Black Bargain

by DogStar234

Summary:

Sirius Black makes a bargain with a magical creature to get his best friend back, losing a piece of himself in the process. James doesn't know this world he's come back to, but he has a teenage son to meet and a best friend to put back together. Set after Prison of Azkaban.

Chapter 1

Sirius is sitting down on the sand, just before the water touches the land. The salt spray doesn’t remind him of Azkaban at all, it’s baking hot and he’s alone with his thoughts. All the darkness that touches him is his own.

He’s naked, as a man. But Uncle Alphard’s cottage in Mallorca has enough anti-muggle wards on it, so he’s not worried about scaring anyone.

The last time he was here was with James and Lily and Remus and that rat, and they got naked too. Well, just the Marauders, Lily rolled her eyes as they ran into the ocean at midnight.

It’s lonelier this way, Sirius thinks, before he spots a glass bottle at the edge of his vision. It’s shrouded in mist and he knows it’s magical.

His lessons and his mother would have told him not to touch it, so he does anyways. Nothing happens for a moment, but a remarkable creature puffs out of air.

It looked like a man, tall, dark-skinned, handsome, with a shark-tooth sharp grin, but Sirius hadn’t run around with a werewolf for years to not recognize a dark creature beneath the veneers of a man.

“Good evening to you, Sirius Black,” the creature said with a grin.

Sirius cocked his head. “Is it?”

“It could be. What if I told you I could grant you your heart’s desire?”

Sirius barked out a laugh. “No one can. And not you, jinn.”

The creature took a seat on the beach next to him. “I could do it, but you wouldn’t like it. And more importantly, I wouldn’t.”

“5 points from the jinn for complete lack of clarity,” Sirius replied, without fear.

“What do you wish for most in the world?” he asked, reaching up to Sirius face’s. He slapped the hand away, but his reflexes weren’t fast enough.

“That I never gave up being James and Lily’s secret-keeper,” he said, the truth spilling out of his lips quicker than he meant to. “But go fuck yourself, that’s not your business.”

“I’m making it my business this evening. And a bit of time travel isn’t completely out of the question, but I’ve made a bargain before, with one of your little Death Eaters.”

“They’re not my death eaters!” Sirius all but growled.

“Of course, of course, my apologies,” he replied, his voice as smooth as butter. “And for all I don’t mind a little chaos, it was too much. I’ve had a productive decade with Voldemort being gone, you English wizards are high on the drama and the wishing. And there’s no way for this little interlude between wars without Lily Potter dying.”

Sirius stood up, and headed back to the cottage. “Right, I’ve had enough of this. Go find another wizard to torture.”

“This isn’t torture,” he said, pulling himself back up to his feet. “If Lily Potter didn’t make the choice to die to save her son, Voldemort wouldn’t have been stopped for a while. He slaughtered so many new bloods in his rise to the top. And little wizards and witches born of muggles are so easy with their wishes and bargains. They don’t grow up with the stories you did that make you so afraid of me right now.”

“I’m not afraid of you,” Sirius scoffed.

“A little fear is healthy, it’s fine, I can deal with it. And I want to make a deal with you—I’m just explaining that I can’t get you what you want exactly. Or rather that, I won’t.” he said, twirling a lock of his black hair aimlessly. It was practiced, easy and made Sirius more nervous.

“Right, thanks for that.”

“I can give you your heart’s desire, but in a different way.”

“You’re not my type,” Sirius replied. “I may be naked, but I’m not that easy.”

The jinn shifted, and for one horrible, beautiful moment, James Potter was staring back at him. Sirius blinked, and the Jinn was back.

Sirius was overcome with rage and grief and shifted, the bones and sinews of his body jutting into Padfoot. A jinn couldn’t torture a dog, and Padfoot would be able to smell that it wasn’t James.

“Ah, marvelous,” the Jinn said. “That’s it, just what I wanted. A beautiful grim you make, perfect for mischief.”

Sirius growled, and shifted back to a man, turning to walk up to the entrance of the sea cottage.

“It’s quite rude to ignore someone like that, Mr. Black. But you’ll hear me out. Your friend back for your Animagus, it’s quite a good trade.”

Sirius stopped dead on his feet. “I know how this goes. I don’t want an inferi, or a ghost or a half-life.”

“Quite clever of you. It’ll be him, body and soul.”

“From when?” Sirius asked, having a vision of a newborn James being plopped into his arms. He couldn’t be trusted with a child.

“I can do from his death day, or younger if that’s where your tastes lie.”

Sirius shook his head before a terrible vision popped into his mind.

“And he’ll be here, not blasting his way out of his grave with his wand?”

The jinn shrugged. “Makes no difference to me, sure.”

Sirius rubbed his eyes and tried to picture James in 1981. The memory was so bright and so far away . “I can’t do that to him.”

“You’d rather turn into a very large dog than bring your godson back his father. I get it. It matters little to me, I just wanted to meet you. The dog star wizard who can turn into a dog, the last male of a thousand-year-old line. Good day to you, Sirius Black.”

Oh god, Harry. He had barely thought of his godson, that bright, wonderful 13-year old boy who didn’t know him, but still saved his life

Who was he to deny Harry this? Or deny himself.

“Wait,” Sirius croaked. “Would you make a vow? I have a spare wand inside.”

The jinn smiled, and Sirius’s sense of unease grew “I have little need for your sticks, but I’ll agree to your vow.”

The jinn followed Sirius into the small cottage, while he drew his wand. He caught a glimpse of himself in the mirror, he was razor-thin and his face looked gaunt. His hair was cut but messy and he looked like a shadow of his former self. Not like the man James remembered.

Sirius looked down at himself and decided he should at least be partially dressed before engaging in some no-doubt dubious magic. He summoned himself some pants, holding a finger up before the jinn could speak.

“Are you ready?” it asked him.

Sirius nodded.

“Yeah, I’m going to need more than that,” he said. “You know the magic in words, wizard.”

“Yes,” Sirius whispered.

“Do you, Sirius Orion Black, swear to give me your animagus ability in return for me re-animating James Potter’s corpse with his soul pulled from the beyond?”

At those words, Sirius stilled, but he was always in for a knut, out for a galleon.

“I do.”

A golden glow filled the room and Sirius could feel a deep magic being pulled out of his bones, his cartilage, the deepest parts of him. The loss ached.

But he couldn’t mourn for long. The jinn chanted in a language Sirius didn’t understand until, in the small dining room of the cottage, a body appeared on the floor.

It was James—or it was once him-- dressed in his finest dress robes, hands clutching his wand.

Sirius hadn’t seen the burial robes, he was in Azkaban, but preservation charms don’t last forever and the earth’s own magic and rot had set in. It was a corpse, a long-dead thing, the robes were in better shape than his flesh. There were chunks missing that decay or animals took.

Sirius doubled over, trying not to choke on the bile in his throat.

The chanting resumed, and the decay reversed slowly, his skin and hair growing back centimetre by centimetre until he looked like he could be sleeping, except for the lack of breath.

“Almost done,” he said proudly, gesturing to James on the floor. “Just needs his soul back. I’ve asked, he should probably come.”

“Probably?! We had a deal,” Sirius shouted.

“Well, I can’t make him, but I made an assumption,” he explained. “I have no power over that…but he died a violent death before he even hit a quarter-century. He’s at peace, but he had his life and son stolen from him, there’s things he’d want from this earth yet. Of course, I could be wrong, and you’ll get your power back, no harm, no foul.”

Sirius stared at his friend, so still in death, when in life he was so full of movement. He even kicked and mumbled in his sleep, he was never like this, it was a cruel mockery of his life.

He kept staring until James’s eyes opened and he gasped in air.

