnie. 

Time flows like syrup to his mind. He's given hugs, shakes hands, claps shoulders, nods once or twice. Moony is busy taking care of the tot, so everyone comes over to Sirius, though one or two stop to greet Harry kindly. 

“Is it true?” Alice asks quietly when she sidles up to give him a big hug. He's touched that they came out of hiding for the funeral despite the obvious arguments made against it. “He'll come back? You saw him? That’s why you sent the letter?” 

Alongside the letter informing them of the funeral, he’d added a note of caution. Sirius was hardly in the right state of mind to pay attention to dates back then, but he certainly remembers that not even a month had passed before Bellatrix was being led to the cell near his with her dreadful laugh, swearing revenge against the world and loyalty to her lord. He’d never even gotten the chance to visit the Longbottoms before dying at the Ministry, but he’s hoping that this warning makes all the difference so that he’ll never need to. 

“He's not dead yet, Alice. He'll come back sooner than you'd think, and I'll be ready for him. James told me you guys were the other possible targets, and I want - I need you to be careful for a little while. I can’t afford anymore back to back funerals. If anything happens, you get out of there.” 

Not that they were ever blessed to die strong and hale as they were. No, good old Bellatrix wrote out worse fates for them and got to him in the end just the same. He hopes enough has changed that things get to be different this time round. 

“Okay.” Pulling back slightly so he can see the determination written across her face, Alice nods back. “How long, then? A year, two?” 

He shakes his head, grey eyes softening. “It's not that easy getting a new body, love. If I’m right about him…it'll be something near ten. We've time to rest and recover, but I don't want anyone forgetting to stay on their toes. Once I’m sure the worst of his lot are locked up, it’ll be safer for you three to come out again. Until then, keep your eyes peeled, yeah? Nothing good is ever easy.” 

Sirius can see Mad-Eye in the periphery, prosthetic eye whizzing about as he gives them a heated stare. He's probably listening in, paranoid git, but he'll also take the words to heart on a level others never could. That’s more comforting than it is disturbing nowadays. 

“Lily said as much,” Alice says, though his generous estimate relieves her of some weight. “And I've never known Lily Evans to be an idiot or a liar.” 

“Her patronus,” Frank explains when he sees the confused furrow of black brows. “The one she sent to Hogwarts. Voldemort is coming, we switched Keepers, only Sirius can keep Harry safe. Then she said that she'd make death the easy part if anyone touched Harry and that the war isn't over.”  

“Sounds just like her,” Sirius says, swallowing down the sudden combination of grief, nostalgia, and affection that swells up inside. It checks out that given a chance to say anything at all from beyond the grave, Lily would choose to publicly announce his innocence, guarantee her son a home, threaten the world for Harry’s safety, and then loudly tell them to keep fighting. Stay proud, stay kind, stay brave; James and Lily had that down pat. 

“There’ll be folks who don't believe,” Frank tells him, solemn and sturdy the way he’s been since joining the Aurors. He’s a bloody good friend, Frank. “You'll have a tough fight, even with Dumbledore on your side. People are saying all sorts of things and no one knows what to think, but mostly...everyone just wants things to be over.” 

“We believe you,” Alice swears, eyes glinting something fierce and steady. “Whatever you need, however you need it. Don’t keep mum, Sirius Black - we’re still here, and we’ll be ready for the fight whenever it comes. And you’ll have to come by with Harry, of course, when it’s safe enough for play dates. Nev could use a good friend.” 

“Of course,” he says seriously - ha! - before they both wrap him in a hug again. Alice smells curiously of apples and ash while Frank’s ridiculously broad arms make for a good hug like always. They leave him to visit Harry by Remus’ side, voices soft and smiles only a little heartbroken. 

Most of the condolences fall on him in a blur, the wet eyes and soft touches featuring in the majority of his recollections. Dumbledore comes up last in his deep blue robes, little stars twinkling at the hems and sleeves. It’s rather understated for him, but it’s still enough to make Harry gasp with delight from behind his dancing flowers. One man’s trash is another man’s treasure or whatever the muggles say. 

“Sirius,” he greets. “Remus. It was a lovely ceremony.” 

“It was,” Remus says, clearing his throat after it comes out hoarse. “Thank you for setting up the wards for today and coming to the funeral. I know you’re quite busy these days.” 

“Grief and love will find us if we do not find them,” Albus says simply, eyes falling on Harry. “It is good to see that he is not additionally harmed by the events of that night, tragic as they were.” 

Turning back to Sirius as the others begin to leave in groups, half-moon spectacles slide down his nose to stare. “I wanted to inform you that the trial for Peter Pettigrew shall take place on the twelfth, and that you are cordially invited to testify against him. Some might say required, but I find that messages do tend to get lost in translation.” 

Ignoring the snarl his reminder of a trial earns, Albus continues, “I understand that you are burdened with loss now, but I hope that you can find it within yourself now to give me an account of whatever occurred one week ago. While I find myself inclined to agree with your opinion that Voldemort shall return, I would do many a great disservice by arranging plans without confirming the exact details. Dear Harry, of course, cannot describe the events of the night to me, and you remain the only witness with possible answers. You’re rather certain of a lot of things I cannot claim to know myself with such surety.” 

Pointedly avoiding his eyes, Sirius scoffs under his breath at the irony of the situation. They've come almost full circle, with Dumbledore in a position where he can only work off the information Sirius gives him and no control at all over Harry’s situation. Legally, magically, and in full declaration of the public, Harry is his to look after. Lily apparently made sure of that. Now it’s Sirius who chooses what to say and when, Sirius who gets to watch over Harry - and he’ll keep the boy a damn sight safer than Albus ever did at Hogwarts back then. His Harry would keel over in giggles if he were here, thrilled to finally put Dumbledore in his own shoes, and with information they only had because future-Albus figured it out for them. How laughably ironic. 

Dumbledore will of course figure it out even without his help, same as he did last time. Nothing Sirius says or does can change the fact that the man’s brilliant as can be. But. But, but, but. There is something niggling at the back of his mind that screams bloody murder, refusing to trust him, and recalling Harry’s patronus on a constant loop. 

“Even if I’m a horcrux, even if I’ve got to die in the end and I don’t get a choice to come back, I want you to never forget that it was worth it…I’ll have mum and dad on the other side, that’s where I’m going now.” 

He’s stared at the whorls in the dining table for hours on end parsing through those words while Remus slept fitfully on the floor, their limbs aching from a hard day’s work. Has chewed over them what must be hundreds of times, pacing back and forth with baby Harry in his arms dozing off to sleep. Sirius hasn’t processed it, of course, because the world has hardly been kind enough to let him breathe under the weight of two lifetimes clogging up his brain, but he’s thought about it plenty. 

Harry died. Harry could have chosen to come back. Harry chose him instead. Harry might still have to die to take down Voldemort. Simple, hard facts with no explanation - or an explanation that hasn’t been offered to him, leaving him woefully unprepared. 

“I think,” Sirius says slowly, eyes moving to where the sprog is clapping his hands with a beam, “that I will tell you the exact details of that night when you decide to share the prophecy that got his parents killed.” 

“Sirius,” Albus sighs, exhaustion setting into his wrinkles. “That information is much too dangerous to be given so freely. Even Lord Voldemort himself does not know the entirety of the prophecy made in regards to the two of them.” 

“Neither did Lily and James,” Sirius points out. “Nor Alice and Frank. Despite the fact that it was their literal lives on the line, that they were all possible subjects of the damned thing, you never told them the whole prophecy.” 

He knows that for a fact because otherwise Lily would have been poring over texts and tomes while desperately interpreting the wording, and instead she just told him in hushed whispers that a prophecy predicted Voldemort’s downfall in one of their families. They weren’t even allowed to say that much, but they never hid secrets from him. Sirius wasn’t even told that the specific downfall was one of the babes, only knowing years later after the Order reconvened in Grimmauld. It’s likely that even Harry did not learn of the prophecy until the very last minute, given the way Dumbledore keeps his cards close. Seventeen, the patronus said. How much happened in the two years between, Sirius wonders. 

“This is not a request,” he tells the headmaster, straight-backed and unyielding. “You tell me what you know, and I'll tell you what I know. Until then, you’ll just have to believe what I told everyone else: Lily saved Harry, the Killing Curse reflected, and Voldemort is still out there. A wraith, a spirit, whatever you’d like to call it - he’s still alive, even if he can’t pick up a wand. And despite you not wanting to admit it, I already know what he’ll come back for when he finally gets around to having a body.” 

“I do not plan on hiding this from you, Sirius,” Albus denies, frowning. “I shall in fact be the first to inform you that young Harry has been chosen as the subject of the prophecy, and the backfire of his own magic means Voldemort will not rest until he has eliminated those that forced him into this humiliation - which, of course, includes the boy at the very top of the list. It is unwise for anyone else to learn the exact details of the prophecy lest he find out through possession or any other means of dark magic, and you know as well as I do that he is a master Legilimens.”

“I have my own theories of what happened, and would simply prefer to know whether they must be adjusted or are correct. Given my prior knowledge and initial observations of the magic that was performed in the nursery, I believe that Lily was able to reflect the Killing Curse through a means of blood and voluntary sacrifice. Whilst this would suggest that Harry find himself safest behind blood-based magic wards with those who share her blood, such as her sister-” 

“Over my DEAD BODY,” Sirius roars, blood rushing to his head. 

“-I do not think of myself as omniscient,” Dumbledore continues, unbothered. “Her patronus specifically stated that he would only remain safe in your hands, after all. It is just as likely that the requirement for his continued protection is not contingent upon exposure to blood, but rather love and sacrifice.” 

“And what’s that mean, then?” Sirius near-shouts, having inched to the side to cover a startled Harry and Remus from view as if to protect them from Dumbledore. 

“While her sister's blood might afford him some peace, I believe Lily’s protection of Harry will apply wherever he is most loved, and with those who would follow her example if need be,” the old coot says simply. 

Oh. 

“A splendid work of magic that few in history have ever been able to accomplish. She likely spent months working out details to the very last if she was able to take into account such intangible elements while preparing the ritual. Haven’t you noticed, my boy?” Dumbledore asks, a twinkle returning to his eyes while Sirius avoids them again instinctively. “The wards around the cottage are near impenetrable, and of no doing of my own.” 

“What wards?” he asks despite himself. He’s assumed that most of them have dissipated with the Fidelius, though they’d reworked the basics back in during clean up. Habits are hard to break when you’ve been fighting for your lives with no end in sight before. Somehow, he knows those are not the ones Albus is referencing. 

“Why, the ones that allowed you to remain safely ensconced here without interference, of course. Though I suppose you have had your hands rather full at the moment, and can be forgiven for not noticing until now. Did you think that there were no attempts on your lives in this past week, or not even one panicked Howler?” 

“I…I hadn’t…” Stuttering, Sirius tries to recall any specific moment there was a disturbance in the air, any kind of significant event that raised his hairs. With Wormtail captured and the Longbottoms forewarned, he hadn’t even considered that anyone would come for him. 

“Only last night, your cousin appeared nearby,” Albus tells him, blue eyes growing solemn again. “Likely she assumed you have information about her master’s sudden disappearance and wished to divulge it from you with, shall we say…less than pleasant means. She and her husband had a rather difficult time approaching the cottage at all, much less undoing the protections. Dearest Bathilda - who’s favourite pastime as of late involves tea at the neighbors across the village - hurried home at once to inform me. They left once I arrived, having determined that it was a foolish attempt and moving onto greener pastures. I do not doubt that they will return when they grow desperate again, which is why I suggest that you find a permanent residence and take full advantage of settling down the protections offered to you. Though this house is significantly bolstered by absorbing Lily's magic, her blood, I know you are unlikely to continue living in a home filled with memories of those who have left. I am more than willing to offer my services in securing whatever abode you should choose upon making your final decision.” 

“Bellatrix?” Sirius mutters, reeling from shock. She came for them, and he hadn’t even noticed? Because…because she assumed he knew where Voldemort went, after screaming in the streets about him. Good Godric, she was in the village, and it all could’ve gone so wrong just because he opened his loud mouth without remembering he’s not in Azkaban anymore, people can and will come for him-

“The Longbottoms!” Blood draining from his face, Sirius spins on his heels. “Quickly, take Harry to Andy’s! NOW, MOONY! She’ll be going for them next, we don’t have time-” 

Remus has been pretending not to eavesdrop this whole time, but he doesn’t need an explanation to understand Sirius’ train of thought. He immediately fumbles for his wand while sliding Harry safely off his shoulders and onto his hip, brown eyes blown wide with fear. 

“Stay safe,” he begs, bruised eyes stark against his pale skin. “Don’t you dare leave me in this mess alone, Sirius Black!” 

“I swear! Now go! Until you receive my all clear, don’t move a muscle,” Sirius orders right before the two leave with a pop. “It’s Harry over everything, Remus! Albus, are you coming or gathering reinforcements?” 

“Are you certain, Sirius?” he asks, though he draws himself to his full height with a dangerous strength. 

Sirius doesn’t deign to answer that, turning on his heel to Apparate. When he lands, it’s in the basement that Frank designated as emergency coordinates for other Order members, and he hears the roar of battle rush into his ears from above. Throwing the door open and clambering up the stairs, casts a quick Homenum Revelio to take stock of the situation. Through the floorboards and side walls, he spots six adults: two against four. Alice and Frank versus their attackers, then. He’s glad to see that Neville is nowhere to be found before he realizes they must have used the emergency portkey to send him away safely to his grandparents. The hatch is spelled shut so only those with the right password can lift it - another failsafe they’d developed just in case, though it takes Sirius frightfully long to remember which one it would have been this month. 

“Fortescue,” he says, confident it’s correct when there’s a faint hum of release. 

There’s three more sounds coming from behind that are just barely heard under all the din from the dueling. A head of black curls whips around to catch sight of Moody, Kingsley, and Scrimgeour rushing in from the basement corridor. 

“What’s the epitaph written on the Potter’s graves?” he demands of Moody, who narrows his eyes in approval. 

“For their death reminded the world to stay proud, stay kind, and stay brave,” he replies. 

“For even in the face of death,” Sirius corrects automatically, rolling his eyes at the curt satisfaction in Moody’s awful grin. “Well, come on then - no I won’t check them, I know you’ve already done it for me, you twat - there’s four to two, they’ve gotten the baby out already. Be on your toes: it’s the wicked bitch and her dogs.” 

Grim expressions twist their faces at once, and Moody subsides his complaints to focus. They know full well what Bellatrix Lestrange is capable of, and even more what she can do when she’s supported by her favourite Death Eaters. An advantage in numbers doesn’t mean much when the people you’re fighting are each madder than the last. 

Using the hand signals they developed in Auror training, Sirius communicates his plans and receives the go-ahead from Moody, whose magical eye needs no spell to explain where everyone is placed. Kingsley edges up right beside him as directed. Scrimgeour nods. After a count of three, Sirius throws open the hatch to transfigure an immense wall from the floorboards while Kingsley dives to the left and creates a shield to give the others cover. Moody and Scrimgeour rush past Sirius to enter the fray, drawing Rabastan and Rodolphus away. Sirius uses the momentary distraction and the wall’s cover to roll over to Frank’s side, snapping to his feet in a fluid motion that comes from years of practice. 

