Chapter Text
Sirius has seen a lot in his life. The bars of his cell, for longer than he should’ve. The yellow-green-brown of Moony’s eyes, for less time than he’d altogether prefer. Miracles and monstrosities of magic. Secret keepers keeping all the wrong ones, and men becoming wolves becoming regrets becoming lovers.
He never thought he’d see James and Lily tumble from a veiled archway, putting an abrupt end to his duel with his demented cousin.
Harry either, apparently. He hasn’t sat down once since Sirius tugged him through the floo back to Grimmauld and then barred the fireplace to anyone outside their little Marauders huddle.
“This is bollocks,” Harry says again. There’s some kind of powder in his hair. Now Sirius is looking, it might be glass from the prophecies the kids smashed. “Please let me leave.”
“Harry,” James—James!—pleads, also not for the first time. “Just hold on, baby. Wait a moment.”
“It’s not even them,” Harry tells Remus. He bounces on his feet near the floo, the same one Kreacher used to trick him. “I don’t have to stay here for this. I need to get back to school.”
Lily’s head stays in her hands. She put it there the first time Remus mentioned the Dursleys.
“Are they nice to you?” She’d asked, more than a little desperate.
Harry shrugged then and looked away.
She’s been crying since. Quietly, of course. But Sirius knows her tricks.
“It’s them.” Sirius frowns. Something is wrong here. Harry’s rolled with plenty of punches before.
“Don’t you want to get to know them?” Remus tries. “Stories aren’t the same, I know, but you always—“
“Enough,” Sirius decides. He points at the dining table. “Pup, sit down. Now.”
Harry does, still grumbling under his breath.
“Lily. James.” The names stick in his mouth. “Table. Remus, too.”
He snaps his fingers and a tea service appears. Kreacher’s confined to the attic upstairs until Sirius decides what to do about his fucked-up spying.
“Okay.” Sirius stirs an obscene amount of sugar into his own cup and takes a fortifying sip. When did he become the adult in the room? “Where did you come from, then?”
James runs a hand through his hair. “We just woke up,” he says helplessly. “We were just there, by that arch.”
“Helpful,” Harry mutters.
Sirius bites back a smile and keeps going.
“Well, at least you broke my fall. You look a fright; I’d have hated to join you behind that veil thing.”
Remus fixes Harry a cup and nudges his hand with it until he takes it.
“And you’re happy to see Harry,” Sirius prompts James and Lily.
James’s mouth drops into a perfect oh. Lily sits straighter, red eyes and red hair and red marks from where her fingernails pressed into her palms.
“Of course,” James says hotly.
But he’s cut off by Lily. “Harry, oh my god, yes. I’m so happy to see you. Love. Sweetheart.”
She reaches a hand out, desperate, but she deflates when Harry flinches away.
“That’s sorted, then. Harry, are you happy to see them?”
Harry pushes his chair back and flees up the stairs.
“He is,” Remus says into the shocked silence. “Really, he is. He’s—he’s had a tough few months. A hard year. Too many too-hard years.”
Sirius closes his eyes and lets the guilt wash over him for exactly five seconds.
James clears his throat. “Why are we here, anyway? Isn’t this Grimmauld?”
Sirius keeps his eyes closed. “Catch them up,” he tells Remus. “I’ll see to Harry.”
They can do the Azkaban-Hogwarts-Tournament-Order rigamarole without him, today. He’s been stewing in it for long enough. And Harry needs him.
“You didn’t even finish your tea,” he says when he gets to Harry’s room. The poor kid is facedown on his usual bed. Not crying, Sirius thinks, just breathing. “You must really be upset.”
“I almost got you killed today.” Harry’s voice is dull and muffled, talking listlessly into the pillow as he is.
“You did not. I almost got my fool self hurt. Moony’s been on me to duel more.”
“You’re not hurt?” Harry checks.
“Not a scratch.” Sirius puts a tentative hand in the valley between Harry’s sharp shoulder blades. “You?”
“Scar, but that’s normal.” Harry’s left shoulder catches and drops. “Cutting curse, when I was looking at—when I saw you almost fall. Healed it fine.”