“Ah, there he is,” the jinn replied. “Pleasure doing business with you, Sirius Black.”
At that, the jinn apparated away without a sound, and Sirius ran over to James, touching his not-yet-warm skin.

He could hear him struggle to breath in and out, putting his hand to his chest.

“Easy, Prongs,” he said, helping him to sit in a chair.

“Oh, Padfoot,” James said, his voice cracking from a decade of disuse. “What did you do?”

Chapter 2

“I’m so sorry,” Sirius said, shaking his head like a guilty dog.

“I am very sure that I was dead,” James replied, voice as calm and balanced as if he was asking Sirius to pass the salt instead of asking if he was recently deceased.

“Yes,” Sirius all but whispered.

“Lily too, she was there with me until just now. Harry…wasn’t.”

“No, he’s alive,” Sirius said, the ghost of a smile reaching his face. “He looks so like you, but with Lily’s eyes and her temper. He’s a brilliant flyer—on his house team”

“Gryffindor?” James asked.

“Of course,” Sirius replied.

James made an audible noise of relief, and stood to his feet, steadying himself on the counter.

“How old is he? How old are you?” James said, gesturing to the lines on his face.

“Harry's 13.”

A shadow crossed over James’ face, and he played idly with his wand, setting off sparks. Sirius idly thanked whatever gods he didn’t believe in that he didn’t bring James back only for him to be a squib.

“My teenage son didn’t put those lines on your face, did he? A teenager…” James said, barely out of his teenage years himself and dead a decade.

“Harry’s a good kid,” Sirius said, strong in his conviction.

“All from his mum, I’m sure,” James replied, taking a step forward to look Sirius in his gray eyes. He had to look away from the hazel that met him.

The guilt in his chest felt like it would explode out of him, and Sirius was sure James knew all of his entire pathetic fuck-ups in that one moment, everything he had done to mess up the lives of people he loved.

“What happened to you, Padfoot?”

James asked.

“It doesn’t matter. You’re back,” Sirius said.

“Doesn’t matter?” James replied, rolling his eyes. “The last time I heard that from you was when you moved in, and your back was flayed open by your mum’s cutting curse. You slept on your stomach for months.”

Sirius winced, but that pain was nothing compared to the last twelve years.

“Did Voldemort win?” James asked eventually. “And you got tortured for being a blood traitor?”

Sirius shook his head. “After Wormtail,” he said, all but spitting out the name, “betrayed you, I went after him. He got the better of me, framed me for giving you up and killed some muggles in the process.”

James’s mouth dropped.

“I didn’t think he had it in him either.”

“Framed you?” James asked.

“I spent twelve years in Azkaban,” Sirius said, avoiding his gaze.

“Oh, mate,” James said, his voice nearly as soft and full of love as when he used to speak to his newborn son.

James breached the distance between them, and wrapped his arms around Sirius, trying to give him comfort. Sirius stayed as still as a post, unmoving.

“Oi, I know dementors aren’t especially cuddly, but you’re supposed to return the hug, you see. That’s how it works.”

Sirius peeled himself out of James’ embrace instead, knowing he didn’t deserve the comfort.

“I’m so sorry,” he told him instead.

James shook his head, his face growing red with anger. “I’m sure you had plenty of time to think about just how sorry you are in Azkaban. Don't apologise to me.”

He moved away from Sirius, and stared out the window, just noticing where he was.

“Alphard’s old place in Mallorca,” Sirius said to James’ unasked question.

“You always loved the water, you mangy dog,” James muttered. “Sirius, you say Harry is alive, but where is he? I need to see him.”

“Surrey. With his aunt and uncle.”

“With Lily’s awful sister?” James said, looking as pale as death for a moment. “Right, put a shirt on, we’re going to Surrey.”

Sirius shook his head. “You should go without me—I’m still a fugitive.”

James sighed loudly. “Well, in that case, me and a big black dog are going to go get my son.”

“Ah, about that,” Sirius said, before recounting the tale that brought James back.

He watched as a mixture of fascination and horror flickered across James’s face. His best friend always had a cut-glass face, it was so easy to see his heart and emotions on it.

“You fucking menace,” James said, touching Sirius’s face gently in contrast to his words. “You could have been made into a squib or killed, or I could be all in your head. The jinn could have taken your soul, did you think about that?”

“It didn’t,” Sirius replied.

“I know!” James shouted, slamming a cabinet shut in the kitchen. “I could be an apparition—or an evil spirit--let me ask again--did you even think about that?! Did you think at all?

“Would an evil spirit be trying to convince me that he was an evil spirit?” Sirius replied, amused against his own will.

“It's not funny! Did your terrible mother never read you Aladdin? The genie gets everything in the end.”

“I know,” Sirius replied, and he did know. For the first time that day, he did feel fear, now that he had something to lose again. “But it was worth it.”

“You absolute tosser,” James replied, sitting back down, his anger deflating. “Where in Surrey is Harry?”

“A little suburban street called Privet Drive. My parents would have hated it. Come to it—so would have yours. Very muggle. Very boring.”

James blinked at Sirius and took a deep breath, looking righteous. It was what he and Remus had deemed James’s head boy face.

“As it turns out, I’m not actually feeling great about leaving you right now, the last time I did, you got framed for murder and chucked in Azkaban and made some sort of bargain with a spirit to bring me back from the dead. But I need to see my son.”

“Harry is what matters,” Sirius agreed.

“Do you remember when went out for New Years and we were supposed to get back to mum and dad’s before dawn?”

Sirius nodded, but the picture was hazy, like all of his good memories.

“Dad found me with an old family spell, it lets parents locate their children.”

“He sent us a portkey,” Sirius recalled. “Blood magic?”

“Right. And a shoe ‘fell from the ceiling’ in a muggle club. Good thing you’re such a fast talker and everyone was stinking drunk or we would have had to pay the ministry for obliviators…” James recalled with a smile, as he opened a draw full of kitchenwear and grabbed a mug at random.

“Well, what are you waiting for, go fetch a quill and some parchment,” he ordered, and Sirius ran to his Uncle’s room, coming back as quickly as he could. James was still there, and he gestured grandly. Sirius got the hint and picked up the quill.

Sirius started to write, “Dear Harry.”

“Tell him that his godfather,” James said, emphasizing the word, “has a beautiful cottage by the sea and would like to see him and have an adventure. Oh, and touch the portkey and say “Prongs.”

Sirius nodded, and watched as James pricked his finger with his wand, and a few drops of blood fell into the mug.

“Invenient mihi in filiu, et sanguis sanguniem meum portus,” James said clearly before the mug was engulfed in a bright yellow light. He took the note, put it on top of the cup and watched as James flicked his wand and it disappeared.

“He’ll come,” Sirius said.

“I need to see him,” James said, ruffling his hand through his messy hair, so like his son’s.

Notes:

The latin is a poor translation, but means find my son, the blood of my blood.

The pairing in this will be very slow burn, no one is in a place for anything right now. Let me know if you're interested, this has just been fun for me to write on my maternity leave at the moment.

Chapter 3

James needed something to do, so worried waiting to see his son. He filled up a glass of water from the tap and drank, not even realizing he was thirsty. It hurt a bit to swallow, his body unused to functioning, so-long dead.

He felt a strange mix of normal and sore, as if he was unfamiliar with his own limbs.

In the beyond, he didn’t have much need of a body. But it was peaceful.

He blinked and stared again at Sirius, who was looking back at him with a mixture of guilt, shame and wonder on his face. Sirius had never known peace.