“Shield,” he orders, and Alice waves her wand immediately to protect them as the transfigured wall shatters to pieces. Already expecting it, Sirius casts a whispered, “Flipendo,” while Frank sharpens the debris into something closer to knives. Lo and behold, dear Bella and Barty Jr. are panting on the other side, wild curls flying as the bitch dodges all but one of the shards. It slices just past her thigh without drawing much blood. Pity. 

“You,” Bellatrix hisses when she catches sight of her cousin, growing rabid with fury. “Come out of your hidey-hole, have you? Finally ready to admit you LIED?!” 

“What? Can’t handle bad news, cousin mine?” Sirius jeers as he summons snapping piranhas that swim through the floor as if it’s water. “You always were terrible at listening!” 

Frank collects the debris to form a mace and sends it careening through their ranks, catching the Lestrange brothers off guard in addition to forcing Barty Jr. into the path of the fish. Alice is casting healing spells from her corner since she’s the only one any good at them, and there’s an awful crunch as her husband’s knee pops back into place and a bone straightens out. He hardly falters, the handsome bastard, which now means all three of them can focus on the enemies ahead. The piranhas are turned to stone, but they were only meant to offer enough time to regroup and fight together. 

Now the real fight begins. 

Sirius feels strangely caught between the rush of wild adrenaline at finally being able to fight again and the muscle memory dictating his calculated moves to thread with the other two; his body is using habits ingrained from years of Auror training with the others in the first war while his mind is summoning the reckless need for more violence that chased him in the second war. It's never been more obvious to him that he's two minds in the same body, but he reigns himself in quickly when he remembers which one got him bloody killed. 

Sirius has promises to keep and a sprog to raise. He can't afford to be sloppy here when Harry died to bring him back. 

Frank and Alice visibly lose some of the tension they're holding in their limbs, passing glances between each other. They've been hard-pressed trying to fit his random movements into the usual dynamic they have, and it's taken a toll on them mentally. Sirius normally favours being on the move, shooting off spells most people have never heard of with enough aggression to knock them off their boots - a sort of controlled chaos that throws off the enemy but lets his allies get a wand in. He's given up any modicum of finesse to shoot fatal-only spells at Bellatrix and Barty Jr. while they cover his openings. Now that he's visibly returned to his usual form, they can afford to fight as a proper team. 

“Alright, mate?” Frank grunts, redirecting a whip made of fire as Sirius charms the floor beneath the Death Eaters into a swamp with a mutter. They slip and sink at once, creating multiple openings that the Aurors take advantage of immediately. 

“Harry,” Sirius says by way of explanation, wiping blood out of his brows to keep his vision clear. Alice almost smiles, but she slashes her wand to make thick vines grow from the swamp and block each of the Death Eater's off from one another. 

Barty Jr. is ejecting himself out of the swamp, but it's too late: Rodolphus has been disarmed, his wand lying somewhere in the muck. Sirius adds more charms to make the swamp deeper, thicker, greedier for something to swallow. Rabastan's fallen waist deep but manages to hit Scrimgeour with something that's making him cough up bloody chunks, to which Kingsley gets his lick back with an overpowered stunner that sends his stiff body flying through the air. Moody’s kept Bellatrix busy, but he's losing steam as she sends out spells too fast to even see: rage makes her quicker, and she's always been a fast caster. 

“WHAT HAVE YOU DONE TO HIM,” she's screaming, “WHERE IS MY LORD?! YOU MUST HAVE HIM, YOU MUST!” 

Sirius hurriedly casts the countercurse on Scrimgeour to keep him from dying of blood loss and joins Moody, Kingsley tied up as he guarantees that the Lestrange brothers can’t make their way back into the fight. 

“ANSWER ME, YOU BLOOD TRAITOR!” 

“What, you haven't heard? The muggleborn you hated so much went and wiped the floor with him,” Sirius snipes, shoving Scrimgeour and Moody out of the range of a nasty curse. 

A dozen meters over, Barty Jr. fumbles without the protection of the older wizards that gave him free reign and all their expertise, fear creeping over his young face. He's smart, but not yet a proper battle-hardened warrior. Insanity has yet to boost him as it does Bellatrix now or the him of the future. Frank knocks his lights out with a confundus, a stunner, and an incarcerous right after each other in quick succession. Alice makes her way to Scrimgeour and takes over the responsibility of keeping him alive while temporarily recovering from the effects of the earlier curse, freeing up Sirius' attention. Her husband sends their captive over and begins pressing in on Bellatrix from the side. 

When Alice darkly informs him that Scrimgeour might not make it without help, Kingsley nods and Apparates him to St. Mungo's after handing her the Lestranges and Barty Jr. 

A Blasting Curse splinters apart Moody’s peg leg. He goes down with a roar while shrapnel from the attack digs into Sirius’ left arm. It's followed by a cloud of gas that burns the air they breathe in and leaves the Aurors choking, hurriedly dispelling what they can in a haze. Bellatrix’s lips curl with delight as a sickly yellow spell erupts from her wandtip through the newly formed gap in the cloud, and Sirius realizes belatedly that she now has a direct line of sight to Alice, who was behind Moody. Horror sweeps through him when the spell shoots ahead uninterrupted, too quick for him to transfigure a new target for and with nothing large enough nearby to summon in its path. 

It hits Alice in the small of her back, and she topples over Rabastan Lestrange with her mouth frozen in a silent scream.

“Oh,” Bellatrix croons, dancing through the spells shot at her in immeasurable glee, “that wasn't so nice, was it? I invented this one, you know, to help cleanse the world of blood traitors and mudbloods-” 

What happens next occurs so quickly that it's nearly impossible to understand: Frank rushes forward with a bellow, a bright light brushes over his side, the pop of Apparition slows Bellatrix enough to let Moody finally hit her with a stunner, and Sirius watches blood spurt out of Frank's shoulder as his wand arm slips off from a Severing Curse. 

He doesn't even realize he's doing it until it's done, the pale blue spell sinking into his cousin's throat quietly. She's falling backwards as the stunner and Frank's tackle take effect, and Sirius can see in perfect definition the way she chokes. Her expression is frozen, but her eyes express a curious combination of righteous anger and gratification. It's clear his use of the spell is a travesty, but one with enough comedic irony that she can't help but take pride in their stupid blood-purity obsessed household. 

Itty Bitty Sirius Black, using dark magic her own father taught them on his cousin. The Gryffindor blood traitor who denied them and ran away only managing to finish her off with one of the things he claimed to despise most about his childhood. 

Bellatrix Lestrange gives a final, amused wheeze before her lungs are encased in ice. She dies before she hits the ground. 

Moody sends him a sharp look but chooses not to interrogate him to tell Kingsley - he's the one that Apparated in - that Alice needs to go to Spell Damage. He probably knows it wouldn't do much good, given that Sirius just buried his best friends today. 

“I'll watch this lot,” he says, “get her to St. Mungo's. Tell them it was yellow and hit her in the back. Black! Take Frank. And send me some bloody reinforcements while you're at it.”

Sirius hadn't waited for his order - he's already scrambling through mud and rubble to reach Frank, slipping in a pool of the man's blood with a cut off yelp. He grabs hold of Frank from round the waist and swallows back a gag as he grabs the severed arm, too, hoping beyond all belief that it can be reattached. Apparating right after the intense battle and feeling the exhaustion set in, Sirius only lasts long enough to send the promised patronus to Remus before collapsing in the hospital's emergency room. 

For the first time since he took a train to 1981, Sirius sleeps through the night quietly. Then the next, and the next. 

He dreams of Harry, his Harry, the half-grown boy with his mother’s temper and his father's grin. He dreams of watching him play Quidditch, thin body corkscrewing through the air and moving too fast for the human eye when he catches the snitch. He dreams of Harry summoning his father's patronus by the lake, only thirteen. He dreams and dreams of the paltry two years he got to have his godson in his life, of all the times Harry was James or Lily before he wasn't, of how it made him so proud to look at that boy and know he was family. He dreams of Remus and a mysterious woman with a blurred face lifting their heads over a newborn in a bundle, excitedly naming Harry godfather. He dreams of a Harry that looks positively dreadful; taller and broader than Sirius recalls, smattered stubble on his chin, deep bags under his eyes, grief weighing down his feet, and a quiet fear swimming in his voice when he asks, “Does it hurt?”   

He tells Harry, “Dying? Not at all - quicker and easier than falling asleep.” 

He dreams of waking up in a blank space with James and Lily standing over him, comforting him. He tackles them in a hug at first, glad to see them, but he can't stay. 

“I have to go,” he says, wriggling out of the hug. “Harry isn't safe, he needs me-” 

“You can't, Sirius,” Lily says softly. 

“Of course I can, I won't go down that easy,” he snaps, looking for the way he came in. He doesn't know where he is, but he knows he has to get back. “Everyone's still there, I just need to-” 

“You can't go back, Pads,” James whispers, his eyes sad. “You're stuck here now.” 

And he yells, he pleads, he begs, he argues. Fine, dead, but surely he can be a ghost - surely he gets a choice, gets to choose Harry the way he should have the first time instead of just trusting someone else to take care of him - but he is denied at every turn. 

“No,” he croaks, shaking his head. “No, it can't be! I CAN'T! I'M SUPPOSED TO BE THERE FOR HIM!” 

They hold him in their arms to cry together. Time stops holding meaning. He is a failure, and he cannot go back. Nothing registers there, not even the friends he lost that've come back to him. They speak to him plenty, tell him all sorts of stories, bring others to come visit, but he can't bother to listen. He's dead. He killed them. He left their son behind. He doesn't deserve their kindness.

“He's calling for us,” James says one day, however many days or months or years it's been later. 

“You'll come, won't you?” Lily asks hopefully, extending a hand. “He needs you.” 

He looks down at himself, covered in the eternal marks of his mistakes, and wonders if that's still true. 

“Up you get, Padfoot,” a new voice calls out, long limbs reaching out to pull him to his feet. “No waffling, now. You've got a boy to see.” 

“Moony?” he asks, hardly believing it. “What are you doing here?” 

“Same as the rest of you, I should think,” Remus jokes, looking younger and fresher. He looks much better than the last time Sirius saw him, though he's certainly got regrets wrinkling the corners of his eyes. “Let's go, then.” 

“No,” he protests, digging his feet into the ground as they tug him along. “No, I don't deserve it! And, and, I'm a mess! I won't go just to have to come back here and remember I dropped the ball.” 

They stop. Lily takes a deep breath, rolls her eyes, and slaps him so hard that his neck cricks to the side. 

“Sirius Black,” she says with controlled fury, “my baby boy is scared, and alone, and he needs us. Get your head out of your arse and step up, because we’re not taking no for an answer!” 

Stunned, he nods. Then he looks down again and says quietly, “I don't want him to see me like this.” 

“So fix yourself,” Lily snaps, eyes flashing. 

He tries to think of the person he wants Harry to remember, the person he wanted to be when he found out his brother was going to have a son. His wrinkles smooth out, hair primping, and his clothes shift into a different outfit. Something cool, not tattered and ratty. 

“Better?” he asks nervously while the three of them look on with pride. 

“Better.” 

The dream shimmers around him, a patronus prancing into view amidst the wrecked nursery. 

“I'll be okay no matter what. I promise. Love you, Padfoot. Goodbye, and good luck. You'll need it.” 

Sirius wakes up with a sob, his hands fisting in the bedsheets. 

“Harry,” he chokes out, tears slipping down his face messily. “Harry, oh, kiddo, Prongslet, no-”

“Sirius? Sirius! Padfoot, it's okay, calm down, you're at St. Mungo's,” a voice tries to soothe, relieved and afraid in equal turns. 

“Harry,” Sirius insists, fighting to sit up. 

“No, you shouldn't move, you're all sorts of worn out,” the voice insists, but he slaps off the hands that come near. Something crashes to the ground. It might be him. “Oh, for Merlin's sake.” 

A spell rushes over him and drags him back to sleep. 

He wakes up again to a lime green ceiling, a heavy weight pressing on his chest. When he blinks the sleep out of grey eyes, Sirius looks down to see messy black hair and a brown romper, a small hand clenched into his medical robes. Raising his hands to brush gently against Harry's soft cheeks, he pays no mind to the wetness pouring over his own. 

“Awake?” Remus croaks, voice scratchy and thick. He clears his throat and shifts out of the chair he's folded himself in rather uncomfortably. The curtains are closed around them, which means he must have roommates. 

Sirius blinks in a dazed surprise, as if he hasn't noticed his friend at all. Remus snorts. 

“They pulled the splinters out of your arm, fixed some bruised ribs, patched up that cut on your leg. You were in pretty good shape except for the bit where you collapsed from magical exhaustion. Not surprising, since you haven't slept properly in a week and used magic to renovate an entire house during the entire process. You were asleep for three days, you know. Went in and out starting yesterday. Wouldn't stop asking for Harry, so Andy snuck him in.”  

“Everyone else is alright for the most part,” Moony continues when he gets no response. “Kingsley, Moody, and Scrimgeour got out of here within hours. Alice is out, too, but whatever she was hit with was awful. Some kind of…Infertility Curse, supposedly of Bellatrix's own making. They stopped her innards from falling out, but she won't be able to have any more kids. She's been good about it, says Neville's all she needs. It's Frank that…” 

Grimacing, Remus massages his temples. “It took them hours just to stop the bleeding, and they can't reattach the arm. He'll have to get a dummy until they can work out a proper prosthetic for him. Moody says he might be able to get hold of the person that had his eye, but…there's no guarantees. We'll have to wait and see how he does with his left hand to cast magic as it goes along. He's been forced into taking leave for now. The good news is that this means even the quill-pushers who stick to the rules don't seem all that put out anymore with Bellatrix dying.”  

The room is silent except for the faint sounds creeping in from the rest of the hospital. Feet shuffling, robes rustling, muffled chatter. The usual rush. Sirius is hyper-focused on memorizing the way Harry breathes out with pouty lips in his sleep, tiny lashes trembling ever so slightly. Inhale, exhale. The tears come faster now. 

Remus sighs and shoves his friend aside to clamber into the bed, pulling him into a loose embrace. 

“Let it all out, Padfoot,” he says, running a hand through black curls. “It's alright now. You've been due a good cry through all this. It’s a miracle you've held on so long. Go on.” 

“I'm so scared, Moony,” Sirius whispers, and whatever semblance of restraint he has crumbles.

His entire body shakes with his cries, though he chokes down most of the noise so's not to wake up Harry. Remus holds him patiently through all of it, a warm length against side. 

“How am I supposed to do this?” Sirius asks later. He scrubs his face with his bare hands, feeling hollow and light. Not quite good, not quite bad, very much still tired. “I don't know how to be a parent, I never wanted to be a dad. I can change nappies and mush bananas all he likes but how am I supposed to raise him? Keep him safe from everything that goes bump in the night? I've already mucked it all up once - what if I never stop mucking it up?” 

He swore over and over again that he was more clever and strong than everyone believed but still got himself killed. What happens when this second round goes the same? When he proves that he's still the same Sirius, getting in over his head and failing miserably? 