“Can I see?” Sirius elects not to prod about the scar yet. But that is decidedly not normal.
Harry kicks his right leg without getting up. Sirius rolls his eyes and taps his wand to the trouser leg to vanish it.
Then he hisses through his teeth. “Gnarly stuff. Did it bounce onto your arm at all? Yaxley’s spells can be sneaky like that.”
Before Harry can respond, Sirius vanishes his sleeve. He’s paranoid, alright? The kid’s not exactly forthcoming. Nothing near the shoulder, but there’s something concerning on his hand—
Harry sits up and shakes him off.
“Give that here. Harry, what the hell.”
Sirius doesn’t recognize his own voice. That’s Harry’s handwriting, there. He’s seen it in the few letters they’ve exchanged over the last two years. Godric, that’s a fresh blood quill wound. And that’s—that means it happened at school. He wasn’t exactly doing lines in battle.
“Umbridge?” He guesses, dread pooling in his stomach.
“Put my clothes right, please.”
Sirius does, absently. “Give me your hand.”
Harry grumbles, but sits up and does.
“Kiddo. That looks like it hurts.”
Blood quills pull from deep and sink deep. The words make his stomach turn. Harry’s never been a liar.
“I’ve been using murtlap essence. Nothing I can’t deal with.”
“You shouldn’t be dealing with it at all. How long has this been going on?”
Another shrug. Averted eyes.
“We can put it right,” Sirius decides. “Your mum’s a dab hand at potions. Your dad’s good with healing. They’ll have you fixed up in no time.”
“That’s okay.”
“Alright,” Sirius says, reclining on the bed next to Harry. Stealing his pillow, which doesn’t even get a smile or sigh or anything. “We do have to talk about it.”
“We don’t know how long they’re here.” Harry crosses his arms and hunches into a ball of suspicion and gaping wounds. “We might not have to.”
“Unspeakables think it’s permanent.”
“Unspeakables thought their hall of prophecies was secure.”
“Dumbledore thinks it’s permanent.”
“Dumbledore thought I should learn mind magic from Snape.”
“I think it’s permanent.”
Harry scowls and stares at his holey socks.
“Help me understand.” Sirius keeps his voice open. No accusation. He’s still paying off the debt of thinking Harry ought to be a new James. He can’t get this wrong. “From where I’m sitting, it’s a good thing.”
“Yeah. You know them.”
There it is.
“They want to know you.” Sirius swallows past a sob or a hunk of guilt or a curse upon Peter’s name. “It’s not your fault they don’t yet.”
“I saw them, after the third task.” Harry kicks his feet. “At that graveyard.”
“Oh?”
Harry’s never told him details about that night. Or anyone, really. He knows nothing beyond the debrief he had with Dumbledore and the quick, gentle touch he managed to Harry’s shoulder while he slept in the hospital wing. Not that they’ve had time, of course. It strikes Sirius then, how little time he’s really spent with his godson. Who’s been talking to him, helping him grow? Taking the time?
Sirius looks at the boy’s hand. He doesn’t like the answers he comes up with.
“They told me what to do,” Harry says softly. He picks at his sleeve, lost in memory. “How to get out. It wasn’t really them. Dumbledore called it an echo. I’d never talked to them before that.”
“You don’t know the good parts.” Sirius puts a hand over Harry’s when he stops pulling on fabric and goes for the thin skin of his wrist instead. “You don’t know James is a sore loser, and your mom snorts when she laughs, and they both used to walk you around the house all night long. Even after you were asleep. They just liked holding you. They like being with you.”
It’s not the focus, but the switch from past to present tense sends a thrill of delight up Sirius’s spine.
“They liked it before I got my scar,” Harry says like a confession. “Before I grew up and got all these visions, and other scars too, and before—“
“Harry.” That’s James, the sneaky git. Doesn’t even need an invisibility cloak to catch them unawares. “Honey, that doesn’t change anything.”
Harry huddles smaller. He makes Sirius’s chest hurt. “You don’t know that.”
“I do.”
Sirius breathes around the jagged edges of his grief. They’re softening now. James is here, and he’s talking to his kid, and Sirius maybe hasn’t ruined everything for the Potters forever through nothing more than his very presence.