In his mind, James pictured Sirius at 11, so bravely burning the Howlers from his mum at the Gryffindor table. Sirius at 14, shouting in the corridors at Regulus and hexing any Slytherin who called him a blood-traitor or even looked at him wrong. Sirius at 16, bleeding but not broken, showing up on his doorstep asking for shelter. Sirius at 20, so handsome, dressing in dragonhide leathers and enjoying the looks he would get from men and women, letting people get close to his body but never his heart. And this Sirius at 34, bone-thin and touch-starved, making deals with the devil to bring him back from the dead.

He burned so bright always, so loud and so reckless, but all he really wanted was a family who loved him for what he was.

And James was more than happy to give that to Sirius. But did no one else see what he did in him?

“I promised to look after you until I died,” James said after a moment, pointing to his palm where they had sliced each other’s hands and mixed blood and proclaimed the other their brother when they were 15. “I guess you extended that.”

Sirius opened his mouth, probably to say sorry again, and James rolled his eyes. “I am going to hex you if you apologise to me one more time tonight.”

Sirius stubbornly set his jaw and threw his hands up, but he could better deal with a petulant Sirius than this one who was so brittle.

James floated the glass to the sink in an easy display of wandless magic, and moved close to Sirius again, his fingers ghosting over his ribs, too-visible. He was too thin, he thought, poking him in the belly.

“Have you not been eating?”

“I don't know if you've heard, but there's not exactly haute cuisine in Azkaban,” Sirius grumbled.

“The Blacks don’t get their own five-star menu in that place?” James joked, and Sirius barked out a laugh.

“You would think that. But no.”

James grinned at him. Black humour. Until a thought struck him.

“How did you escape?”

“As Padfoot last year,” Sirius explained. “Doggy paddled in the North Sea.”

James nodded, but if this was Sirius a year after Azkaban, what was he like in that place? He couldn’t even imagine.

“I’m going to go make sure a bedroom is made up for Harry,” James said, not wanting to think of just how alone Sirius was before he was brought back. He walked out of the kitchen and up the wooden stairs, bright Mediterranean sunlight reflecting off his face.

There was two bedrooms, one had a bottle of firewhiskey on the desk and fur on the floor, so it must have been where Sirius was sleeping. The bed was untouched.

James pinched the bridge of his nose in frustration before whipping out his wand and transfiguring another bed next to Sirius.

He cleaned the sheets with a spell his mum made him memorise before going to Hogwarts and continued onto the smaller guest bedroom where he did the same thing.

There was an old broom in the corner, a Comet model. Maybe he and Harry could go flying?

James opened the window, letting the sea breeze in the room. He looked out the window, and saw miles of clear blue sea but also, of all things, a Hippogriff lounging beneath a palm tree.

They weren’t native to this part of the world. What had Sirius got himself into?

James hadn’t had long to contemplate on adventures and hippogriffs before he heard a loud crash downstairs. He crept down the stairs quietly—years of sneaking out of the dorms ensuring he was quiet as a mouse.

Harry was there, his teenage son was in the kitchen only steps away from him. With a trunk at his feet and a snowy owl in a cage and wearing clothes that were much too big for his skinny frame. His son was beaming at Sirius, his eyes so like mother’s lighting up the room.

“Thanks for inviting me here,” Harry said, his voice thick with emotion. “Wherever here is, exactly?”

“We’re in Mallorca,” Sirius replied, deliberately not looking at James. “On the ocean, I hope you’ll like it here.”

“Anywhere is better than the Dursleys,” Harry muttered.

“I know how you feel,” Sirius replied.

Harry gave him a disbelieving look, and it was like looking in a mirror from when he was in third-year. A skinnier, poorly-dressed mirror.

“Really,” Sirius said. “My family was utterly shite too. Your father and his parents took me in when I was 16, saved me from the blood purist hags I'm related to.”

“What was that like?” Harry asked.

“Leaving my family to join yours was the best decision I ever made,” Sirius told his son. “And ah, speaking of Harry. We have something to tell you.”

“We as in the royal?” Harry joked, and James gathered his bravery and stepped forward into the light of the kitchen to meet him.

“Hello, Harry,” James said softly.

The blood drained out of Harry’s face, and he pulled his wand out of his jeans pocket. “You’re dead!”

“I was,” James said, taking a step closer to him. “I am so sorry.”

Harry looked from Sirius to James with betrayal and rage clouding his features. “Polyjuice? Or a boggart?”

“You can’t polyjuice the dead, you need skin or hair from a living person.” Sirius told him.

“Riddikulus!” Harry cracked out in reply, but James stayed the same.

“Son,“ James started reaching out toward him, but Harry grabbed his wand even tighter and stepped further away from him.

“Stupefy!” Harry shouted, and James in the nick of time, grabbed his wand and conjured a Protego so the cursed bounced off him.

“Sirius, mate, do you want to try and explain?” James said, maintaining his shield.

“I may have made some sort of black bargain with a creature to bring him back,” Sirius said, looking between Harry and James.

“You can’t bring back the dead!” Harry said.

“Wizards can’t, at least not the way they’re meant to be,” Sirius agreed.

“I was dead this morning,” James explained, dropping his spell-shield. “Things were—good. It’s hard to explain, but your mum and my mum and most of the other people I love were there and…it was peaceful. But I heard a dark voice asking my soul if I’d like to come back, and I said yes and let myself be pulled out of heaven because I wanted to be your Dad again, Harry. I am so sorry I couldn’t always be.”

Harry looked at him in shock and disbelief for another moment before he turned on his heels, searching for the door.

He found it, and bolted outside, like a horse at the races.

James spared a glance at Sirius, before following Harry to the sand of the beach, his newly-brought to life limbs struggling to catch up, his lungs feeling like they were on fire.

Harry was staring at the ocean, looking like a stiff breeze could blow him over. He was trembling, and James wanted nothing more than to comfort him, but he was still a stranger to him. James could tell that Harry noticed his presence, but he didn’t look in his direction.

“I’ve never seen the ocean before,” Harry said after a few minutes had past, still clutching his wand.

He was looking at the waves creep in toward the shore, his jaw was clenched tight and gods, he had his father’s face but his disbelief and anger was all Lily.

“It’s beautiful, the sea. Your grandparents took me to Zakynthos in Greece every summer when I was growing up, before they got too ill for international portkeying. We’d go swimming all morning, eat a huge lunch and I’d get dragged to a museum before dinner. The Greek magical community is huge,” James told him.

If life went the way it was supposed to, he and Lily would have taken Harry there every summer too, seen his skin go brown and freckle in the sun, and watched him playfully complain as he was forced into some culture with his beach holiday.

“That’s nice for you,” Harry muttered.

“It was,” James agreed easily.

Harry glanced over at him so quickly James almost missed it.

“The sea has its own magic, different to ours, but palpable. Can you feel it?” James asked him.

Harry closed his eyes and nodded.

James took the chance to take a step closer to him. “I know this is pretty unbelievable.”

Harry just snorted.

“It’s unbelievable for you—and for me. Like I said, I was dead just this morning. It’s tough to take in all around,” James said, trying for levity, but Harry just opened his eyes and stared at him like he didn’t think he was funny.

“I recognise your voice,” Harry admitted.

“Me and your mum used to read to you, even before you were born. All the classics, Babbity Rabbity, Hansel and Gretel and the witches, some Muggle stories your mum liked called Winnie the Pooh,” James explained.

“Not from that,” Harry said. “When the dementors were around me, I heard you and mum. You were trying to buy her time before he killed you, and she tried to bargaining with Voldemort for my life. She begged, he didn’t listen.”

“Oh, Harry,” James said, his heart breaking for what his son witnessed. “And where did you see dementors?”

“They were after Sirius at Hogwarts after he escaped,” he explained.