“Of course you're going to keep mucking it up,” Remus replies calmly, scritching behind his ear as if he's in his Animagus form. “No parent is perfect from the get-go, Sirius. A good number are never good at it at all, as you may have learned growing up.” 

Sirius snorts, tilting his head so that the scratches fall deeper into his scalp. 

“I think that gives you a leg up, honestly,” Moony tells him matter-of-factly. “You already know what shite parenting looks like, so all you have to do is the opposite. Seems easy enough. And if you need examples of what good or even okay parenting looks like, you…look around. See what you think works, what’s right. And if you’re just plain lost because everything’s going to shite, you do the mad thing: you ask for help. Believe it or not, some folks might give it to you.” 

“Thanks,” Sirius scoffs, but it's half-hearted. To his mild embarrassment, the words do make him feel better. “Glad to have your vote of confidence, Moons.” 

“Oh, always,” Remus says. Sirius can feel hair moving as a smile curves those lips, close as they are. “I've never known you to step down from a challenge, after all. You do your best work when someone tells you that you can't, unfortunately. Certainly not the most likeable trait, but a useful one.” 

It’s a strange world. James and Lily are still dead, Peter Pettigrew is still a traitor, Harry is still the primary target of a madman, and the year is 1981. Sirius isn’t a prisoner of Azkaban, his mother isn't dead, Harry isn't living with his aunt, and he still doesn't know what the bloody fucking prophecy says. There's a dark wizard out there who can survive Killing Curses, and getting rid of him seems nigh impossible. 

But it's like Moony said: the impossible is his specialty. He'll make the next death stick, whenever that is. For the Harry that died and the Harry that's still here, equally precious to him in different ways. There's no other option if he wants to give them the happy ending they deserve - deserved. He'll have to wait for his mother to die, of course, to get his hands on Kreacher and whatever headstart supposedly lies in Grimmauld, and then he'll personally make sure the Dark Tosser regrets being born. Yes, plenty of things to do, and ten years to get a good start on them. Harry, horcruxes, prophecies, Kreacher. 

“Remus,” Sirius says, tenderly running a thumb down his godson’s pouty face. “Help me?” 

Remus sighs, put upon. “If I must.” 

He's not very good at giving comfort, and Sirius isn't very good at receiving it, but they lay there for the next few hours and try despite that. They've lost too many people much too quickly, but they'll hold onto each other because they're all that's left - or at least, they think they are. 

Alice comes by from Frank's room to visit, and she takes one look at them with her red-rimmed eyes before enlarging the bed to crawl in as well. They all know it's against the rules, but they hadn't listened when it was Marlene or Gideon or James, so they certainly won't begin now. 

“They’re saying it might take him a few years to cast again,” she whispers after some time has passed, her head resting on Sirius’. “I wanted to quit the Aurors. Told him we've got time till You-Know-Who comes back, we'll spend some time with Nev and then go back together. He said I'm an idiot.” 

Silence. 

“He a good dad?” Sirius asks. 

“The best,” Alice says without hesitation. “Loves Neville more than anything.” 

“Is that all it takes?” Sirius asks, half-curious and half-confused. “Just…love?” 

“If you love the right way,” Alice tells him, her voice growing soft. “If you love so that it makes you patient, brave, humble. Love ‘em enough to do your best, every day, and know when you're not enough to be everything they need because you're just a person, and it takes a village. Love them enough to forgive yourself when you aren't perfect, because they’ll always need you more than they need perfection.” 

She's talking about being a mum in wartime, at twenty-one, with a job that saves and takes lives. She's talking about being a first-time mum with a first-time dad, crying her heart out with their boy because they don't know what's wrong, they don't know why he's crying, and they must be awful parents. She's talking about how they started a family in the middle of war because everyone needs something to hold onto, a reason to keep going, stay strong, and sometimes you have to make it up on your own. 

She's talking about the things she's learned to live with and the things that she's changed for, because now he'll have to do the same thing on behalf of Lily and James. They would have told him if they could, because they had to learn these things the hard way as she did. They can’t, though, so Alice tells him for them. Someone has to. 

“Jamie loved him more than anything,” Sirius says, swallowing a lump in his throat. 

“I know.” 

“He would have been perfect, I think.” 

“James Potter,” Remus interrupts, his voice slightly raised, “has never been perfect in his entire life, Sirius. He's only ever pretended, and rather shoddily at that. Or have you never listened to a thing Lily said?” 

Sirius cracks a small smile. “I dunno, mate. He was pretty perfect to me.” 

“Because you loved him,” Alice says simply. “More than anything. Funny how that works.” 

“Yeah,” Sirius breathes, a fresh wave of tears wetting his just dried skin, tight and tender as it is. “I reckon you're right, Macmillan.”

“It's Longbottom now, you big oaf,” she says, but they're all sort of smiling. “You've only known for three years now.” 

“Eh,” he shrugs. “If you’d gotten married right after seventh year I might've bothered to remember.” 

“Terribly sorry you lost that bet,” Remus tells him with zero regret. “Thank you for the ten galleons by the way, Alice.” 

Pensive silence.  

“Is that why you lot went mad spying on us? The letters, how you watched my post, all the needling?” Alice asks abruptly, and their suddenly innocent expressions make her burst into a fit of watery giggles. “What else have you bet on me for, you twats?” 

“Oh, only a few things other than Frank,” Sirius dismisses, “mostly it was your first Hogsmeade date, if you'd take his name, how long Frank can stare at you without blinking, if his mum would force you all to live together…” 

“You boys are insufferable,” Alice says with a shake of her head. “It's beyond me how Lily puts up with you lot on her own. Not as bad as you'd expect, she says. Clearly there were potions involved.” 

No one mentions the present tense she uses. Pots and kettles, don't you know. 

“Now, now, Alice,” Remus says, “you of all people would know how much better at Potions she was than us. You were only her partner all through NEWTs. How else would you have gotten your job?”

“Shite,” Sirius blurts, the conversation leading him to a horrible realization. “I'm going to have to quit the Aurors!”

“What?” 

“Why would you have to quit?” 

“I've got a baby to take care of,” he says only a little hysterically, “I can't go around bringing him in to work now, can I? And my mum's still not kicked the bucket so I've only got whatever Uncle Alphard's left me and I've never had to save a knut in my life and Lily always said that babies are expensive-” 

He can afford to either support a baby or a war with the state of his finances, but certainly not both. 

“I'll stay with you,” Remus interrupts, cutting off his impending breakdown. “I can…take care of Harry while you're at work. Frank’ll be home, we can double up with the kids. Besides, they've a trust they set aside for him, remember? Surely you can use that to buy nappies and rash cream or whatever else babies need.” 

“But you - you're terrified of kids,” Sirius stammers, tilting his face up to look at the man with utter shock. 

He's not wrong. Poor bastard acts as if being near anything delicate and tender will summon the big bad wolf, always two feet away from little Harry unless someone shoves up in his space. It’s nothing to do at all with him being bad with them and everything to do with his great big head that thinks too much. Sirius was astounded to hear from Harry that the wanker ever clued up enough to have a kid. 

“Oh, properly,” Remus agrees, tightening his fingers in frazzled curls. “But I've been told a great many times that I need to get my head out of my arse and accept that the world isn't as scary as it seems - and more recently, by a good friend, that I should be brave.” 

Licking his lips and taking a long, deep breath, Moony whispers, “If - If James thought of me as kind and proud and brave, I'd hate to prove him wrong now. When it matters. Besides, Lily used to say to…” 

There's a bitter clench to his jaw, but he pushes through. 

“...used to say that it's only brave if you're afraid and do it anyway, because if you're not afraid then it's just reckless.” 

She did say that. To Wormtail, who she thought deserved to hear that he was brave and he mattered just as much as everyone else. Still didn't make a difference to the fucker, did it. 

They consider that, the three of them. Laying on the hospital bed with their limbs tangled in a lime green room and a baby on Sirius’ stomach as the world goes on without a care for their pains. Lost arms, lost friends, lost family, lost souls. 

“So. Stay proud, stay kind, stay brave,” Alice says, putting together Remus’ words and the epitaph on the grave they made just before all this. 

“Stay proud, stay kind, stay brave,” they agree. Orders, really, not reminders, because James would've known that Moony's only good at taking care of himself when he’s strong-armed into it. 

“We've got our work cut out for us, lads,” she tells them somberly. 

“Well,” Sirius muses, snaking his arm round her waist and squeezing. “I've just been informed by an expert that apparently, sometimes you'll need help. And when you do, you can just…ask for it. Seems barmy, but worth a try. I reckon a spot of Firewhiskey will do the trick in a pinch.” 

“Oh, I'd love that,” Alice says so greedily that Remus laughs himself into a fit. “Do you know I haven't gotten pissed in two years? Motherhood is a dry journey, it's awful. The war bit makes it worse, but mostly: motherhood.” 

“Not to ruin the mood or anything,” the werewolf finally says when the chuckles die down, “but since Sirius here is fine and dandy, we should probably leave. They've got enough patients as is without us taking up spare beds.” 

Sirius chews on his cheek and hums in thought. “Frank's?” 

“Works for me.” 

“I vote we bring the Firewhiskey first.” 

Two pairs of pleading eyes turn to the lanky man on the right. 

“Oh, it's up to me, is it?” Moony asks wryly, but he's a good man, he is. “I suppose I'll have to use some of those galleons I earned then.” 

“I've got plenty at my flat,” Sirius offers, “cupboard by the sink, can't miss it.” 

Remus takes him up on it. They shuffle off the bed in staggered, jerky movements, carefully standing up so that Harry isn't woken by all the jostling. Lily would kill James if he let Harry nap for more than two hours at this time of day, but Sirius figures they can make exceptions. It's not like she's here to hex him for it. 

Alice helps him sign out, quill scritching dully as he pretends to listen to all the usual warnings the mediwitch mentions. Moony meets them at the desk with Harry's nappy bag, to which they raise their brows, and he unzips a corner with a roll of his eyes. 

“Brilliant,” Alice gasps admiringly. “I'd have never!” 

“And that,” Moony says, prim and proper like he's not Remus ruddy Lupin the Marauder, “is why I'm not a parent.” 

The hilarity of that only hits Sirius when they're stumbling through Frank's door, his chest quivering with stifled laughter. Not a parent! If only he knew. 

“What in Merlin's saggy balls is going on here?” The irritation on Frank's exhausted face turns into befuddlement when Alice raises the nappy bag triumphantly, but he looks eager enough when Remus pulls three whole bottles of Firewhiskey out of it. 

“Someone get the door,” he commands, tugging Alice by her robes into the visitor's chair. 

“Right you are, lovey,” she says, flicking her wand to let the lock click in place. 

“Oh!” Tamping down his grin to pull out a blanket from the nappy bag, Sirius sets Harry on the floor and hurriedly casts everything he can think of. A Cushioning Charm, a Warming Charm, a Baby Monitor Charm he learned from endless night babysitting the tot, and a one-way Silencing Charm to keep him unbothered. Wouldn't do to have him waking up in the middle of a rip-roaring drinking session, him being a toddler and all. It's so nice being able to remember things off the top of your head again. When he turns around with an excited clap of his hands, the three of them are staring at him with strange expressions. 

“What?” he asks stupidly, wondering what he's done wrong. He thought the soppy looks would hold off for a few glasses at least, but apparently he was wrong. 

“It's nothing,” Alice says, brown eyes soft and wistful. “Just…we understand why you're his godfather, is all.” 

“Oh,” Sirius manages past the fierce squeeze of his chest. “Yeah?” 

“Yeah,” Moony tells him, fond and proud and a little sad. 

He doesn't know what to do with that information, so he snatches a bottle and breaks it open to draw a long, full gulp of alcohol. Wiping the leftover droplets with his sleeve, Sirius holds it out to Frank, who doesn't need any encouragement. 

“Bottoms up,” he toasts, Alice and Remus busy scrambling to open the bottles they've got. 

It's messy, loud, inappropriate. They're breaking nearly a hundred rules all at once, and they don't give a damn. There's equal amounts of crying as there is laughing, but none are too bothered by it. There's a ruckus when his Healer panics because she thinks Frank is going to off himself when the door won't open - have they even met this man? - and there's a mighty scolding, but they mostly giggle and fall over each other throughout it. Frank apologizes, Moony looks down in faux-shame, Alice promises to be a good girl, and Sirius points out he was a responsible adult that kept the baby safe so really he should be praised if anything. 

Complete and utter horror overcomes the poor woman's face when she cranes her head to see little Harry sucking his thumb on the floor behind them, which is when Sirius realizes his mistake. At least she ends her hour long rant with Sobriety Serum, though she mostly claims it's for the poor baby left in their charge. They swear to take them and become proper, responsible adults, and then promptly hold off until Harry wakes up to indulge in the freedom of being pissed. Fool on her for thinking they would just follow orders. 

Sirius and Remus make their way back to his flat, the de facto home of operations for now, and clean themselves up. There's hot showers and food from the chippy down the street, some fiddling with the mushed peas when Harry gets tetchy over lunch. Most of the boxes they've packed up sit in little piles on the kitchen table, waiting to be unshrunk and stowed in place. They make plans to temporarily babyproof the flat, take a look at the properties James might've left behind to see if it'll be better suited to child-raising than this studio for bachelors free of responsibilities. Sirius notes that they've only a few jars of baby food left from Lily's stores, adds them to the grocery list. An owl drops by his window with a loud hoot, carrying a reminder from Albus. Fiddling with a blank piece of parchment, mouth screwed to the side, he makes a decision. 

If Dumbledore's willing to add protections to a house that’ll keep Harry safe without separating them, he'd be foolish not to take him up on the offer. 

“Oh, no,” Remus moans all of a sudden, hands frozen in the box of parchments he was filing through. “The trial's tomorrow!” 

“The trial?” Sirius asks blankly, ink smeared across his cheek. “What trial?” 

“Pettigrew,” Remus answers miserably, looking towards the pile of foam blocks that Harry's crawled behind. “We'll both have to go, Pads, I completely forgot to ask Andromeda if she'll take him.” 

Sirius follows his gaze and lets it sit there, watching Harry gleefully knocks over a stack of blocks with chubby fists.

“It takes a village,” he says, quoting Alice. And then rather nonsensically, “I don't think we've got enough people for a village yet.” 

“What?” Moony asks, bemused. 

“I'll handle it,” Sirius tells him, finishing off the letter as quickly as possible. Jumping to his feet, he ties the letter to the owl and lets it out again. “Be back in a mo!” 

With a twirl and a pop, he Apparates out of the flat and onto a hill, stumbling as he hits the slope instead of the flat ground he expected. Brushing off grass and dirt from his robes, he takes in his surroundings with a considerate eye before nodding. Yes, he remembers how to get there now. 