“You can’t, because—“
Harry’s protest is cut off by Prongs flinging himself bodily at his son and catching him in an encompassing hug.
“Hush, you. I’m hugging my baby right now.”
“You don’t even know me.”
James rubs his cheek against Harry’s. “Shut up.”
“You don’t,” Harry says, insistent.
“I told you to hush. I will handle all objections once I’m done with this squeeze.”
With a put-upon sigh, Harry goes boneless. He doesn’t lean into James or otherwise indicate that he’s open to the affection, but he doesn’t pull away or protest.
For a time.
“This is a very long hug.”
“It is.” James tightens his grip.
“Sorry, I’m covered in prophecy dust. I broke a lot of orbs.”
“You are.” James kisses his dusty hair. “You did.”
“Do you feel okay?”
Sirius rubs his chest. This kid.
“Better now. You are not one for silence.”
“Sorry.”
“I’m not. I like talking to you. And squeezing you. Very fond of it.”
“Do you think this is permanent? Sirius does.”
“I do. I trust Dumbledore.”
Wrong thing to say. Harry stiffens and pushes him off. He’s gentle but firm.
“That’s an outdated opinion, mate.” Sirius puts a hand on Harry’s shoulder, keeping him from bolting. “We are not huge Dumbledore fans at the minute.”
“I see. I’m sorry. That’s fine. Let me hug you again, please.”
“It’s alright.” Harry’s light has gone out. “I need to get back to school. OWLs. I left History of Magic halfway through. Need to see if I can make it up or retake it. And I abandoned Umbridge to a giant and some centaurs.”
“You what?” Sirius stands up. If anyone’s going to finish that woman off, it’s him.
“There was talk of stampeding.” Harry stands up, then casts about for his wand and slides it into his back pocket.
James tuts, ever the wand safety stickler.
The sound makes Harry shrink, if such a thing is possible.
“There’s no rush,” Sirius offers. “You can stick around here. Decompress. We’ll send someone for Umbridge. Your friends are all fine.”
“Decompress.” Harry raises one eyebrow in a perfect echo of Moony. “Thanks, but I do have exams.”
“I’m sure the Ministry will—“
“I’m not.” Harry crosses to the door and waits. “I don’t know which Floos are open at school.”
“Flitwick,” Sirius decides. This will keep. “We’ll go to his. Let me stick my head through.”
“Why don’t we get Remus,” Harry says lightly.
Ah, right. Azkaban escapee. James and Lily will help with that. Their being here is making him forget just how dire things are. How long it’s been.
Remus goes ahead to Hogwarts and then takes Harry through. He comes back ten minutes later sooty and troubled.
“Harry okay?” James asks, eyes narrowed as he drinks his fourth cup of tea.
His hand rubs gentle circles on Lily’s back as she cries. She hasn’t stopped for hours. It’s getting a bit worrying.
“Processing, I think.” Remus’s frown stays in place. “Order members are at the school. Dumbledore kept trying to pull him away, but I sent him to the hospital wing instead. He has a headache. Of course he’s stressed about exams, too.”
James nods. “He’s almost done, right?”
“He’s already done.” Sirius frowns. “History of Magic was his last one.”
“Oh,” James says slowly. “I thought—oh.”
“He’s dealing with a lot.” Sirius banishes the caffeinated tea from the cabinets. Prongs is going to vibrate right out of his skin if he keeps going. “Just a few more days until he’s home.”
“His exams are done,” Remus says, still frowning. “Umbridge had the halls covered in—well, it can’t have been a good study environment. You saw his hand, Sirius? Merlin, poor kid. What an absolutely shite year.”
“Shite,” Sirius agrees. “Who’s picking him up from the train, then? You two need to go public before you show up at King’s Cross, or you’ll be mobbed.”
“Can’t be Sirius either,” Remus agrees. “He’s not leaving my sight until he’s holding a signed pardon.”
Sirius squirms at Remus’s stern tone. It’s nice to be cared for.
But then he frowns to match his Moony. “If Dumbledore’s sniffing around, do we want to leave him at school until then?”