“Hogwarts is no place for dementors! You shouldn’t have been around them at all!” James angrily muttered.

“Nothing you could have done about it,” Harry replied in a sad, matter-of-fact tone, and James felt a mix of guilt and shame.

“I know, but I’m still allowed to be upset about shite that happened to my son,” James explained.

“It’s fine,” Harry said, and it wasn’t.

James took a step closer to his son and Harry held up a hand to stop him.

“If you are really James Potter—and I don’t know if I believe you,” Harry said. “How can I even know you won’t be gone tomorrow?”

“I don’t know what to tell you, Harry,” he said quietly. “But I do know that the day you were born was the happiest day of my life. Your mum and I were so excited to meet the little person we made. We love you more than anything.”

“You don’t even know me,” Harry replied, his voice very small, blinking back tears.

“I did once, and I want to again.” James replied. “Will you let me get to know you, Harry James?”

“You can try,” Harry offered after a moment, carefully affecting a shrug.

“Thank you,” James said, his voice as sincere as he can make it. “Can I give you a hug?”

Harry shrugged again, looking at the shore.

“Kind of going to need a yes or no, kiddo.”

Harry nodded slowly, and James closed the gap between them, wrapping his arms around his boy. Harry was stiff and unyielding at first—gods, like Sirius—before he clung back to him.

James ran a hand through Harry’s messy black locks, and he heard a sob escape.

“It’s okay, and I’m sorry about that hair, Harry, I rather think that’s my fault” James told him in a low voice, remembering how his Mum spoke to him when he was upset or ill. “Let it out.”

Harry cried, a choked-off, low sound like he was at war with his own emotions and it broke James’s heart.

James conjured a hanky and handed it to Harry when the sobs subsided.

“I’m sorry,” Harry said, face blotchy from tears and embarrassment. “It’s just that I wanted this for so long,” he all but whispered.

“None of that,” James said. “Can we all stop being sorry? Voldemort should be the one that’s sorry for taking me and your mum away from you but that’s as likely to happen as hell freezing over.”

Harry gave him a weak grin before turning back to the sea.

“Do you know how to swim?” James asked him.

“Err, no,” Harry replied.

“I can teach you tomorrow if you like,” James offered.

“I’d like that,” Harry offered, rubbing at his face.

“Come on, let’s go back inside and make sure Sirius hasn’t burn the cottage down.”

He turned to walk back in, making sure Harry was following behind him.

“Is that a serious possibility?” Harry asked, and James laughed at the accidental pun.

“He went through a phase when he was 12 where he was a bit of a pyromaniac, but we’re probably safe,” James replied.

“There’s a boy in my year like that,” Harry muttered as he followed James back through the threshold.

James wanted to hear about this boy. He wanted to hear everything.

Notes:

The pulled out of heaven bit is from Buffy, yes. Thanks so much to those of you who have been enjoying this story, I really appreciate the feedback. This chapter was so tough to write, everyone has had one hell of a day.

Come talk to me about James, Sirius and Harry in the comments!

Chapter 4

Sirius was sitting at the table waiting for them, that same stupid guilty look hanging over his face.

When he saw James though, everything shifted for just a moment, he looked at him like he was holy, something precious and sacred. The weight of that look settled heavily in his gut.

James blinked, and the expression was gone.

“Everything okay then, Potters?” Sirius said, his voice deliberately light.

“Oh, fine, people’s dead dads come back to life every day, things are great,” Harry joked, his voice as dry as the Sahara.

James looked at Sirius and they both burst out laughing so hard that James clutched his side.

Harry glanced at them like they were mental, but he joined in too. It all was a bit ridiculous.

“You’re funny,” James told him with a crooked grin. “We’d like you even if you weren’t, but that helps.”

Sirius nodded sagely. “Never had too much time for stick-in-the-muds, myself.”

Harry smiled and stared at his owl, still caged at the table. “Can I let her out?”

“Of course,” Sirius replied.

“What’s her name?” James asked, as the snowy owl perched itself on the windowsill and blinked at him.

“Hedwig,” Harry told him.

“That’s a nice name,” James said, and the owl hooted at him in reply. “Do you have any other familiars?”

Harry shook his head.

James sat down at the table, a thought crossing his mind. “Sirius, do you know what happened to Daisy?”

Sirius shook his head.

“Who’s Daisy?” Harry asked.

“Our beautiful ginger cat, you were fascinated by it. Lily made me us get it, she loves animals,” James said, before realising his mistake. “Loved,” he corrected softly, breaking his own heart.

“We had a cat?” Harry asked.

“Yep. The cat loved you until Sirius got you a toy broom for your first birthday and you accidentally knocked it over. It wouldn’t dare hurt you but it ran out of the room at the sight of you for weeks. Poor Daisy,” James said, letting himself grieve for the cat in a way he wouldn’t let himself for Lily. If he started to think about her, he might not be able to stop.

“So that’s the second broom you got me,” Harry said to Sirius with a grin.

“Right, I need to hear this,” James said.

“Sirius got me a Firebolt for Christmas,” Harry explained.

“And what’s that, for those of us missing some years?”

“Just the best broom ever,” Harry said, and he actually sounded young for the first time. “The speed and handing are amazing.”

"You were a force on the Quidditch pitch even without it," Sirius told him.

James grinned at the pair of them before hearing Harry’s stomach grumble.

“Are you hungry?”

Harry shrugged.

“Do you have food here, Sirius, or have you been existing entirely on magic and despair?” James asked, and Sirius flipped him two fingers.

“There’s some food,” Sirius said, gesturing to the counter behind him.

James got up and ruffled through the groceries. Meat, cheese, bread. It’d do for now.

“Anyone have a problem with ham and cheese sandwiches?” James asked, and Harry and Sirius both shook their heads. James flicked his wand to cut the crusty bread apart to make three sandwiches, and he floated plates over to the table, as well as a whole chunk of manchengo cheese. A voice inside his head that sounded just like his mum said the boys were too thin.

He saw a bottle of firewhiskey on the cabinet, and grabbed three tumblers.

“You’re probably old enough for a little bit of this, your grandfather let me drink with him sometimes when I was your age,” James explained, pouring just a little into Harry’s glass, and being more generous for himself and Sirius.

Harry guilty took a sip, and James laughed when he coughed, little plumes of smokes escaping his mouth.

“It’s an acquired taste,” James explained, blowing a perfect ring.

“Wanker,” Sirius said. “Harry doesn’t know you perfected that technique after sneaking firewhiskey in the dorms from Hogsmeade all of fifth and sixth year.”

“I…may not be the best example,” James joked, but he meant it.

Lily would have been so much better at this. He was just with her, but he was missing her already.

“Alright, Prongs?” Sirius asked, noticing the shadow that crossed his face.

James nodded, and took a bite of the sandwich to avoiding having to speak. It tasted both absolutely fine and like ash. He could still taste death in his mouth, the dirt of the earth and rot. He hoped it would pass soon.

He looked down at his hands, and kept thinking about that stupid cat. How Harry would follow it around and squeal delightedly when it let him pet her. How he promised Lily they could fill their house with animals and kids one day. Both of them were orphans at 20 with little or no family, they wanted to make their own.

“Dad?” Harry asked hesitantly, and startled when he heard what he asked him.

“I’m sorry, Harry,” James apologised. “Just thinking about the cat.”

“It’s okay. I’d be upset if I lost Hedwig,” Harry offered, looking up at his beautiful white owl.

“Cats are smart animals, James,” Sirius said. “I’m sure she found a home. Bathilda Bagshot had plenty of them, maybe she went there.”

“What does the author of History of Magic have to do with anything?” Harry asked.

“She lived next door to us, she probably still does, in Godric’s Hallow,” James explained.