It takes a village, Alice said. There's Sirius, of course. Moony, Alice herself, Frank, Andy and Ted and Dora...but good as each of them are, they're not quite a village. No, Harry needs more. Deserves more. And though some part of him finds the mere idea dreadful and an attack on his own character, he knows it's the right thing to do. He won't have to like it, and he certainly won't be jerked around by anyone who thinks him too much an idiot or a berk to be allowed responsibility for Harry's life, but all in all it'll be for the better as long as he stands his ground. He can do this. He's a proper member of society with a job and a baby, and he'll be damned if anyone says he's not good enough for this. Besides, who else is going to tell him how to raise a kid if not the one person who unceasingly has? The resume is impressive, at least. Six wins out of seven is pretty damn good, he thinks. 

Climbing over another hill and finding the house he's looking for, Sirius takes a deep breath, reminds himself what's important here - Harry, always Harry - and knocks on the door. 

“Hullo,” he says, puffing his chest out with all the confidence he can muster, “my name is Sirius Black. I was close friends with your brothers. May I come in?” 

The redheaded woman standing in the doorway with a baby on her hips takes a long, searching look at him. Because she's a mother of seven children, she notices quite a bit more than he wants her to. She sees the dark purple bags under red-rimmed eyes, the grass stains on his robes, the bits of baby food on his sleeve from lunch, the messy stubble on his chin that looks nowhere near as charming as he means it to be, and recalls her husband saying that little Harry Potter's to be left with his godfather. She sees a boy pretending to be a man, and thinks: he needs all the help he can get. 

“You poor thing,” Molly Weasley sighs, tugging him in with a reassuring pat. “Come in, come in. Let’s see what we can do for you, love.” 

Chapter Text

Trials are had, verdicts are passed. Some Death Eaters are sentenced to Azkaban, and others with fines. Sirius is fined by the Ministry for taking unnecessarily violent courses of action - his stunt with Bellatrix - but it was wartime, and they use that excuse to let a lot of things slide. They let Unforgivables slide, so why not this? The only reason they bothered with a fine is because Moody pushed for it, unwilling to let any of his Aurors find themselves on a slippery slope of dark magic. Sirius remains adamant that the war is not over, and if he remained alone in this opinion things may have turned out much the same as last time; the war is not over, Lily Potter said, and she would know, wouldn't she, if she took down He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named? And of course there's Dumbledore who agrees with them, don't you know he defeated Grindelwald? He's the most powerful wizard in all the isles! Sirius Black might be mad like his forefathers, but you can't possibly think the same of Lily Potter and Albus Dumbledore now can you? They're good people them, with good roots, and they've never been anything but good, respectable wizards. If a tad eccentric. 

All this to say that when you combine a great multitude of sources, half-right and half-wrong, the picture settles into something like this in the minds of wizarding Britain: Lily Potter defeated Voldemort to buy time, and her son Harry Potter will be raised as the perfect warrior by Albus Dumbledore and Sirius Black to take him down. He’s born for it, after all! His parents were James and Lily Potter, his godfather is Sirius Black, he'll grow up with Aurors and Headmasters - not to mention that surely if his muggleborn mother was brilliant enough to tear You-Know-Who from his body with a ritual no one's ever heard of, she must have left plenty of powerful, ancient magics behind for her son. And if you believe she killed him, then her son must be even stronger than you think. Yes, that must be it. He's got some sort of magical inheritance don't you see? Halfblood like Dumbledore, destined for greatness because he'll be the downfall of a Dark Lord. 

The year is 1982, and Harry Potter is not known as The Boy-Who-Lived. Not entirely, at least. No, they call him The Chosen One, the Next Dumbledore, the Would Be End of Voldemort, the Boy-Who'll-Win. A great many of them happily return to their lives with the comfortable knowledge that Voldemort might return, but there's already people here to solve it for them. As if Harry isn't just a babe, won't be just a boy, and hasn't paid enough to the world already. 

When the Longbottoms come out of hiding, Sirius shows up at their house with a load of books and shoves them at Frank. 

“Budge up, you tosser, we've got work to do,” he tells him. 

To his credit, Frank only looks over all the titles related to possession and soul magic with a firm set to his lips before he nods. Sirius and Alice stay Aurors to keep their eyes out for all that's criminal and strange, to take down just one more pureblood supremacist in the hopes that it'll give them the better hand when Voldemort returns. Remus and Frank spend their days poring over books, minding the boys that become fast friends, and looking for ways to kill something without a body - or which doesn't belong in the body they're in. People know that Sirius Black hasn't given up his search for You-Know-Who, and occasionally a frightened letter detailing potential sightings or suspicious theories arrive his way, all of which are investigated carefully. He cannot let a single one slip through the cracks for fear that any of them could be right, because otherwise he'll have to wait for Voldemort to show up on the bloody back of some professor’s head in 1991. 

Harry grows bigger, happier, and begins to run. He runs so fast that Sirius and Remus are left holding stitches in their sides chasing after him up stairways, down the garden, collapsing onto the nearest surface while he giggles away merrily. He turns two, a small party held at the new home they've found among James’ family properties. Sirius can hardly afford to buy one himself with his current salary, but he allows the cottage in Godrics's Hollow to become a monument so that his friends’ sacrifice lives on granted that the Ministry pays him a fee. And, of course, is willing to turn it over again to Harry should he ever wish for it. He's saving most of the inheritance from Uncle Alphard for future plans, so a lot of his money's tied up for now. The property they find is more of a vacation home that's fallen into disrepair, but it's Unplottable, near a small creek, and has plenty of room for them the sprog to run about. The forest a ways off is left alone because of local superstitions, which makes it perfect for the full moons. There's three rooms, just enough for the three of them, two full baths, a kitchen and a cozy sitting room. It's a bit antiquated and takes a little elbow work, but the view makes up for it and it's far enough from society that they're left relatively unbothered. Privacy and quiet, just the thing you need to raise a child martyr while you scheme to kill bloody Voldemort. Not that Sirius will ever let it come to that - the martyring, not the killing. 

Living with Harry, getting the chance to raise him…it's wonderful and brutal in equal parts. It breaks Sirius’ heart twice over when he finds himself laughing with Remus over Harry's newest mishap, his newest word, the way he frowns and pouts and runs along with his friends. Being not only witness to Harry's childhood but an active part of it hurts something awful; it’s not grief that Lily and James should've been here to see this, though that certainly adds to it. It's the fact that it should have happened last time and didn't, and Sirius never got to have this with his Harry - his, he thinks, because no one else in this world will ever know that boy and will ever remember him except Sirius, and that's so bloody wrong the world should be ashamed of it - and he never will. He died, his Harry died, and they never got to have anything other than a handful of real, face-to-face moments with each other. James and Lily were never going to come back, but he could have had something more with their son the first time. Could have, didn't, can't. 

So he stands there, Harry's Padfoot, and sometimes his smile goes limp on his face when the grief hits him, choking out an excuse while he locks himself into the nearest room so that he can sob in peace without marring the moment. Sometimes he looks at this Harry, chubby limbs and wide smiles and a childish giggle, and wonders if this was what he missed the last time when he was locked up. These are beautiful moments the likes of which Sirius spent a lifetime wishing for, but having them feels like betrayal. He cannot help but compare the two godsons he knows as the days go on, forever contemplating what was and what could have been. Sirius loves both Harrys more than words in any language can express, but it's just…so wrong, so painful, to be living this way without both of them. It's just not right. Why did his Harry have to die, why did the world get a second chance without knowing who gave it to them? Without knowing that there once was a Harry Potter, reckless and brave and kind and brilliant, the best kid to have ever graced the planet, and he died? He was so young. His Harry had hardly lived at all, and he had never lived a life full of the love and kindness that he deserved. 

And as the days pass, this grief burrows its way into his young bones. Remus thinks it for James and Lily, so Sirius never says otherwise to keep from having to explain that he's grieving a boy that Moony will never know. Only Sirius knows that Harry, only Sirius can honour his existence and memory. It's an unbearably lonely burden, but one he would never give up willingly. 

Harry turns two, then three, then four. He looks more like James every day, Remus says. Sirius has stopped thinking of Harry in comparison to his father and instead in comparison with his previous self. It wasn't fair when it was James and it isn't fair when it's his Harry, so he tries not to let their faces overlap in his mind. It's probably not a good idea to call the other Harry his either, but Sirius hasn’t been able to shake that off just yet. He doesn't want to hold this little tot to any ridiculous standards or old memories, especially not if those parts of him had to be born from suffering great pains in life. He likely will whether he wants to or not, same as he did his Harry to James, but Sirius is actively drawing lines in the sand to prevent any more renditions of the scene he made over the floo when the kiddo didn’t want to take risks. Even if his godson forgave him for weaponizing something that was meant to be loving and kind, Sirius still hasn't. No, he thinks, this Harry is perfect exactly the way he is. He’s just as curious, loving, adventurous, adores magic just as much. Sirius just wishes that he could know the other, bigger Harry, that they could have all been happy together. That this Harry existing didn't mean his Harry would cease to exist. 

Because that's the crux of it, really. The one thing that makes this pain unbearable in comparison to his grief for his best friends. No matter what Sirius does, no matter where he goes, no matter who he gets to meet again when he dies, his Harry will not be there. James and Lily will, and they'll be the same because they died the same way on the same day, but his Harry is forever gone while this one takes his place. 

If Sirius could only tell someone about him so that his memory would live on forever in their hearts as well, this would be so much easier. If only, he thinks, telling anyone about Harry doesn’t have to mean talking about all the other parts, the ones where things die and break and fall apart. If anyone bothered to believe it. Sirius was rather behind the times for twelve years, with little he can use as reference for proof. He does what he can instead by cherishing the Harry he gets to have now. 

“Think you've got enough film for the year?” Remus asks dryly when four owls struggle through the kitchen window to carry the giant case of film mail-ordered last week. 

“A year? Don't be ridiculous, Moony,” Sirius scoffs, tossing his hair over his shoulder. He's already opening it up to scrutinize the film as if the shop would let any substandard ones through. “These'll last a few months at most. I should really get a monthly service, I just keep forgetting to fill out the form…oh!” 

Scrambling up the stairs only to return with the scuffed camera they found amongst the belongings in Godric's Hollow, Sirius aims outside the window and hurriedly takes a picture. There's a pop of smoke and some fizzing, but he beams when he pulls out the photo to show Remus. 

“Look!” Sirius exclaims, the photo growing clearer as it develops. Neville and Harry are swaying with the Lullaby Lilies they received as a housewarming gift while they try to hum along, though they're rather hampered by Harry's inability to carry a tune.

A hereditary impairment, poor lad. Blind as a bat he might have been, but James could sing with the best of them. Lily on the other hand…well, it's better left unsaid. Speak not ill of the dead as the muggles say. 

“Good one, innit?” Sirius says admiringly as he takes it back to look at. 

“Yes,” Remus agrees, hiding a smile behind his cuppa. “Good one.”

He hardly has time to set it down before he and Sirius are fumbling for their wands to keep the bell-shaped flowers out of the childrens’ mouths. 

“Oi! Those are poisonous,” Sirius yells, climbing through the window to slashing his wand urgently. 

Harry doesn't understand what that means, but Neville certainly does. 

“I'm so sorry,” he blubbers after they've been safely removed from the vicinity, “I thought it would help him sing better!” 

Sirius snorts, a stream of giggles setting loose now that the danger is dealt with. Remus sighs and lays a comforting hand on Neville's shoulder. 

“That’s very kind of you,” Remus says, utterly solemn. “But I'm afraid no magic or wizard can fix that, Neville.” 

“...Not even Mr. Dumbledore?” Neville asks, aghast. 

Lips twitching helplessly, Remus manages to appear appropriately straight-faced when he confirms, “Not even Dumbledore.” 

Neville gasps. Harry doesn't seem terribly bothered by the revelation, quickly moving onto exploring the camera left on the kitchen table from earlier. It's been charmed Unbreakable after the incident with the broomstick last year, so it's safe enough to leave in their small hands. Uncle Moony knocks back the last of his tea and decides he needs another, wondering how even such sweet, kind children manage to get into trouble so often. It’s like some kind of exponential equation: child and child makes triple the danger of one, don’t you see? 

“Remus, he...he couldn't sing with the lilies,” Sirius wheezes, collapsing onto a chair. “He can’t sing with the lilies because of Lily." 

“I hate you,” Remus replies primly. He makes it all the way to the loo before he starts laughing. 

Somehow, Sirius forgot that his mother was not the last Black living. No, that honor goes to his lovely, decrepit grandfather, who he now recalls survived all the way up to 1991. Bugger. 

Staring down at the letter in front of him blankly, he palms his face wearily. “I have to do it.” 

“You can't be serious,” Remus replies incredulously, turning in his chair. “No, shut up, I mean - you hate that place, Padfoot, you always have! You swore that you'd sooner snog Snape than go back there.” 

The half-formed grin he had fades immediately at the image, leaving Sirius to grimace. “Thanks for the lovely picture, Moony.” 

He gets a roll of eyes and a raised brow for that. 

“Just…we've gotten nowhere with our research,” Sirius sighs, scratching at the woodgrain in front of him. “Hogwarts has one of the best libraries in the world, but still we’ve nothing to show for it. It's been nearly four years, and all we've gotten so far is that horcruxes are the wickedest of magical inventions, whatever that's supposed to mean. On top of that, we've gotten no closer to hunting down Voldemort either!” 

Remus softens, leaving his chair to come sit by Sirius instead. “I know it's difficult, but we can't give up. We knew when we set out doing this that neither of them would be easy to find. We'll figure it out, Sirius, we just need time.”  

“Of course we will,” Sirius says vehemently, catching himself last minute. “What I'm trying to say is that yes, it's an awful place full of dark magic and terrible memories and the world would probably be better off if it burned to the ground…but that's exactly why I have to do it. Think about it, Remus - where else would you expect to find information on the darkest and most wicked of magics?” 

Sirius knows he's convinced him by the way Moony furrows his brows in consideration and begins chewing his bottom lip. 

“I see your point,” he admits reluctantly, but it's a cold victory. “It just doesn't seem like a good idea to be by yourself in that old place, meeting him alone. He can't be holding a grudge about Bellatrix given that he never sent Howlers like your mother, but I'd be hard-pressed to trust him. Being old does not, in fact, make a wizard less dangerous.” 

“More importantly,” Remus adds, staring him down with a solemn slash to his mouth, “Harry needs you alive and well more than he needs you to possibly go mad walking into your childhood nightmare. And that's before you even sit down with your grandfather to speak about Merlin-knows-what.” 

“I can do it,” Sirius argues half-heartedly. “I'm a grown man, Remus, he can hardly keep me there against my will. It'll likely corrupt my soul a smidge to walk in there, but I'd rather take the chance and know it was a miss than come back later and realize the answer was there all along. Besides, I'm a bloody Gryffindor, ain't I?” 

Remus takes in his bluster with a flat expression, then sighs. “Alright, Sirius. But you get out of there as soon as things go sideways, do you understand? We both know you can't go in with a working portkey, and I don't like that at all.” 

“I hear you,” Sirius exhales, splaying his hands on the table. “Loud and clear, Moony. Us over everything else.” 

“I know Lily told you that the only way to keep Harry safe was to figure out what a horcrux is,” Moony says, reaching out to place a hand over his gently. “We're not Lily, we'll never be as brilliant as she was, but we'll finish the job for her. She was something else, yeah, but we’re not too shabby ourselves, Padfoot.”