Remus points at him. “My thoughts exactly. I really do not like how he’s been scheming this year.”
“Is it as bad as that?” James asks. “It’s Dumbledore.”
“He gave Harry to Petunia, James.” Lily lifts her head. Her face is swollen but dry.
There she is.
Lily was always like this, taking the time to feel it all and then using that emotion to harden her resolve. It was quite a lot of emotion, so now it’s quite a lot of resolve.
Sirius missed her so much.
“Petunia,” Lily says again. “Our baby. Our baby who is very thin.”
“Your baby who I saw fleeing from their house in the middle of the night,” Sirius puts in helpfully. “At thirteen. Trunk and owl and all.”
“Our baby who we had a very clear plan for in our wills,” James says slowly. “Alright. Get him, please?”
Moony’s off like a pixie, flitting between the Floo and Harry’s room until the kid himself is back in front of them, rubbing the back of his head and glaring halfheartedly.
“Binns is letting me retake next week. Fudge is going to be insufferable, after today. I need to study.” He adjusts the strap of his book bag and disappears into his room.
“Dinner,” James decides, pushing his chair out and stretching his arms over his head. “Takeaway? Maybe soup.”
He wanders toward the kitchen without waiting for an answer.
Lily watches him go, then turns to Remus.
“Circle the wagons. Who do we trust, besides each other?”
Remus thinks on it, leaning against Harry’s trunk. That thing’s getting pretty tattered. “Tonks,” he says slowly. “Kingsley. McGonagall, but she’s still recovering.”
“Kingsley,” Lily decides. “I remember him. Owl him, tell him to bring his boss to Godric’s Hollow. James and I will take it from there. Pardon, press release, fucking Peter.”
“Good list.” Remus summons some parchment and the two of them lean over the letter, debating assurances to offer and the likelihood one of Kingsley’s superiors sees it.
Sirius’s feet itch. He jerks a hand toward the stairs and then goes to Harry. At the very least, he can bring him his things.
The kid is back in bed, tear tracks on his cheeks but eyes mercifully closed in sleep.
“Oh, Haz.” Sirius takes up his once-familiar position guarding Harry’s rest.
He shakes his head when James appears in the doorway with a bowl of steaming stew.
He nods when Lily brings him a glass of water.
He smiles when Remus comes in to pass him a note and kiss his temple. Then he laughs as quietly as he can when he reads the formal invitation to dueling practice the next morning.
And he cries a bit. Hazards of the job.
Harry wakes up an hour in as his stomach gurgles.
“When did you eat last, sleepy?” Sirius runs a hand across Harry’s brow, feeling the frown appear against the pads of his fingers.
Harry thinks it over. “What day is it today? Breakfast yesterday. No, dinner the night before.”
“None of those are good answers.”
“I was busy.” Harry looks at Sirius closely, examining him. “You’re really alright? I was worried.”
“Really really.”
“Okay. I really really do need to study. I think I fell asleep into an essay answer the first time around. And I’ve got this headache.”
“Alright, historian.” Sirius ruffles his hair. “Come find me if you need to.”
He pauses, thinks it over.
“I’m coming back in an hour with leftovers and tea,” he amends. “Pain potion, if your headache isn’t gone by then.”
Harry waves him off and digs through his bag for a book. “No pain potions. Make me too woozy.”
“You can be woozy.”
Harry’s mouth firms into a line. “Not while I’m here. Need my wits about me. Er, for studying.”
Sure. Studying. “If you change your mind.”
“You’ll be the first to know.” Harry’s voice goes painfully soft. “I know you missed them. You can go spend some time with them.”
Damn. He’s got Sirius there; no one’s better-placed than Harry to know how much Sirius ached for his parents, save maybe Remus.
“You’re important too.” Sirius dithers at the door. “You’re really fine with it? I really will be back in an hour.”
“Really really.” Harry smiles without looking up from his book. “Go on. Go catch up. You have time.”
He does have time. Unspeakables think it’s permanent. Sirius sets a tempus so he doesn’t forget about bringing Harry food and goes looking for James, and Lily, and Remus, and any way of making sense of this nearly-awful nearly-wonderful day.