“Err, right,” Harry said, but the ‘how was I supposed to know that’ was written all over his face.

“I had a picture somewhere,” Sirius said. “Of me as Padfoot, with you and Daisy on my back. I wonder where it is now.”

“It’s weird that you get along so well with cats,” Harry said. “Crookshanks too. When you’re a dog.”

“Animals are extremely good judges of character,” Sirius joked, and James could see the moment he remembered the deal cross his face.

“Harry, Sirius isn’t an animagus anymore,” James said.

“How?”

“It was what the creature asked for to bring James back,” Sirius explained, looking embarrassed.

“That…doesn’t make sense,” Harry replied.

“I’m not sure I understand it entirely myself, but this is important. If you see a big shaggy black dog that looks like Padfoot, don’t get close to it or follow it. I don’t want you getting tricked by the creature,” James said, remembering the fairy tales of his youth.

“I’m not an idiot,” Harry said.

“No one thinks you are,” James said.

“No one here, maybe,” Harry muttered before turning again to his father. “Are you still an animagus?”

James put down the sandwich and thought. There was no reason why he shouldn’t be.

He stood up, finding the biggest open space in the room. Prongs was king of the forest, he wasn’t small.

He took a deep breath and found the place inside himself where the stag lived, and shifted, feet turning to hooves, antlers growing from his head in the space of a moment.

The world felt different, he was himself, but not, and his son and favourite person in this world were staring at him with awe.

Harry got up and ran over, and the stag playfully nudged at his face. James stuck out his tongue, and Harry laughed.

“My patronus really does look just like you,” Harry said. James blinked his giant deer-eyes at him.

“Maybe you should show him, Harry,” Sirius suggested, his voice thick with emotion, and his son nodded before pulling out his wand.

A great ghostly stag erupted from the tip of Harry’s wand, it was all blue light that looked just like him, hooves dashing through the sky. It found Prongs and bowed, and he returned the gesture, dipping as low as he could go. The magic seemed to warm his bones, still so cold, it made him feel alive and joyous.

He was gone from his son for so long, but in this magic and in his heart he was still with Harry, and the patronus proved it.

James shifted back, wanting the freedom to speak. “That’s an incredible display of magic.”

Harry waved off the praise, but James could see how pleased he was by the compliment.

“You weren’t much older than me when you started learning that, right?” Harry asked.

James exchanged a look with Sirius. “If that was you asking to be taught very advanced and dangerous magic by the two transfiguration geniuses standing next to you, the answer is yes, but maybe not today. It’s been a long day.”

Harry nodded. “Mum wasn’t an animagus, was she?”

James shook his head. “We had planned to,” he explained. “But she got pregnant with you and we stopped the process, pregnant women can’t shift their forms as easily, it’s not safe.”

“Ehm, okay,” Harry told him. “Thanks for telling me.”

James waved him off. “She wanted to try learning again, we just got past the mandrake leaf in your mouth for a month, but we…” he stopped, steadying himself against the kitchen counter. The magnitude of his loss hit him all at once, like the killing course once did.

Sirius saw his face and refilled a tumbler of whiskey, and handed it to him, which he gladly drank.

“But you died,” Harry finished.

“That too,” James whispered. He didn’t want to share this, didn’t want to speak the words, as if he didn’t say it, it didn’t happen.

“Lily was pregnant again,” Sirius figured out, his voice shaking with righteous anger.

James nodded, all they could do in the cottage was take care of Harry and fuck when their baby was asleep, it wasn’t on purpose, but the pregnancy spell glowing positive wasn’t a surprise.

He was startled when one of the paintings on the wall fell off with a loud crack, accidental magic from his best mate starting to wreck the room.

James ignored that and dug the heels of his palms into his eyes, trying not to cry, enjoying the pain the motion gave him. It meant he was alive, unlike them. His wife and the child he never got to meet.

He gave himself a moment, before swallowing down his pain, and opening his eyes.

When he did, Harry was close to him, offering him comfort this time, and James took it, grabbing him into a tight hug.

He let him go after a moment, hearing a whispered “I’m sorry,” in his ear.

“Hey, not your fault,” James told him.

“It’s mine,” he heard Sirius say, and Merlin’s beard, James has had enough of this.

“Or mine, for agreeing to the secret keeper switch, or Lily’s for insisting we stay in the country, at one point I wanted to leave, I was a coward, or maybe it’s Dumbledore’s fault for not taking down Voldemort the way we grew up hearing he took down Grindlewald but I don’t want to talk about this anymore,” James finished.

“Fine by me,” Harry said after a moment.

“It’s poor after-dinner conversation anyway, your mum would be horrified,” Sirius said.

“Yeah, she’d just be feeding us biscuits and trying to get us to tell her all our secrets,” James said with a smile, remembering her. “In lieu of biscuits, who wants to go stick their feet in the ocean, hmm? I could use some fresh air.”

James took a deep breath before heading outside, knowing that Harry and Sirius would be right behind him.

Notes:

I'm sorry about the cat. Thanks so much for the feedback on this, it's the first time I've written in years for a whole laundry list of reasons. Come talk to me about these boys in the comments!

Chapter 5

James, Harry and Sirius sat on the beach, their feet in the water, taking turns transfiguring the crests of the waves into animal-shapes.

Harry turned one into a particularly realistic looking lion and James and Sirius cheered loudly for him.

“I’ve done a lot of magic today,” Harry said, looking down at the sand.

“You’re a wizard,” James replied with an easy shrug.

“I’m underage,” Harry shot back.

“We’re in Spain, the British ministry has no power here, don’t worry,” James replied.

“And you’re in a wizarding home, so there’s no way they’d be able to tell anyway,” Sirius added.

Harry’s jaw dropped. “Are you serious?”

“Since the day I was born.”

James groaned, but Harry still looked concerned.

“The underage magic law is…kind of unfair, I know. But your mum was still near top of the class in everything, even though we got to practice over the summers, and she didn’t.”

Harry nodded. “One of my best friends is muggle born, and she’s the best in our year.”

“Blood doesn’t matter as much as people think,” Sirius said with a yawn.

“Right, time for bed, I think,” James said, standing up. He held out his hand, and Harry let him pull him up to his feet. “There’s only two bedrooms here, so I’ve made up the guest room for you, Sirius and I can share.”

“I have a room?” Harry asked, with a very strange look on his face.

“No, you’re out in the back garden with the inexplicable hippogriff,” James said.

Harry exchanged a look with Sirius. “Buckbeak’s here!”

James was sure there was a story there, but he was too bone-tired to hear it.

“And the hippogriff has a name,” James said with a sigh. “You can tell me all the details later please, I’m going to shower, no one set the house on fire or let in any dark creatures in the meantime.”

James sounded just his father warning him and Sirius to behave, and was mildly horrified at himself. He was only 21. Or was, anyway.

He spared one glance at Sirius and his son before heading into the en-suite bathroom, where he peeled himself out of his funeral robes, wondering who had done the spells to dress him and preserve his body. It’s a simple charm. Lasts longer depending on power and intent. But nearly any qualified witch or wizard could do it. Who did? Not Lily. Not Sirius. Dumbledore, maybe? Was it a hired service, someone who hadn't even known him, were all his friends dead or imprisoned?

Did Harry last see him in these clothes, at the burial ceremonies? But without life, without all that made him James Potter. His son had memories of their deaths, but probably not their funerals. Small blessings.

James hated the starchy stiff fabric, it made him itch, and taking it off felt like a small burden had been lifted.

Stepping into the shower, James spelled it to go as hot as his body could stand, enjoying the pain and warmth.

Little rivulets of dirt and grime swirled into the drain and it made James shiver.