“We have to,” Sirius replies, jaw clenching ever so slightly. “Or else it'll all be for nothing, and I can't let that happen.” 

Remus pats his hand again, staying quiet. 

Which leaves Sirius standing at Number Twelve, Grimmauld Place for a meeting with his grandfather.  

Your mother is dead. We have much to discuss. Arrive at 12 o'clock Wednesday, and do not be late. 

-Arcturus Sirius Black (III), Head of the Ancient and Noble House of Black 

Fingering the letter - if it can be called that - nervously, he makes his way up the front steps and flinches when the door creaks open without warning. When he steps inside, it’s somehow much better and worse than he expected. Better than the dust-filled, nasty and withered old house it was when he offered it to the Order, worse than the half-clean done up version they’d made of it that was full of people coming in and out. People he actually gave a damn about. Appearances aside, he doesn't feel the instinctive dread and anger that swallowed him at thirty-five - the walls don't feel as if they cage him in, whispering of all the worst things in the world and how they were done to him - that they made him like them, he'd never escape his blood, never escape his past, that certainly no one else would ever be allowed to forget it. The house fills him with disgust, with anger, and with a glad vehemence that it's not his life anymore…but it does not sink its venomous claws into him and send pure terror into his veins anymore. 

It's been six years out of Azkaban and never, but there's still new ways Sirius learns it changed him. He lived, he breathed, he even smiled and joked, but being sent from one prison to another damaged him more than he ever could have understood. Never might have noticed, even, if he hadn’t been trying so bloody hard to be a normal person for Harry without decades of baggage. It's rather surprising he had the mind to apologize for it at all, some days. Only when the two of them were alone, obviously, because Salazar forbid he ever admit to anyone other than his godson that he wasn't perfectly alright for fear of them putting even more pressure on him. Old Moony would be so pleased with him if he could see the way Sirius has grown and healed, the sap. 

Buoyed by these realizations, Sirius puffs his chest and struts in confidently. Grimmauld Place is still one of the darkest and most evil houses in all the world, but Sirius is no longer stuck in dark and evil nightmares of his own, which makes all the difference. The foyer hasn't changed much, though his mother's portrait is thankfully blocked by newer, cleaner curtains. Sighing, he grimaces at the house-elf heads on his way upstairs to find his grandfather’s study, which remained off-limits for the majority of his childhood. 

The door is closed and does not open upon sensing his presence. Rolling his eyes, Sirius raps on the door with his knuckles. A scoff escapes when he hears a thin, raspy, “Enter.” 

The study is in significantly better shape than the rest of the house, probably because Kreacher’s an immortal pest who still has the honor of serving a respectable pureblood git. There's a fire crackling away by the wall, and the low table set for the occasional guest is laden with tea and biscuits. His grandfather sits behind his desk, his body haloed from the large windows letting in sun behind him. 

“Hello, Sirius,” he says, beady eyes staring at him from under thick, unkempt brows. “It has been some time.” 

Transfiguring a chair for himself out of a teacup instead of sitting by the fireplace in a casual attempt to shift their positions of power, Sirius settles in as comfortably as he can. 

“Grandfather,” he greets. He meets the stare evenly, choosing to stay silent. He's not the one that asked for this meeting, and he certainly won't show any weakness if he wants to come out the winner. 

“As you now know,” Arcturus says finally, breaking the silence, “your mother has passed away from illness. While there are other members of the family who carry the bloodline, you and I are the last of our name. I am not arrogant enough to believe myself capable of bearing more heirs, and the House of Black cannot fall.” 

He pauses, likely expecting some kind of scathing remark or immediate refusal, and raises a brow when nothing of the sort occurs. Sirius only floats another teacup over and adds a few cubes of sugar, waiting expectantly for him to continue. It might be years since he's ever willingly played this game, but he knows how the rules work. 

“Your mother wished to disown you,” Grandfather says, his thin lips growing ever thinner. “I did not agree with her decision. Regulus was made heir after your… abscondment, but I was certain that he would not survive for much longer.” 

That catches his attention, though he scolds himself internally his suddenly stiff hands make Arcturus’ eyes gain a steely glint. 

The old man spends a moment to think of the best way to describe Sirius’ brother, and decides on, “He was not cut of the same cloth as you, Regulus. You may not agree with our beliefs or honor our traditions as he did, but you are rather more determined, shall we say, to make something of yourself whereas he was content to simply do as told. At least for the majority of his life. For example, it did not surprise me that you were capable of defeating Bellatrix despite her immense talent in the dark arts. It was more surprising to find out the way in which you did so, given that you were adamant about throwing away everything that was given to you as a child. But I digress. All this is to say that you were burned off the family tree and disowned by the power invested in your father as the previous Head of House, an act that I now have the power to undo.” 

Sirius very pointedly does not linger on the memory of his younger brother, his jaw aching with the effort it takes to loosen up. He isn't here for Regulus or Bellatrix, and he most assuredly won't be talking about either with Grandfather. Nothing good lies down that path, and he needs to remain in control of his already precarious emotions. There's no need to go about making things worse by flying off the handle. 

“And now that everyone else is gone, you need someone to declare the official Heir so they can continue the precious family line,” Sirius summarizes, unimpressed.

He'd guessed as much before coming here. Can’t they hurry this all along? While his grandfather had left him most of the family possessions after passing away last round, he was also likely under the impression that Sirius was a backstabbing traitor that worked as a spy for their precious Dark Lord. He was still disowned and written out of any inheritance that required specific approval, so it must not have meant much for Arcturus either. There's no pretending in this round that his grandson is anything but a staunch blood traitor who possibly helped eliminate the man that promised them their perfect world. Sirius might need access to the Black family archives to solve his problems, but he certainly won't be letting his grandfather know that - the unfortunate thing is that he's come at all, which means Arcturus knows he wants something. The trick to the game is hiding what it is until he can guarantee he gets it, which is the bit Sirius has always been shite at. 

“Perhaps,” Grandfather allows, “but I require something of you before reinstating you as my heir.” 

“Oh, you require something, do you? Despite the fact that you need me more than I need you?” Sirius sneers, liquid sloshing over the rim as he sets the teacup down. 

“Indeed, I do,” Grandfather replies calmly, but Sirius has lived in this family for far too long to not notice the way his eyes go tight, lips pursing in a cold smile. There's something big here, bigger than the both of them. “While I am well aware you do not care for the would-be wealth of magic and means at your disposal should you become my heir, I am not fool enough to think that you didn't care for Regulus - and my requirement involves understanding the true circumstances of his death.” 

He might as well have been struck by lightning, the way every nerve in his body begins to throb and pulse with a frenetic energy. Blood rushes to his ears, and he's distantly aware that his lips are curling back in a snarl. Grandfather's smile widens, and Sirius knows he's been had. Fuck. 

“If you haven't already figured that out, what makes you think I can change that?” Sirius bites out, forcibly relaxing his grip around the arm rests. He can't do this again - can't fall into this hole again. Can't go from living it to forgetting it to living it again, like some kind of miserable wretch stuck in circles. This is perhaps the one kindness Azkaban ever gave him, and he would like to keep from prodding the gift horse in the mouth. 

“You rather noticeably did not live here nor spend time in the company of your family since being disowned,” Grandfather says with a dismissive wave. “But I have lived here since your father fell ill and was thus present in the month before Regulus disappeared. In those days, he was…rather indisposed. He began frantically combing through all varieties of books and articles, holed up in his room for days at a time. As heir, he had near complete access to the family archives, and I noticed a distinct lack of tomes that contained details of only the darkest, most esoteric of magics. He claimed it was research for the Dark Lord when pressed, so your mother chose to believe him. It was said that he offered a great service to the Dark Lord, who was pleased with him. Bellatrix herself mentioned that he was in good standing before rushing to expand upon the favour the Dark Lord bestowed upon her as reward, some object of astounding value. It was quite the dinner.” 

Pausing, he looks away from Sirius to observe the fire on the far wall. And for all that he swore he wasn't going to broach this subject with a ten meter wand, Sirius finds himself hanging off his grandfather's words, desperate to understand a mystery he was never able to solve in all the years he's lived. Because his grandfather was right, the wanker - he did fucking care for Regulus, as much as he wishes he didn't. Life would be so much easier if it wasn't true. 

“Though he tried his utmost to hide the details from us,” Arcturus says slowly, delicately, “I believe that this supposed task for the Dark Lord was not, in fact, to aid him in his endeavors. What it was in reality, I cannot know, because he simply left the house one day and did not return. We received no letters, no notice, no explanation, and could only bear witness to his death being added onto the family tree. But - and it is perhaps the only way we shall ever know the truth - I do know that he held Kreacher in great confidence, who in turn adored him. Based on the events just before and just after his disappearance, I can safely assume that Kreacher was heavily involved. Your mother demanded answers from him to no avail. Upon observation of his behavior and his secretive muttering, I have come to the understanding that Regulus placed distinct orders not to reveal the circumstances behind his actions or his death on Kreacher. Whether because he was afraid or ashamed, I cannot say. My best guess was formed upon the discovery that one of the books he withdrew from the archives was neither returned nor ever found within the house, likely because he destroyed it. Regulus may not have been the heir I desired, but make no mistake: I do not forgive slights against my family easily, nor do I forget. A Dark Lord he may be, but he is not of equal status to the last scions of the Ancient and Noble House of Black.” 

Sirius is shaking. He knows he is, but he can't stop it, nor can he stop his heart from climbing into his throat and pressing down the airways allowing him to breathe. The things he’s hearing - the things being suggested to him right now are terrible, terrible things, because it's almost as if Grandfather is suggesting that Regulus was killed for knowing something he shouldn't have. About Voldemort. Is this what his Harry meant, when he said that there was a head start here? That he should look for Kreacher and Regulus? Sirius wants to know so badly that his bones ache with longing, but he's terribly afraid of the answer. 

Most people don't survive Azkaban. The ones that do don't come back the same, everyone knows that. Even Sirius, who knew he was innocent and had the boon of an Animagus form to protect him from the brunt of it, did not come out unscathed. There were a great many things he had to let go of in order to survive; one of those was his baby brother. Because Dementors affect your mind, they affect your soul, and thus you can only lose pieces of yourself to them little by little in the hopes of escaping with something at all. They come for your happiest memories, your most cherished ones. They drain the color out of them, make them flavorless and dull, and then suck out all the attachment you had to those memories so that you cannot even know they were ever part of you. Some memories stay somewhat intact but just out of touch, while others disintegrate into the vaguest of notions that get brushed under the rest of your thoughts. Sirius had known that he was going to lose his joy to the Dementors. He'd just wanted to hold onto the most important ones, to keep them in mind a little longer before they faded away and left him all alone in his prison cell. 

Grimmauld Place was a dark, wicked house filled with equally wicked people, but there were still good memories buried there. They were not buried in the walls, or the kitchen, or his bedroom, or even in a thing at all: they were buried in a person. A small slip of a person with curly hair, grey eyes, and an odd fondness for house elves. Sirius couldn't bear the distortion or disappearance of memories containing James and Lily, so he gave up the ones he had with Regulus. Because Regulus was dead, and a Death Eater, and Sirius had wished for so long that he could stop caring about a boy who wasn't worth the pain it caused. 

Love was not commonly found in the Noble and Most Ancient House of Black. It was in fact discouraged, strangled, and shoved in shadowy corners never to see the light of day, for love is weakness, and Blacks are never weak. That nonsense is for mudbloods and blood traitors, his mother used to say. No, it was much more important to be proud, noble wizards that stood above the rest and earned their respect. Family was always number one, but not because they believed in paltry ideas of affection and love. Family was important because the rest of the world could not compare to the sacred blood flowing through their veins, and they couldn't let it die out. 

But despite their best efforts to make his life miserable, Sirius found things that made him happy. He was born to break rules, and he learned to love his brother despite their upbringing. He loved Regulus for his soft cheeks and chubby hands, for the way he cried for Sirius, for the way he was simply always there. Then Regulus grew, and Sirius learned to love him for his tiny smiles, his thrill at secret pleasures like jumping on the bed, his screwed up face when he ate fish because he hated it. Regulus kept growing, and Sirius kept loving, and he thought that they were the only two in the entire world that had any sense because the only world he knew was one full of Blacks. All he knew was mother, father, Grandfather Arcturus, Uncle Cygnus, Aunt Druella, Uncle Alphard, Bella, Andy, Cissy. And Reggie. Always Reggie. No one else was ever deemed good enough to take part in the intimate family gatherings. 

It need not be said that the adults were as horrible as the house that held them, each one ugly and warped souls that could not know how to love and support a child if their pedigree depended upon it. The only decent one who didn't make Sirius wish to deafen his ears was Uncle Alphard, who stopped coming by long before Hogwarts began and remained only in vague memories. Bella was great fun until Sirius learned that her mischief was based on the sole desire to extract pain from her victims, and not at all for anything as simple as an easy laugh. He'd been nearly six, and it wasn't a lesson he ever forgot. Andy wasn't bad at all, but she was quiet and solemn and rarely smiled. Then again, she didn't have much to smile for. Regardless, she was older and could not accompany him often, nor for long stretches of time, because she had Cissy to look after. Cissy, who was no fun at all with her prissy disposition and the constant need to remind him of all the rules he wasn't following. She had her moments, but she would choose Bella and Andy over Sirius any day, and he couldn't stand her poor taste. 

It was Reggie that stayed by his side. Reggie who giggled at his muttered quips, who played with him, who joined in his daydreams of the great big world that waited outside for them. Reggie, who was terrified of their parents and not being a proper son, but learned to love Sirius in a way that none of the others had. It might not have been love the likes of which Sirius understood, but it was love all the same. 

But Reggie became Regulus, who began to choose Sirius less and less as he strived to become the perfect son. He did not laugh, did not accompany him, and did not indulge in dreams any longer. Regulus was a proper Black that believed in blood purity, the kind that warned Sirius that he would live a miserable life with the precious blood traitors and mudbloods he abandoned his family for. Regulus did not run away with him. Regulus became a Death Eater. And then Regulus died. 

And even though he hated himself for still loving someone that stood against everything he believed in, Sirius mourned. He hated Regulus for not questioning what they were taught, but could not stop the grief that wracked him. He has no struggle abandoning all good memories and love in the face of betrayal, as evidenced by his overwhelming hatred for Pettigrew. It's more that Reggie was the first person Sirius ever loved, and likely the first to ever love him back. Even if wasn't for long, not many things had gone right in his life back then. He'd wanted at least one part of his rotten childhood to be worth something. Regulus didn't deign to grant this wish, transforming into the pureblood Black he was born to be. He couldn't forget the hesitant, unsure, weak little brother who clung to him with awe, but he couldn't forgive the man that willingly joined the Death Eaters and believed in blood supremacy simply because he was told to. Peter had known and chosen otherwise. Regulus had never attempted to know anything but what he was told. Both pathetic, both cowards, both weak, and yet Sirius couldn't help but consider them different. 

Perhaps because Regulus died in regret and fear while running away from Voldemort while Peter chose in fear and regret to run towards a bloodthirsty maniac. Regulus' last act was everything that Sirius had hoped for as a young boy whereas Peter's was his greatest fear. 

Sirius didn't even have the luxury of being told in person, forced to find out through his batty mother when she attacked him in public out of the sincere conviction that he'd done it. As if he was like them, cruel and heartless. As if he could have ever moved past shouts and mild curses, convincing himself that it was because he was a better person and not because of any notions of long-gone brotherhood. Sirius had a brother in James, and that was enough. He couldn't save what remained of Reggie-turned-Regulus, but he could save what did of Prongs. 

So he gave Reggie to the Dementors and only remembered Regulus, who had no happy memories attached to him. 

But life is a funny, inexplicable thing, because Sirius fed his baby brother to Dementors in Azkaban only to wake up in 1981 without ever being locked up; he was twenty, hale and whole, as were his memories. Full color, high definition, tinged with all sorts of emotions. Desperate not to face them even after he was deliberately reminded, he shoved aside all memories of those with the name Black in a dusty corner of his record shop and moved onto better, brighter things: being a free man, living with his godson, figuring out a way to kill Voldemort. Later, later, it'll be taken care of later. That’s come back to bite him in the arse as most things do. Running away from your problems seems a rubbish way of handling things, now that he thinks of it. Hasn't solved a single thing ever.  

Grandfather meets his trembling gaze and sighs, looking all eighty-four of his years. 

“If he will not speak of it to a member of the family, then I can only command him to speak of it to someone that isn't.” 

“Do it,” Sirius whispers. His fingers dig into the fabric of his chair with a sound like nails on a chalkboard. “Do it right now.” 

Miracle of miracles, he nods without mentioning the visible lack of composure Sirius displays and obeys. “Kreacher!” 

“Oh, my! Nasty blood traitors, it is, the wretched boy that broke Mistress’ heart, SHAME on the Ancient and Noble House of Black!” Kreacher shrieks immediately upon seeing Sirius, falling silent only when Arcturus snaps his fingers impatiently. 

“You know details of Regulus’ final moments and the so-called task given by the Dark Lord,” Arcturus barks, lacing his fingers together over the desk. “You have been told not to speak of anything to the family. We have here a man that is no longer legally or socially a member of the family. You will tell him everything you know, and you will do so at once without punishing yourself.” 

Kreacher’s eyes bulge out dangerously, his quiet muttering ceasing in favour of a loud shriek. Skinny hands scrabble at his throat, then tear at his ears, signifying his desire to obey orders from his current master warring with a previous order to a more dear, previous one. For a long moment, the study is only filled with the sound of an ancient house elf struggling to speak, and then he begins to tell them a scattered, dreadful story. Damp, dark caves. Terrible green potions. A locket, a lake filled with Inferi. Research, endless research. An answer that brought about a loop in circumstances. 

He tells them Master Regulus died in an effort to thwart the Dark Lord, his body drowning in a lake of greedy Inferi. Kreacher was given a task and has failed, he's failed, Master Regulus would be so disappointed- 

“A horcrux?” Grandfather repeats, a terrible gloom hanging over him. “You're certain he called it a horcrux?” 

Sirius is still adrift in a sea of inky, broiling thoughts. He hears the words distantly, as if they're traveling to him through a water-logged barrier, and he attempts to brave the newest wave of emotion so he can listen to them. This is important, he reminds himself. Regulus was always Reggie, he was just lost but he's dead but Harry isn't, you have to listen. 

“Kreacher is not understanding what it is,” the house elf shakes his head, furious to be addressed but dismayed at his own uselessness. “Kreacher is only knowing it is nasty, dark magic, cannot be destroyed. It is belonging to the Master's master, and will not open! Tried and tried, I have, but Kreacher is a bad house elf, Kreacher could not open the locket and could not destroy it for Master Regulus, my poor Master, AAH!” 

His teacup clatters off the desk and shatters on the floor. Books begin falling out of the bookshelf behind the desk with loud thumps, and the wood underneath them creaks with warning. The entire room has been vibrating with magic since Kreacher began the story, but it is not Sirius alone at fault here. 

“Of all the revolting, deranged things to do,” Grandfather hisses, his features punched with rage and visceral disgust. “A horcrux! And he thinks himself MASTER of MY family?!” 

He sweeps everything off his desk in his anger, panting heavily as his weak body suffers for the action. 

“You know what it is?” Sirius asks. His tongue feels like lead in his mouth, and everything tastes of ashes. Four years he's waited for this answer, and it feels like a blade hanging on his neck. 

“Tis only the most abominable and revolting object in creation,” Grandfather sneers, his moustache wet with spittle. “An object made by performing acts such that the world and magic itself no longer condone your natural existence, separating your soul into pieces where one can be put into a container. A disturbed piece of magic that grants you so-called immortality by virtue of the fact that you cannot truly die if another piece of your soul remains in this plane, leaving you an incomplete existence capable of neither living nor dying! Eridanus Black, your four-times great uncle, was struck off the family tree for merely attempting to make one, and his name was furthermore banned from appearing in any future generations. My own grandfather was witness to the debacle in his youth and wrote of it in great detail among the journals left to my father, which were then passed onto me. Your father did not enjoy deciphering the text, foolish boy that he was, and only ever focused on the spells and rituals it could directly offer him. As if the wisdom and experience of one's ancestors could ever be less valuable!” 

“Then…as long as this horcrux exists,” Sirius swallows, barely able to form the words, “Voldemort can't die? He’ll just keep…surviving everything we throw at him?” 

“Yes,” Arcturus says, gritting his teeth. “I should have suspected, given your claims that he survived a reflected Killing Curse. I had thought - no matter. It is clear to me what must be done, now.” 

Grandfather begins pacing back and forth with quiet mutters, fury lending his aged body strength. Kreacher continues to wail and throws himself to the floor. A silver-white stag appears in his mind's eye, repeating a phrase he's fretted over for years. 

Even if I'm a horcrux, even if I've got to die again…Even if I'm a horcrux, even if I've got to die again…

Three things happen as a devastating realization sweeps over Sirius Black: something fragile in his head snaps, his magic reacts accordingly, and Grimmauld Place explodes. 

The entire house groans under the weight of his distress, magic sweeping over every inch and corner in a rush to undo that which has already been done. The chair returns to being a teacup, unseating him. Wooden floorboards splinter beneath their feet, walls are torn open as furniture smashes into them, glass flies through the air as every window and chandelier in Grimmauld Place shatters into thousands of pieces. House elf heads clatter down one by one, and Walburga Black's portrait falls with them in an unholy shriek. Dust drifts from the ceiling, coating the three living beings inside with a fine layer as the chaos settles down. 

Sprawled onto the floor with glass dug into his skin, Arcturus Black lowers his arms to stare at his grandson with wide eyes. 

Sirius lets out a shuddering, thin breath, and transforms into Padfoot to make the weight of his devastation more bearable. The world blurs into quiet shades of yellows, blues, and greys; his layers of grief and anger and sorrow and frustration and horror melt into a single, sharp pain that leaves him whimpering, but does not cripple him. Padfoot whines and sniffles and snuffles, but tears do not escape his eyes for Padfoot is but a dog - and dogs cannot cry. 

Padfoot is blissfully simple: he processes emotions in a respectable, linear manner, and does not feel like dying when he thinks of The Boy He Loved or The Boy He Loves. He is sad in the way that you are when you've had a rotten day, not in the way that makes the world come crashing down around you. He is angry, but only enough to tear something else apart and not himself. He is worried, but cannot panic himself into choking out his lungs as he might have when human. Padfoot can handle the information Sirius is given without immediately falling into extreme acts of senseless magic, and is currently no danger to anyone but perhaps Lord Voldemort should he deign to appear in the ruins of Grimmauld Place. 

But Padfoot is still Sirius, and Sirius is Padfoot. Processing feelings in different ways as they do does not prevent the emotions from being had, nor does it allow them to disappear. The planet still turns on its axis, the sun hangs bright in the sky, tomorrow will still arrive, and Harry Potter will remain a horcrux. 

Grandfather has risen from the floor and given his orders to a bedraggled Kreacher, free to turn his attention to Padfoot. He smells of whiskey and mothballs, a horrid combination that makes the dog’s nose wrinkle. 

“Well,” Grandfather says as he looms above, “that was…fascinating. Clearly I have underestimated you in the past. You always were rather emotional, but I never suspected you capable of becoming an Animagus. Nor unleashing such powerful accidental magic.” 

He doesn't know the bloody half of it. 

“I understand that any attempts to communicate with you currently will bear no fruit,” Grandfather continues, face pale and drawn from the events just before. “We shall reconvene at a later date to discuss our plans moving forward. Welcome back to the Ancient and Noble House of Black, boy.” 

When Padfoot only snuffles into his paws and lies there, Grandfather rolls his eyes in derision.

“For Merlin's sake,” he says, pulling out his wand to cast a complex rendition of the Cheering Charm. “Off with you, then.” 

Ears perking up, Padfoot rises to his feet and barks at the old man before leaping over the broken stairs. When he makes it to the bottom floor and spots the portrait still screaming off the top of her inanimate lungs, a tail wags. Raising a hind leg to let out a yellow stream of liquid all over the portrait, Padfoot lets out a pleased whuff and runs out the front door with hearty satisfaction. Pausing in the streets and wondering how to get home, he strolls down the sidewalk thoughtfully. To run would take days, and there is no one here to transport him there. The smart thing to do is become human, of course, but Padfoot hesitates. There's a very good reason not to become human again, but the warm sunlight and delight jumping about his muscles makes it very hard to recall what, exactly, it is. With a shake of his black fur, Padfoot transforms into Sirius, who smiles. Not so bad an idea after all, eh? 

“Time to give Moony the good news!” 

With a twirl and a click of his heels, he Apparates back home. 

“Sirius!” Having been waiting by the window for him to return, Remus rushes over to cast a careful eye from top to bottom. “You look awful! What could you have possibly done to end up like this?” 

Harry is off at the Weasleys for the day just in case Sirius was in no shape to be good company after the awkward reunion. Seeing Padfoot in this state would have definitely raised too many questions, so it's already proving a good idea. Remus waves his wand in the air to clean off the dust, vanishing tinkling shards of glass and healing the small cuts not covered by robes. 

“Moony, you'll never believe it!” Sirius exclaims, grabbing him by the shoulders. “I did it, I've found out what a horcrux is!” 

“You have?” Remus asks, immediately snapping hazel eyes up to meet his gaze. “How did you - you can't possibly have stormed through the house and fought with the man until you got an answer?!” 

“No, of course not. Grandfather told me,” Sirius says dismissively. “Horcruxes, Remus! They're dark, dark magic, terrible stuff. Too terrible for my family even, it's proper evil. Never thought I'd ever be able to say that, hah. A horcrux is a piece of someone's soul that gets stored into an object after a ritual - keeps them alive even if they die, because they've still got a bit of soul here somewhere other than their body, yeah? So's long as the horcrux is around, the bloke that made one can just keep coming back. That's why old Voldy survived the backlash from Lily’s magic! And, and, Regulus didn't die a Death Eater, he betrayed Voldemort to get rid of a horcrux! I mean it didn't work, obviously, but it was a solid effort. My baby brother, figuring it out all on his own. Can you believe it?!” 

“What?” Remus croaks, his face having drained of blood halfway through the explanation. He looks as if he's just gotten a bludger to the head, staggering on his feet. 

A tad dramatic, really. Look at all the fantastic news he's brought for Moony! Regulus was always Reggie, they know how to take down Voldemort, they've got their hands on his horcrux - oh, wait. He forgot the other bit. 

“Oh, and Harry’s a horcrux,” Sirius adds helpfully, bouncing on his heels with a wide grin. “Dunno how that happened, but we'll have to work out that funny little thing if we want to get rid of Voldy.” 

“Sirius, w-what - this doesn't make any sense, how can you…” Remus tears away from his grasp with a nauseated gasp, chest heaving as he tamps down the combination of rage and horror. “How can you say this while smiling-?!” 

Remus freezes when he looks at friend, really looks at him. At the jittery hands, the minute clench of his jaw, the unnaturally stiff spread of his lips, the pupils blown wide-open with so little of his grey irises left behind. All the classic signs of mood-altering magic.  

“Oh god,” Remus whispers, pity welling up at the sight before him. “A Cheering Charm? A potion? What was it?” 

“A Cheering Charm,” Sirius says, still bouncing on his feet. “The version that makes you loopy when you put too much into it, not the one that gives you cramps from the giggles. Dear old Grandfather couldn't get me off the floor, you know! Had to pull out the wand to be rid of me. I didn't even know anyone in the family knew the meaning of cheer, honestly. It's damn good work, if I say so myself. I don't think I would have ever transformed back from Padfoot without it and made it home. Imagine: our Harry, a horcrux. Voldemort lives so long as he does!” 

A weary, calloused hand comes up to cover Moony's face. Tears are falling down his face so fast they're like drops in a storm, endlessly rushing down in sluices. He makes a horrid, broken sound that might not be possible if he were only human and not werewolf, which Sirius feels rather fitting for the current circumstances. He supposes he should undo the Cheering Charm, but the overwhelming deluge of emotions just lingering at the back of his mind scare Sirius off enough to let the spell wear off on its own. Without the magic keeping him together in a spiteful bubble of gaiety, he'd never be able to finish explaining or do anything useful. 

“You know,” Sirius muses, a thought suddenly occurring to him, “I might've never been able to get the words out if it wasn't for this Cheering Charm business. Makes you wonder what else might be easier, eh?” 

Moony grows frighteningly still, his last sob bitten off with a hiccup. A foreboding air settles between them, raising the hairs on the werewolf's entire body. 

“Might as well sit down for this one,” Sirius says brightly, ushering him onto the sofa in slow, stumbling shoves. “It's a right mindfuck, and I suppose now's as good a time as any before I remember what it feels like to be a real human again.” 

He plops down on the fluffy, high-backed chair across the sofa and beams. 

“The funny thing, you see, is that Lily never told me a bloody word about horcruxes. The patronus I got wasn't from Lily at all - it was from Harry. Now, bear with me here while I explain, but essentially we were all dead and he had the ability to send someone back in time…” 

It's not a very good explanation, much less a good story, so it makes sense that Remus doesn't take it well. At all. Sirius adds details after the fact, covering parts he's forgotten while rambling, and Remus just sits there on the sofa with a defeated, lost expression. Creamy oak legs snap to send the kitchen table careening to the left, and Sirius nods sympathetically. 

“That's about how I felt,” he commiserates with a pat on the hand. 

Remus cries, paces, tears his hair out of his scalp, shouts at Sirius, shouts at the wall. He switches up between anger, fear, and denial, but somewhere between the idea that Sirius has finally fallen victim to the Black family madness and the claim that he's been manipulated by some unknown variable with despicable, mysterious goals, he looks back at the last of his best friends and crumples to the floor. Most of it adds up: the way Sirius arrived back home covered in mess, the Cheering Charm, the claims about Voldemort achieving a level of magic that makes him immortal. The parts about having lived and died and come back are entirely unreasonable, of course, but there are reasonable explanations for them: a sudden family inheritance! Maybe the ability of a Seer or Clairvoyant to understand as of yet hidden truths, a necromantic ability to communicate with the dead, something magical combined with a fair sprinkle of madness as a side-effect. But at the very least, a handful of things remain true regardless of what questions lie behind their source. 