This body was his, but it was the earth’s for almost half as long.

James steadied himself against the white tile of the wall for a moment, swallowing down the sob building inside of him before scrubbing his body clean. He scrubbed and scrubbed until his skin felt raw and new again. His shampooed his hair twice, it remaining as full of curls and chaos as ever.

After the better part of an hour, he stepped out, slinging a towel low on his waist before entering the bedroom.

Sirius was sitting on the edge of the bed, absent-mindedly shooting off sparks with his wand.

He perked up when James entered the room, and stared at the wet planes of his chest just a moment too long.

“I hope you have clothes I can borrow, or we are transfiguring napkins into ancient greek togas or starting a nudist colony,” James told him. “Because I am not getting into that robe ever, ever again.”

“There’s some extremely tacky beachwear Alphard left here,” Sirius said, his gaze finally snapping up to his eyes.

“Brilliant,” James replied, a bit of tacky never hurt anyone. He got in the bed and threw the towel on the ground.

Sirius didn’t make any moves to get in bed, he just looked down at his feet. “I don’t sleep well as a human.”

“You slept as Padfoot,” James said. “I already guessed that by the fur on the floor. You can take the boy away from the house elves, but you can’t make him tidy after himself.”

James smiled when Sirius flipped him the bird.

“Do you think you can try and sleep without the fur and four legs?”

Sirius shrugged before getting under the light summer duvet. “It’s too soft. The bed.”

“You’re a wizard, make it harder,” James grumbled at him, before laughing at his unintentional innuendo.

Sirius laughed, but the dirty joke he expected in reply didn't come. He was nervous, James realised, at the prospect of sleeping. Sirius was vain and so smart but lazy, he could sleep all day if he wanted to. This Sirius seemed to look at the bed as an enemy.

“I’ll try,” Sirius offered gently, before dramatically sighing.

“You’re Sirius Black, there is nothing you can’t do, mate,” James told him. “You think about counting sheep or whatever, I’m going to go check on Harry.”

“Do you want me to go with you?” Sirius asked, but James shook his head.

He would do this himself, just like when it was his turn to check on his son.

He and Lily would constantly check on Harry, babies were so fragile, they could roll over and suffocate or summon something over with their magic they could choke on. And this baby was a prophecy child, what if a cursed object or Voldemort got near him when they were sleeping?

James shook his head. Harry wasn’t a baby. And he made it this far without him.

James summoned some pajama bottoms, delighted to see they had moving pink flamingos on them, thank you Alphard, before putting them on and getting out of bed.

He padded over softly to the next room, and opened the door without knocking.

Harry was awake, knees pulled up to his chest, glasses next to his pillow, looking very small on the bed.

“Not sleeping either, huh?” James said, taking a seat next to Harry.

“I don’t think I can.”

“Can I get you anything? Not sure we have anything other than water or firewhiskey, Sirius hates milk, but maybe there’s some tea in a cabinet somewhere?”

Harry shook his head, and James had a brilliant idea struck him like lightning. He wasn’t Head Boy for nothing.

“Right, get up,” he said. “Grab a sheet and pillow.”

Harry looked at him like he was mental, but he followed him down the hall.

“Oi, Sirius, grab your pillow and duvet and come with me,” James said, knowing he would follow him anywhere.

Like ducklings, they walked behind him down to the beach, where James found a particularly good spot, free of rocks and far enough from the tide.

“We’ll sleep under the stars,” James declared, transfiguring the duvets into sleeping bags. “It’ll be fun.”

Sirius smiled at him, an honest expression that changed his whole face, making him look more like the man James remembered.

“This is nice,” Sirius said, relaxing on the sandy beach, burrowing into his sleeping bag.

“It’s like we’re camping,” Harry added. “Do wizards do that?”

“Wizards do everything muggles do, mostly, just more ostentatiously and with magic,” James declared.

“The Blacks don’t camp, coming here with my Uncle was about as rustic as I got before Azkaban,” Sirius said.

“Much too common,” James responded in a more cut-glass version of Sirius’ posh London accent.

Sirius smiled in reply. “Nothing but the finest for us, what if a muggle once walked in a campground? We’d have to burn the whole thing down.”

“Dudley went camping once with his Scouts, kept going on about how he missed the telly,” Harry offered.

“Who’s Dudley?” James asked.

“Ehm, my cousin.”

“Do you get on?”

Harry snorted.

“It’s alright Harry, I’ve loads of horrible cousins too,” Sirius offered.

James saw the look of relief on Harry’s face, and hated that Sirius and Harry were connected by this way.

His mum and dad were both so wonderful, he never stopped missing them and the easy way they let him know he was so loved. They would know what to do. James summoned the plucky spirit of his father in his mind, and made a plan.

“Right, Potters and honorary Potter. Bedtime. When the sun comes up, we can get dressed and go into the Muggle old town. I’ll transfigure Sirius until he looks like our more handsome cousin, or something. We’re going to have fresh orange juice and eat Ensaïmadas—these fluffy muggle pastries—and café con leche. And we’re going to go raid some supermarket so we can have a proper dinner instead of sandwiches,” James declared

“Sounds good,” Harry said with a yawn.

“Sweet dreams, kid.”

James closed his eyes.

“Come and follow me if you’re not too scared,” Sirius whispered in his ear, shaking him awake in his bedroom. James ran past the portraits of his grandparents on the wall, their eyes full of scorn, even his favorite Grandfather Harry. James didn’t stop, just picked up his pace.

He was fast, faster than Sirius, but he couldn’t catch up.

Sirius was waiting for him on the edge of the Potter’s pond, standing on the rickety wooden pier, held together by spellwork and nails.

“Got you!” James said, but Sirius dodged out of his reach.

"What is with you?' James grumbled, crossing his arms over his chest.

“I can't follow you any further,” Sirius replied, his voice shaking, and when James moved to touch him, he jumped in the pond.

James jumped in after, but he couldn’t find him. Sirius was gone. “Padfoot!” he shouted, again and again.

He took a deep breath before swimming as low to the bottom as he could, but Sirius wasn’t there. When he got back to the top, gasping for air, Sirius was on the standing on the pier in a prison uniform, his hair matted to his face, his gray eyes cold and hard.

Harry was next to him, alone in his bassinet, crying out the way he did when he was hungry or just wanted to be held.

James swam to the edge, and tried to pull himself up, but he kept slipping back into the lake.

“Sirius! Help me up” he shouted, but Sirius just turned away from him.

“For Merlin’s sake, calm down Harry! Hold him!” he shouted, making Harry cry even louder.

Sirius just looked through him, gray eyes flashing with distrust. “He wants you. And you left us.”

“I didn’t mean to!” James said, struggling to stay afloat, feeling something dark claw at his heels, dragging him down to the bottom. He fought and fought and fought but he was still sinking.

James heard the cry of a seagull, and he opened his eyes. Sirius was snoring softly, and Harry was curled in the fetal position, taking up the smallest amount of space he could in sleep.

Of course it was a dream. But he did leave them. He closed his eyes again, and wished for a more pleasant slumber.

Notes:

I love these boys, come talk to me in the comments.

What a day for them.

Chapter 6

James knew he was still dreaming, he’d been here before, he was 16.

Sirius was lying next to him outside in the land behind his house, they were passing a bottle between them. The night was clear and it was warm enough to sleep under the bright stars with a warming charm and a jumper, and they had nearly polished off a plate of chocolate biscuits his mum had made for the two of them.

Sirius was on his side, his back still healing from the way his mother had flayed it open just a week ago.

He was so close to him that James noticed the way his long lashes framed his gray eyes, and the sadness in them.

Sirius probably thought his face was blank and mysterious, but James knew him better. Better than anyone.