Voldemort is using horcruxes to tether himself to life. He will come back. Harry is one of those horcruxes. As long as Harry is a horcrux or - or alive, they can never be rid of Voldemort. 

Remus gives in and chucks up on the nearest wall before wiping his mouth with a shudder. 

“Splendid timing, old boy,” Sirius says, still sat in his chair. “Now that that's over, you can walk me through mine. The charm's wearing off.” 

Remus summons just enough coherency to send a message to Molly that Harry'll have to stay the night at the Burrow - Auror business, wouldn't do for the little one to be underfoot - and summon every last bottle of alcohol in the house before all hell breaks loose. 

The next sixteen hours of their lives are beyond comprehension. A cloak of despair settles over their afternoon and remains suffocatingly close over the course of the night. The alcohol burns down their throats and in their bellies, but never manages to burn out the thoughts they find themselves drowning in. By the time the sun finds itself in a comfortable position up high, the two are the barest definition of human. Stringy, greased hair and bruised under eyes, blue-ish tinges to their lips, oddly hollow cheeks. Lost boys in an odd world, wondering where it all began to go wrong. Perhaps if one were to look at them from a certain angle, with the correct lighting and a discerning eye, they may proclaim the two wretched creatures on the floor as men. Fortunately, there is no one in attendance to witness their unkempt, half-dead appearances, nor is there anyone to judge them for falling so heavily into a drink. They're often held to rather high standards, these two:  for being smart young men with a respectable number of accomplishments in school, in war, and even in the new parental struggle they've found themselves in. Strong chaps, them, they'll make something great of themselves one day. 

Few remember how terribly young they are. Only twenty-five, you see, eight years past the majority but not old enough to be considered grown men the way they pretend to be. Twenty-five and fighting every day to do the right thing, be the right person, carry on with pride and kindness and courage the way they've been asked to, because the world is cold without loved ones but even colder when you don't make a place to warm yourself. Too young to be so old and too old to be young as they should. Too many burdens and not enough strength to bear all of them. 

As he watches the sun lift over the window where he's curled up on his side, Sirius wonders what James and Lily would do. How would they have taken this news? Would they know how to fix this? Wouldn't everyone have been better off if it was one of them that came back instead, with all the watching and caring they did beyond death while Sirius locked himself up in self-hatred? 

But then he remembers Harry. His Harry, saying that he was going to be okay, he'll be with James and Lily. Sirius doesn't deserve to take that from them. They should always have been together, not torn apart by war and death. They made the right choice, they were just too confident in him. They thought he'd do well enough with the hints Harry gave, evidently. It’s not their fault he's too bloody incompetent to catch up. 

He wants to wallow in the loathing and grief for a while yet, but his brain hasn't caught the message. No, it remembers his Harry and cannot stop remembering, like a loom that's weaving together voices and images thread by thread. Click, clack. A spool of red thread whittles past his mind’s eye. Push, collect, spool, weave. 

Does it hurt? I knew it had to be you. Even if I'm a horcrux, even if I die and don't get a choice to come back again, it'll all be worth it. You'll come, won't you? He needs you. Remember that, alright? You and me against the world, everything we ever wanted. Dumbledore says there's a prophecy about someone who can defeat Voldemort, it might be one of us. We have to go into hiding. Goodbye, and good luck. I'll be okay, I promise. And if you’re plain lost because everything’s gone to shite, you do the mad thing, ask for help. Believe it or not, some folks might give it to you. Even if I die and don't get a choice to come back again. I knew it had to be you. Love you, Padfoot. It'll be all worth it. 

“Worth it,” Sirius mutters under his breath, bloodshot eyes slowly opening again. “It has to be…worth it.” 

Slowly uncurling his knees and arms with exhausted bones that complain loudly, Sirius turns himself over on his back and splays spread across the floor. 

“Help,” he announces, voice dry and raspy. The alcohol? Lack of sleep. The shouting. All of the above, likely. “We need…help.” 

Remus is silent, but there's a slight shift of fabric. Awake, then. Just miserable. He’s not alone in that. How come Sirius is the reasonable one coming up with proper ideas on how to handle this, eh? His job is to sow chaos and charm folks out of their wit, not be the emotionally adjusted critical thinker. 

“Not Albus,” Sirius continues weakly, though he repeats himself as loud as he can when Remus makes a soft noise of anger. “Not Albus! Or do you trust him to put Harry over everyone else? The man who has some bloody prophecy that probably tells him our kid-” 

A hacked up cough, lungs rattling. 

“-our kid, dammit, mine and yours and James and Lily's, has to kill Voldemort by himself? As if he's not the bastard that took down Grindelwald, making it some kid's fight instead.” 

There's a tiny, hurt whine, as if it hadn't occurred to Remus that there was a fucking Seer who predicted Voldemort's downfall would be Harry Potter. A Seer who's prophecy has been deliberately kept from them and Harry's parents even in the most dire of circumstances when not even the Supreme Mugwump has the right to be making such decisions on their or his behalf. 

“Not Albus,” Remus agrees, throat all scratched up. “I'm not - I won't let that happen. I can't. Not when…not when James and Lily died to keep him safe.” 

They've reached an accord, then. 

“So,” Sirius says. “Help. With horcruxes. Frank and Alice?” 

He hadn't felt safe telling them anything until he knew what a horcrux was, given that it seemed intrinsically related to Harry's safety, but they'll have to know now. They need more able hands, need more help researching, need more people who think killing Harry and killing Voldemort are separate ideas. Can't enlist help in defeating Voldemort without telling them something this important, and they need the help. They're not as smart as Dumbledore, not as powerful, not as resourceful, and not as experienced, but they're a damn sight more invested in keeping Harry alive and happy than Sirius can say for Albus. They wouldn't stand down and let Neville sacrifice himself to end this war if he was the prophesized downfall, and he trusts that they would feel the same about Harry. Albus Dumbledore is all about the Greater Good; one person versus thousands is hardly a choice for him. It's perhaps the one compliment his family had ever given the Headmaster back when rumors of his relationship with Grindelwald circled round again. 

He can bloody well shove his Greater Fucking Good up his arse. Chosen One or not, Harry James Potter will always be Sirius’ number one priority. The Order, Dumbledore, the public, and even fucking destiny keep shoving him down for their own selfish reasons - like he's not Harry, the kid who thinks of himself as Just Harry, the kid who never had a safe place, a safe home, a good life, or even a fucking long life. Sirius’ Harry. The darling baby boy that James and Lily only ever wanted to survive the war, happy and healthy. 

He won't give them the ability to do that anymore. He'll force the world to put Harry first whether they like it or not. And if Remus isn't with him on this, then he's against Sirius, simple as that. Sirius Black didn't come back from the dead only to watch Harry become a martyr with his own fucking eyes. 

“...Frank and Alice,” Remus says quietly, chin dipping in a nod from his section of the floor. “God. What are we going to do, Padfoot?” 

“We're gonna take out the horcrux in the sprog, destroy them all, and kill Voldemort,” Sirius says like it's obvious. “And then we're gonna piss on the tosser's body for good measure.” 

Remus barks a laugh that sounds more of a sob, but it'll do. “Right. Simple.” 

“It's us or Harry,” Sirius tells him, a sluggish pulse of determination sliding through his chest. “You've got to make that choice now or leave.” 

“Us,” Moony chooses without hesitation. “I mean, we'll do it, not - not him.” 

Good. He can stay. Honestly, Sirius wouldn't have known how to do this without Remus, but he'd have figured it out if he had to. 

Sirius will have to return to Grimmauld eventually and finish speaking with Grandfather. Reinstatement as heir aside, there's the horcrux and the fact that his grandfather knows more about them than anyone or anything else they've found, which means he'll be necessary in the process of destroying them - or removing one from a container, however that works. Transferring from one container to another, maybe? Regardless, it seems his family's obsession with the dark arts will finally bring some good into the world for once. Delightful. And…if he can, difficult as it is, Sirius wants to bring back Reggie's body. The idea of his baby brother rotting in a lake of Inferi, all alone, without a proper burial or memorial…he wants to fix that. They'll have to find a proper blood ritual and use complicated magic to do it, but Sirius is okay with nearly anything at this point. If dark magic gets rid of dark magic, who is he to spit on it? Bellatrix can attest to his willingness to use it on occasion, and Reggie is far more important than Bellatrix ever could be. 

Wait. Bellatrix. Horcruxes. Items of dark magic that contain a piece of Voldemort's soul, capable of resurrecting him by possessing someone else. Entrusted to his most important, devoted followers. Nearly impossible to destroy. Harry and Ginny and Lucius buggering Malfoy. The Chamber of Secrets. 

“Bellatrix,” Sirius croaks, sitting up so fast that his head spins. “Fuck, she - she was given a reward, right after the cave. A great honour, some fucking nonsense-” 

Taking deep breaths, Sirius runs his nails over his scalp to feel something that isn't broiling nausea or the throbbing hangover. 

“There's another horcrux,” he says as quickly as he can, his wrecked brain desperately trying to put the pieces together. “Harry told me - there was a book that possessed Ginny Weasley in his second year. Nearly killed her by draining her life and magic, he thought something similar might be happening to him but it wasn't. It was supposed to help revive Voldemort, some kind of plan set in motion through Lucius Malfoy, but Moony…the book was indestructible. Burning, wetting, tearing, spells - nothing worked on it. He had to destroy it using a basilisk fang. If he was just handing them out to his favourite Death Eaters and we know he was mental enough to make TWO of the fucking things, whose to say he didn't make a third or fourth, or that one of them was with Bellatrix? He might be making more right now! He made Harry one by accident, what if he's shedding bits of soul like dead skin because he's gone and ruined his - FUCK! THAT'S IT! The Parseltongue, the mental connection, it's because Harry’s got a bloody fucking piece of Voldemort in him, this is all making SO MUCH SENSE now-” 

His ribs begin to ache from the rapid stuttering of his lungs, but Sirius pushes forth. 

“-and Dumbledore must have known that, he's the most powerful wizard of our time and he saw the book, heard what happened! He never wanted to be around Harry or tell him anything important and he said…MOTHERFUCKER! He said that Voldemort accidentally transferred some of his powers to Harry when he tried killing him as a baby, he MUST HAVE figured out that Harry was a horcrux! And he said nothing even though there were dozens of us who'd have been willing to hunt them down - I HAD ONE IN THE BLOODY HOUSE! - if he gave even the slightest hint because…”

The epiphany hits him like a train. There's bile on his tongue now waiting to be let loose, but he swallows it down weakly. Sirius wants to be sick everywhere, but if he doesn't finish the train of thought now, he might never have the determination to admit it out loud. 

“...because of the prophecy only he knows…because he believes it. I was always told prophecies are self-fulfilling, no respectable Black allows themself to fall prey to one. We read the stars, make the stars, follow the stars, but never let someone else tell us what the stars mean. It was fine when I thought it was about James, but…Voldemort only heard the half that says someone could kill him. What if the other half says - says they have to die to do it? What if the prophecy means that only Harry can get rid of him because the wanker went and made him a horcrux, and he can't die if a horcrux exists? Which means…which means…” 

Remus is already braced on his elbows to lean up and stare at him with a dawning horror when Sirius falters. His mouth is wide open, brown hair a rat’s nest, and he's got the shakes back. His robe sleeves are still stained where his lunch left him. Sirius feels worse than he thinks the bloke looks, and that's saying something. 

“There's Godric knows how many horcruxes, and Dumbledore planned on sacrificing Harry to kill Voldemort,” Sirius summarizes lamely, heart in his throat. “Will plan. Might be planning now, because I basically told him the pillock is floating around the world as a soul and he’ll come back.” 

Remus slowly slides his arms so that he's flat on the ground again. For a long minute, there's nothing but the sounds of their labored breathing. And then, with a vitriol that surprises them both, 

“Fuck his prophecy.” 

Maybe if Harry was sixteen or seventeen, tall and lanky and a survivor, Remus would feel differently. If he had met a Harry that faced down Voldemort at eleven, killed a basilisk at twelve, faced a horde of dementors at thirteen, survived an extremely difficult magical Tournament before duelling Voldemort at fourteen, created his own version of the Order at fifteen, and was specifically trained to take down Voldemort by the powerful Albus Dumbledore at sixteen, Remus might have believed that the prophecy was simply meant to be. That Harry Potter was too strong, too experienced, too passionate to let anyone else take down Voldemort. That the two of them were mortal enemies destined for one another, with their matching brother wands, their Parseltongue, their ability to inspire others. A Remus who lost James and Lily and Sirius but met a Harry like that could have thought it one of the peculiar ways fate works and resigned himself to it, doing his best to support on the sidelines and leaving Voldemort to Harry because he thought: well, it's not like anyone else has survived Voldemort. Why not let it be Harry in charge?

Unless he was afraid of his own life, of course, and desperately looking for a reason to die and not live because living is so much scarier when you've lost everything you've ever loved. Yes, that Remus might have asked to be a part of Harry's task then, though not before being reminded that there's no point in surviving to the end if you don't make something good of it. That life can be scary but worth it if you're just willing to try. 

But that Remus does not exist. Not anymore, and certainly not in the future. The only Remus in existence is the one that Harry calls Uncle Moony, who teaches Harry his letters and minds his manners, who helps bathe Harry most nights because Sirius’ roughhousing gets everything wet. Uncle Moony hasn't met Harry the Survivor, Harry the Warrior. Uncle Moony only knows the Harry who's curious about bugs and trees and all sorts of living beings, who is four years old and never held a wand, who's allergic to pecans but adores the smell of them roasting, who waits near the door when Sirius is a tad too late from work, who says good morning and good night and I love you every day. 

The Remus Lupin present before Sirius today is not Professor Lupin, but rather Harry's Uncle Moony. And Uncle Moony cannot find it in himself to ever look at that sweet, darling little boy that James and Lily sacrificed themselves for and think: yes, he was born to fight a dark wizard triple his age that nearly conquered Britain, all by his lonesome. He'll do a bang up job, Harry, he's The-Boy-Who-Lived. 

There is also the quaint fact that because Uncle Moony was Messr Moony first, he knows Messr Padfoot far too well to ever believe that Padfoot would not want the best and kindest of things for Harry. He knows that Messr Padfoot loves deeply, loves fiercely, loves bravely, loves honestly, loves incomparably wholly. Padfoot can make jokes about a great deal of things he shouldn't - but Harry isn't one of them. Ever. So Uncle Moony might be only twenty-five, lost, and in pain, but he's found himself a reason to fight back at the world with righteous fury. He has never been broken down to something lesser than a man or a wolf and then precariously built himself back up twelve years after the fact.

This Remus Lupin has a place in this world with people he loves and he's never lost it. He plans to make sure he never does. 

Complete and utter devastation is starting to feel rather commonplace between them, but never let it be said that Marauders cannot handle chaos. They shower. Clean up. Throw out the bottles, wipe the floors, air out the house so the stink of booze and despair don't sink into the furniture. Sirius gives himself a nice shave, dolls himself up, and only cries a little when he picks up Harry from the Burrow. Molly Weasley, bless her heart, simply clicks her tongue and wraps him in a hug before inviting all three of them to dinner. 

“Honestly,” she says with a shake of her head, “have you taken a look at yourself, dear? You're falling apart at the seams. No, this won't do at all. You'll floo Remus and tell him to arrive within the hour for dinner, the kids will all keep busy with themselves. Until then, you just sit down right here with a nice cuppa and some biscuits, young man.” 

The year is 1985. Walburga Black is dead, Regulus Black is dead, Arcturus Black is alive, and Sirius Black is somewhere in between. Voldemort is even more insane than anyone could have ever guessed, his baby brother died Reggie and not Regulus, Bellatrix died with possible ownership of a horcrux, and Albus Dumbledore knew that Harry was a horcrux. Is a horcrux. Sirius might have to fight a basilisk and steal its fang. Remus has to get married and have a kid without dying. Harry is four years old and he might be doomed to die younger than his own parents. There are about a million things Sirius needs to do to prevent that, but he's sitting at the Burrow with a cup of tea because Molly Weasley of all people has decided to adopt him into her family. As if just four years and never ago she wasn't complaining about every little thing that made him Sirius Black. It doesn't rankle at him the way he thinks it should, possibly because he's a free man who gets to raise his godson and makes mostly sound decisions that she can't criticize. Handing the children sweets before supper is not one of those, he quickly relearns. 

Things are different and much the same. The universe has changed around him, but his goals remain unchanged. Raise Harry, love Harry, keep him safe. Keep Moony, love Moony, don't let Moony die and make Harry a godfather. Kill Voldemort, ignore Dumbledore, live freely. Stay proud, stay kind, stay brave. 

There's a lightness to his chest that wasn't there before now that Remus knows. It's all in all a terrible experience finding out that your godson is an unwilling tether to life for the genocidal maniac who killed his parents and most people you ever loved, yes, but the other part - the part where he got to talk about the things that happened last round and about his Harry, discombobulated as it was…that was pretty swell. Moony doesn't entirely believe him or believe how Sirius knows things did in fact occur, but he's trying his best. It’s so freeing. Just saying it out loud once is enough to make his bones lighter, his mind a little less cluttered. Records, music; they're meant to be enjoyed with people, taken out for good times, played again and again. No record was ever made to sit in a shop and languish there for eternity. Remus being let in feels like breaking open shop to the public for the first time in decades, and Sirius is eager to show off his treasures. 

He didn't know how to explain any of his experiences before so he never did. He kept everything bottled up and remembered on his lonesome, mourning that his Harry would exist only in Sirius’ memories. That only he could ever know and love that boy. But he had carried on James and Lily in his heart to pass onto Harry by word of mouth last time, and now he can do the same for Harry to the family of this life. So that his Harry becomes theirs, too, in a way. 

It comes to him in the gentle quiet of evening as the stars begin to glitter, their lovely moon rising to accompany them. It's an idea so brilliant that he nearly slaps himself for not thinking of it before, though in all fairness it might not have worked until now. The sprog loves stories, but he's mostly been interested in ones with pictures until recently. He's also not had any trouble seeing until recently either, which means that they'll have to hold off on a few things until they've gotten his eyes checked. Genetics. What can you do? 

So no books and no photos, or at least not in the dim lighting they keep when trying to set the tyke to sleep. Anything brighter than a warm glow will wake him right up, unfortunately. Harry's quite fussy about needing to sleep with his blankets exactly so, door closed to stay safe from the monsters, curtains open for mum and dad to wish him goodnight, and of course the stuffed Padfoot and Moony and Prongs by his side. It's adorable on most nights and terribly frustrating on the rest. Parenthood is a continuous battle, Sirius is learning. 

“Harry,” Sirius says pensively to the five - and three quarters! - year old waiting for his bedtime stories, “what do you think about not reading a book this time?” 

“Oh, mum and dad? Or the Marauders?” Harry asks, perking up. He's really quite good at not getting bored with the same things, but his favourite stories are never the ones written in a book. It's the ones with his family. “I'll get the pictures!” 

He slips out of bed to find the box of photo albums they keep on the bookshelf. It’s better off in Harry's room than either of theirs, if only because bringing them over constantly grew tiresome. They’re not getting any younger, you know. 

“No, no,” Sirius says, shooing him back into bed, “not about them, or us. We don't have any pictures at all of the person in these stories, actually. You'll just have to imagine it in your head. Should be easy enough, I think - he looks just like you.” 

“Like me?” Harry asks curiously, tilting his head. “Not dad or mum or you or Moony?” 

“No,” Sirius agrees, hiding a smile. “Like you. Green eyes, a mop's head, knobby knees, and even the same scar on your head. He's a very, very brave boy who has all sorts of adventures that no one else could think of, you see, and he goes to Hogwarts with two very special best friends. He's fought basilisks and dark wizards and dragons and he plays Quidditch, but not like your dad. He plays Seeker.” 

Eyes growing round and wide, Harry fists his hands in his blanket wondrously. “With the snitch!” 

It's about the only part of Quidditch that the sprog understands, half because it's the simplest and half because he already adores playing with the snitch they dug out of James’ belongings for him. He'll run underfoot all day just catching it over and over again if you don't give him anything else to do. Bloody good at it, too. Sirius can't wait to get him on a proper broom and be rid of the baby toy nonsense Moony strictly enforces.

“Yes, with the snitch,” Sirius nods, slipping in beside him and scooting closer. “Think you'd like those kind of stories, then?” 

“Of course,” Harry says as if he’s silly for bothering to ask. “What's his name?” 

Sirius pauses, considering that for a moment. He has quite a few that would work, but he doesn't want to be creating some new ideal that the little sprog can't compare to. This isn’t meant to introduce some new, untouchable hero to the kiddo - just a means of keeping someone alive in their hearts. So no James, no Prongs, no Prongslet, and likely not his real name either. 

“That depends,” he says diplomatically, “what would you like to call him?” 

Harry blinks. Blinks again. Drops his jaw. “I get to choose?” 

“Well,” Sirius tells him, feeling rather chuffed with himself for how well this is already going, “these stories are just for you, you know. No one else in the world knows these stories, not even Moony or your parents. Just me, and now you.” 

Harry sits up against his pillows and considers that quietly, lips pursed in thought. 

“He looks like me,” he says, slow and steady, “and he plays with the snitch like me, but he…he has lots of adventures like the Marauders. And he fights dark wizards like you. And he has two best friends, like the Marauders. So he's…he's like if we combined all of us together, right?” 

Taken aback, Sirius says, “Er, I suppose so.” 

“Well, maybe he can have our names too,” Harry proposes, brightening up. “Right? Because I'm Harry James Potter, so he can be…he can be Harry Sirius Remus James Potter!” 

Bursting into laughter, Sirius shakes his head fondly. “Yes - interesting use of our real names, sprog - but, erm, I think it'd be hard to get through a story if I had to say all that every few seconds.” 

“Oh.” Deflating, he chews on his lips. “You’re right.” 

He crosses his arms and begins to think again while Sirius waits patiently, running a hand over messy bangs just because he can. 

“Okay,” Harry decides with all the self-importance of a five year old given control of a situation, “I know what to call him!”

“Go on, then.” Sirius barks a laugh when the kiddo looks unimpressed by his lackluster reaction, so he widens his eyes dramatically. “Oh, won't you tell me? I'm dying to know!” 

Pleased by the appropriate interest, Harry says, “Well, he's like all of us, but he’s just for me and you, right? Because you know his stories and I'm the only one who gets them. But he looks like me so he should have my name first, so we can call him Harry Black! So he's some of me and some of you.” 

Oh. That's unexpected. 

Feeling rather winded all of a sudden, Sirius clears his throat a few times in a row while he searches for words. “That, er, sounds…that sounds like a good name. Ahem, a fantastic one. I'm - I really like it, Prongslet. It's brilliant, thank you.” 

Harry beams at him and settles back down for a story expectantly. “So what kind of story are you gonna tell?” 

“I suppose we could start with the one about the troll,” Sirius says, still recollecting himself. 

Harry Black, he says. A bit of the both of them. Upon seeing the eager look directed at him, Sirius clears his throat one final time and nods. Storytime. He can do this. 

“Well, kiddo, it was Halloween, and Harry Black was a student at Hogwarts…”

There's a brief struggle where they have to come up with names for Ron - obviously a Weasley but can't be called Ron so he needs a different name, but he sounds a bit like Ron so maybe something close? Harry thinks - and Hermione, but Harry’s inspired by Sirius likening her to Lily and they do quite well after that. 

Such is the beginning of the adventures of Harry Black, Robert Weasley, and Rose Lupin. Not the most creative of names to be sure, but all fitting in a way. 

Harry drinks up every last story greedily, even the silly, simple ones about having to eat food from under an invisibility cloak on a secret Hogsmeade excursion. He's just a boy, after all, and most of the world is still new and fascinating to him. If he were Hogwarts age then half the stories wouldn't catch his attention in the slightest. Sirius doesn't know enough details to tell the stories exactly as they happened, but he exaggerates some snippets and makes up blank space in others with what he finds interesting. Harry has his favourites, of course: Harry Black and his friends defeating traps to protect a mysterious treasure, Harry Black deciphering the magic egg to save his friends from an underwater village, Harry Black catching the snitch with his mouth, Harry Black fighting off a swarm of Dementors to save Regulus. That was a name Sirius decided on without any help. Couldn't use his own name for all the obvious reasons, so he might as well give good use to one that never lived out its worth. 

Even Ron and Neville hear about Harry Black, though the sprog is peculiarly sparse about details. Perhaps because this is their thing, his and Harry's, and that makes it something special he doesn't want others to have. Oh, the sprog will surely break and tell them things eventually - but for now he's happy to keep it close to the chest. Mostly it’s just the proud claims of having Sirius tell him stories no one else ever heard about the coolest wizard in the world. Moony is never present on nights they share stories of Harry Black, though he can hear quite a few through the walls with his wolfy ears. He pretends to know nothing and listens patiently when Harry gives up little bits and pieces, adoring his Uncle Moony too much to ever hide a complete secret. Uncle Moony is also appropriately touched by the decision to give Rose his last name because they both love books and keeping their friends out of trouble. 

“Just like you and me and Padfoot!” Harry exclaims. Sirius catches Remus smiling dopily at the wall with teary eyes after, but chooses to be the mature person Molly always tells him he's capable of becoming. 

“Is he real?” Harry asks one night as he drifts off to another retelling of the mysterious monster in the pipes that turned out to be a basilisk. “Harry Black?”

Sirius tucks the covers in round the sprog and smiles warmly. “He is to me. He can be real to you, too, if you want him to be.” 

“I'd like that,” Harry says drowsily. “Do you think we'd be friends, if he was real?” 

“I think,” Sirius says, confidence dripping out of every word, “that he would adore you. Best mates, definitely.” 

It's a strange world. He raises a tot into a child, becomes the Heir of the House of Black, inherits a horcrux. He grows close to Molly Weasley, who clearly thinks of him as something of a younger brother, and becomes a beloved uncle to a brood of Weasleys and one Neville Longbottom. He spends more time out of the house than he likes, which is a brand new preference that's developed only because home is now with Harry and Moony in their own house. He tells stories of a life long gone, of a boy to never be, not exactly. Sirius stops thinking of them as his Harry and other Harry to think of them as Harry Black and Harry Potter instead - and Harry Potter will never be Harry Black, but Sirius is truly understanding how much he didn't want him to be in the littlest of ways. That it’s okay if the kiddo wants a dragon for a patronus instead of a stag, that he’s scared of spiders where he didn’t used to be, that he likes to read sometimes, that his favourite color is green now, that he likes to play pranks and not just watch. Differences that might have sent Sirius spiralling months ago out of the fear that he’s mucked everything up but no longer matter. Harry will always be all the great things Harry Black was, and the little things are just confirmation that Sirius is doing something right - that something is changing in a good way because his godson isn’t being molded into some kind of perfect hero, perfect legacy. Harry gets to be different because he never had to spend his childhood taking care of himself in a cruel world. What could possibly be so wrong with that? 

Sirius thinks the world might only ever get stranger, but he's learning to roll with it. All the good things he has now are odd to him too, but he rather likes those. Odd, strange, peculiar…they're all different, but not always bad. Not always wrong. Godric forbid he ever start sounding like Albus Dumbledore, but Sirius thinks there might be a queer sort of magic to all these things that don't seem quite right but end up fitting rather well. Like how a portrait doesn't seem anything like the person it's based on until the very end, composed of odd blobs and splotches until the final hour pulls the image together.

The very strangest thing of all is that on a completely normal night of no particular importance in 1991, one with no peculiar events of any kind or odd winds in the air, Sirius Black looks up at the stars from the back porch. This is not the strange part, of course, for a great number of people enjoy stargazing from the comfort of a cozy chair - nor is it strange that he finds himself speaking to them, as it is in fact quite common for those that have been left behind to see their loved ones in the stars.

Sirius says, “I'm not you, James, Lily, but I'm doing my best. Moony's so much better with him now, it'd knock your socks off. Has him all caught up with his letters and numbers, even got him reading books once or twice all on his own. He'll get the Evans roaring out of the sprog soon, I bet. I'm, er, not sure how much of this is actually fun to you, Harry, but I hope that you meant it - that it'll be everything you ever wanted, however we end up being, as long as it's together. Trying to find alternatives to basilisk venom is bloody expensive, but I rather think that the Black coffers are honored to pay for our finances now I'm in charge of them. It's not like we can just find some lying about, you know, and we've even got a bloke in Indonesia. Apparently it dries up. I'm rather hoping we never have to see the one hiding under Hogwarts...I've only told Moony about that part so far. Fiendfyre hasn't been working well for any of us. Seems smarter to hold off on that unless we've got a bunch of them in one place. No point in taking down everything around us if we've got another option, yeah? Oh, and we might have found another one, some ring if Grandfather guessed right. At least we know Voldy can't make any more horcruxes until he kills someone again, so we won't have to be hunting down dozens. Hopefully we'll still have enough after this business to get you a Firebolt again, eh?” 

Absentmindedly scratching at the handrail's peeling paint, he lets his gaze drift across the stars. Searching, almost.  

“I hope you're happy,” Sirius whispers, a fragile smile tipping at the corners of his mouth. “And I'm starting to believe that one day, when this is all done and I'm a dead man that's outlived every Black in history, I'll see you again. James and Lily and Reggie of course, but you too, Harry Black. If you've got an issue with the name you've only yourself to blame, mate. Anyways, it might be mental, but. I like it to think you're still out there somewhere…waiting. I can only go around for so long forcing Moony to love himself and take care without practicing it on my own, yeah? But when the day comes and we’re together again…I hope you're all proud of me.” 

The trees do not rustle, a voice does not whisper in the wind, there is no bright light or sudden change, but something strange takes place that night. Curiously, impossibly - and in quite the unexpected set of circumstances given that Sirius did not expect an answer, and the night sky does not often respond to one speaking to them regardless of their ability to use magic - a whistle echoes faintly in the distance when the stars wink at him.