He poked Padfoot in the ribs.

“Sirius,” he whined. “Stop thinking about them. Think about quidditch or what prank we’ll do for the opening feast or about how we’re probably the youngest animagi of all time!”

Sirius snorted. “You don’t know that we are, though.”

“Ah, but you don’t know that we aren’t,” James replied. Drunk logic.
The corner of Sirius’s bow-shaped lips turned up in a small smile, and it transformed his face.

James knew his best friend was handsome, but he felt arousal pool deep in his gut at the sight of him for the first time.

James wanted him, so he leaned in close and kissed him. Sirius opened his mouth, so soft and pliant, more gentle than he expected, letting James set the slow and steady pace.

Sirius pulled away too soon and James whined.

“You’re drunk,” Sirius said.

“So are you,” James pointed out. “And you’re thinking of something else now.”

“Mostly how hard my dick is,” Sirius muttered. “Well-done.”

James moved in to kiss him again, but Sirius tilted his face away.

“I don’t want to be distracted like this,” Sirius said.

“You’re not a distraction,” James protested, running his hands through his hair. “You’re my best mate.”

Sirius chuckled darkly, and rolled onto his belly. “And that’s all you want, trust me.”

James sighed, Sirius only thought he knew everything and he was hard and cold and Sirius was cross with him and this was bollocks.

It was only until he heard Sirius laugh that he realized he said that last bit out loud.

“Shut up,” James said, but Sirius just laughed harder. James took another swig out of the firewhiskey bottle, and closed his eyes.

 

James woke up to the light of the Mediterranean sun and the spray of cold, conjured water on his face.

He sputtered and focused his eyes, Sirius and Harry’s guilty faces were looking down at him. There was still water coming out of Harry’s wand.

“Pranked by my son and my best mate,” James grumbled, shaking the water out of his hair. “What a way to wake up.”

Sirius laughed and James retaliated, casting a silent Aguamenti in his direction, soaking him in revenge.

Sirius looked like a wet dog, but James refrained from calling him that.

“Now that I’m up,” he said, “shall we get ready and go into town?”

“Works for me,” Harry said, ducking a gentle blast of water James had sent his way.

“What day is it anyway?” James asked.

Sirius just shrugged.

“8th of July,” Harry told them both.

“Nearly your birthday then,” James said with a smile. “What do you want?”

“I don’t need anything,” Harry told him.

“Who said anything about need? What’s cool for fourth years now? What do you want?”

“You don’t need to make a fuss about it,” Harry muttered.

“Don’t make a fuss? Are you sure you’re my son?” James joked, but regretted it when he saw the way Harry’s face fell.

“Harry,” he said, reaching out to clasp his shoulder. “That was just a stupid joke. You’re just better than me, I was a huge attention-seeker around my birthday.”

“It’s fine,” Harry insisted, his bright green eyes looking down at the sand, making himself look smaller than his thirteen years.

“Your dad was trouble the entire month of March, planning what he wanted for his party, and who would be invited. And your grandparents would send him a giant chocolate cake and treats for our whole dorm, we would love it,” Sirius explained, a smile on his face.

Harry looked between the two of them, his brow furrowed. “That sounds like Dudley.”

“I was mildly awful, yes,” James agreed, remembering how he would owl off a list of what he wanted, and get most of it in return. “But in my defense, I’m an only child and my parents weren’t expecting to ever be blessed with a child.”

“Miracle baby Jaaammieeee,” Sirius said in a very bad impression of his mum.

Harry cracked a smile.

“They were wonderful,” James said, thinking his Dad wouldn’t have made such a faux pas with his son, he was better than that. “And they would have loved you.”

“He’s right,” Sirius agreed. “They would have tried to spoil you rotten like they did Jamie.”

“I wasn’t that bad,” James protested, but he probably was.

Harry just raised his eyebrows the same way Lily did when she thought he was talking rubbish, but she didn’t feel like correcting him about it.

“What’s going on in that head of yours, huh?” James asked, opening the door to the cottage.

“Since Hogwarts, I’ve been hearing stories about you,” Harry told him. “How you were Head Boy and Quiddich captain and an animagus and a good friend and a Gryffindor. But meeting you, it’s different.”

“Not what you expected?” James asked, a sinking feeling in his gut, as he heading to the kitchen to get them glasses of water. The sun was hot, even this early, and he was thirsty.

“That’s not it,” Harry protested, but James could tell it was, at least a little. “It’s just that I never thought we’d be having any conversation, let alone what I wanted for my birthday.”

James nodded. “I get it. And can you try to do something for me, please?”

“Anything,” Harry told him, god, so eager to please.

“I’m new at being a dad again, but I’m a quick learner. Did anyone tell you that? Because I am. Tell me if I’m doing something wrong, and I’ll try to not do it again, alright? I want to be good at it,” James said, hoping his son would hear the truth to his words.

“Alright,” Harry agreed easily, taking a glass of water from James.

Sirius took one as well, looking between the pair of them, a wistful expression on his face. James knew Sirius never heard a kind word from his father either.

“And about your birthday, Harry…I know you’d probably rather spend it with your friends,” James said. “But can you spend it here, with us? It’s selfish but I was there on the day of course, and for your first, but I missed the other twelve.”

“I’d like that,” Harry admitted.

James smiled his thanks.

“Right, let’s go get dressed and meet down here in a bit, yeah?” James said, walking up the stairs.

Sirius followed behind him to the bedroom.

“You’re doing good, Jamie,” Sirius said in a soft voice when the door clicked shut behind them.

“I just don’t want to mess this up,” he said, toweling off his wet hair.

“Don’t worry so much, there's no way you can,” Sirius insisted.

“Coming from you, that’s rich,” James muttered, as he pulled on a star-themed polo shirt and matching shorts.

“Avoid regularly cursing him as punishment or calling him a blood-traitor, mudblood loving, shame-of-your-flesh and he’ll probably still want to speak to you when he’s of age,” Sirius snapped back.

James winced. He deserved that, he knew what kind of childhood Sirius had better than anyone living.

The two of them didn’t speak before heading down to the kitchen to meet Harry.

Harry looked between them and a smirk grew on his face. “What are the two of you wearing?”

Sirius had thrown on a red t-shirt and shorts that had of all things, otters on them.

James looked down at the constellation decorating his chest and shrugged. “We’re Englishmen in Spain, trust me, they’ve seen weirder things here. Be on the lookout for Stag Dos”

Sirius cracked a smile and James felt forgiven.

“Right, Harry, do you want to try and transfigure Sirius’s face before we go out or shall I do it?”

“Go ahead,” Harry said. “I’ll watch.”

James pulled out his wand and lightened Sirius’s hair, made his nose slightly crooked and duplicated his glasses, making him like he could be a Potter. He left the gray eyes though, he had always found them interesting, he didn’t want to look at Sirius and see anything else.

“How did he do?” Sirius asked Harry.

“You look like us,” Harry replied.

Sirius pulled a pretend shocked face, and looked in the mirror. “Yikes,” he joked.

“What have you done to yourself?” the mirror said back, scandalised.

“It’s a fate worse than…detention with Filch,” James said, before he could say death. No one wanted to hear that joke.

“Padfoot, do you have any muggle money around, or are we improvising?” James asked eventually as the silence got more heavy.

Sirius opened a drawer in the kitchen with a flick of his wand, it was overflowing with brightly coloured pesetas.

“Muggle money is hilarious—so bendy and fragile” James said, grabbing up a handful.

“Gemino,” he spelled, and the handful of notes doubled.

“And that’s why Gringotts doesn’t let you exchange very much muggle money at once,” Sirius said to Harry’s baffled look.

“Is that allowed?” Harry asked.

James shrugged. “Eh, what do you mean by allowed?”

“That’s James for no, but we’re not going to get in trouble for it and no one’s hurt over it, so it’s fine,” Sirius translated.

Harry laughed. “I think you two would get on with Fred and George Weasley.”

“Friends of yours?” James asked.

“Yeah, their brother Ron is my best mate.”

Sirius nodded.

“Here,” James said, handing a pile of money to Harry. “Get whatever you like.”

“I already have all your money,” Harry said with a frown. “Don’t worry about it.”

James sighed, Harry sounded so much like Remus in his stubborn refusal to take his help or money. Gods, Moony.

“Remus isn’t dead,” James said, with a certainty in his bones. He would have seen him.

“He’s alive,” Sirius confirmed, as the three of them set off on the short walk toward the Muggle old town.

“He was my Defense against the Dark arts professor last term,” Harry added.

James laughed, rule-breaking Prefect Moony as a professor! “Was he good?”

“The best I ever had,” Harry said firmly.

“That’s great,” James said. “I’d like to see him.”

Sirius nodded. "We can write to him."

“Is he alright?”

“He’s surviving,” Sirius said. “That’s what he does.”

“He said you were one of the best friends he ever had,” Harry told him, and James missed him something fiercely for a moment.

“Was he a strict professor?” James asked, imaging if Remus went full McGonagall on Harry and his year mates.

“We all liked him, it’s not like he was Snape,” Harry replied.

“Want to do me a favour and explain what that creepy little wankstain have to do with anything?” James asked, and Sirius grinned at his creative swearing.

“Ehm, he’s our potions professor and he hated the sight of me since first year,” Harry said, with a long-suffering expression on his face.

“That may be my fault,” James admitted.

“I’ve heard,” Harry muttered darkly.

“We weren’t nice to him, but he was a dark-arts obsessed little creep who was obsessed with Lily.”

“Really?” Harry asked.

“Yeah, they grew up together, used to be friends. I do know she was deeply hurt when their friendship ended, we didn’t talk about it much.” James said.

Harry looked thoughtful.

Sirius was barely paying attention though, his jaw clenched, scanning the crowd. It was a look he had barely ever seen on his face. Sirius looked scared.

“No one is going to find you here,” James told him. “And I won’t let them take you if they do, do you understand me?”

Sirius exhaled loudly, and nodded.

Harry understood. “You don’t look anything like your wanted posters.”

“Besides, who would think a Black would be wearing muggle clothes in a non-magical tourist town? You’re safe,” James added.

Sirius looked at the two of them, and some of the tension bled out of his shoulders.

James noticed a bustling café that was well shaded by umbrellas and palm trees, with outdoor tables spilling out onto the quaint square.

“This fine?” he asked them.

“Works for me,” Harry said.

Sirius flagged down a waitress, holding up 3 fingers and pointing to them. “Por tres para desayuno?” he said, managing the Spanish badly.

“Sure,” she responded back in English to Sirius, “have a seat. What can I get you and your family?”

James cut Sirius off, no need to explain. “Three cafes con leche, orange juice and two ensaimadas for each of us, we’re hungry.”

She nodded, and walked back to the kitchen, returning shortly with the orange juice and pastries.

“These look great,” Harry said, ripping off a piece of ensaimada, sugar coating his fingers.

“So good,” Sirius added through a mouthful of food.

“I love this island,” James exclaimed, taking a sip of the freshly squeezed orange juice, the perfect bit of acidity and sweetness.

He felt deliriously happy for a moment, the sun was warming his face and Harry and Sirius were sharing a table with him. Muggles were milling about, none of them sparing a second glance at the oddly dress English trio.

It felt like an interlude between the beyond and the world he came from, full of war and fear and death and betrayal.

James stole another glance at Harry and smiled.

“Good shout on ordering two of these, I had forgotten how nice they are,” Sirius said, having polished off half his breakfast already. He had eaten like a starving man.

James waved off the compliment, suppressing an urge to tell him not to talk with his mouth full. He really was turning into his mother.

“Let’s get some clothes and groceries after this,” James suggested. “And then I told Harry I’d teach him how to swim.”

“Sounds perfect,” Sirius replied.

Notes:

Come talk to me about Sirius, Harry and James in the comments! Thanks so much to those of you who have left comments, it really makes my day to know you're enjoy this so far.

Chapter 7

James, Harry and Sirius got back to the cottage hours later, arms loaded down with big bags of clothes and groceries. It was past midday, the sun was directly overhead and they were all sweaty from the fifteen-minute walk back from town.

They had got enough fresh food for the week; meats, cheeses, bread, cakes, fresh fruit and veg and all the snacks and muggle sweet sodas they could want.

And besides the food, James had somehow managed to persuade Harry to actually buy himself clothes that fit him properly. Small victories.

“I think that I might miss Alphard’s taste,” James joked, as he sent the bags of clothes on their merry way upstairs with a flick of his wand.

“I can’t tell if you actually mean that,” Harry grumbled, and Sirius laughed, tossing his head back.

Sirius was putting the fresh food away by magic instead of by hand and Harry looked fascinated by their casual, easy use of spellwork.

Maybe it was the growing up with muggles, because directing still objects to a cold pantry wasn’t exactly showy. His boy had grown up so differently than he did.

James summoned two fresh oranges, and tossed one over to Harry. He caught it without looking.

“Nice reflexes,” James said, as he went to start peeling his snack.

“Seeker,” Harry said with an easy shrug.

“I can’t wait till you see him fly, Prongs,” Sirius said, finishing the last of the unpacking, and opening up a big bag of crisps for himself. He was comfortable, lounging against the counter, and looking almost content.

“I'm excited to see you flatten Slytherin this year,” James responded, but god, he had some explaining to do before that. He could plan for his return later.

“It shouldn't be a problem with the team they have now,” Harry replied, ruffling his hand through his messy hair.

“Still want to learn how to swim today, Harry?” James asked him.

“If it's not any trouble,” Harry replied.

“I have a blisteringly full schedule of napping, eating, and spending time with the people I love the most in the world,” James said. “So the answer is no, it's not any trouble at all.”

Merlin, those muggles had really done a number on him.

“Okay,” Harry said. “Now?”

“As good of time as any,” James replied, going upstairs to change into his new swim shorts that were sadly just plain black and devoid of any constellations or creatures, magical or otherwise.

Sirius went outside with them, but elected to lie on the sand, newly purchased straw hat covering up his pale face. James wondered if he still freckled in the sun.

James and Harry waded into the warm water, up to their chests. A tiny little fish grazed his ankle but the water was so clear, he could see it swim away. The muggle-repellant charms had kept the beach so pristine.

“Right, swimming. The first thing to remember is that your magic will make it very hard for you to drown,” James said, staring at the way the bright sun reflected golden off his wedding ring.

“I’m not scared,” Harry insisted.

“Didn’t say you were,” James said easily. “But humans are buoyant anyway, our heads will float if we do it properly, and for wizards, the magic inside us wants to live. So you won’t drown.”

Harry nodded.

“I want you to get used to the water a bit, get your head wet and come back up, I’ll be right here,” James said.

Harry, his beautiful brave boy, ducked his head under the water, and came back up quickly with a grimace.

“Burns my eyes a little,” he complained.

“Keep them shut next time,” James said. “So we’re going to float first, we can do more swimming tomorrow, I just want you to realise that you’re not going under.”

“Okay,” Harry said.

“Just lie back and I’ll hold you alright, you’re not going to drown,” James repeated, hoping he trusted him at least this much.

Harry leaned backwards into the sea, and James cradled his head with one hand and had the other on the small of Harry’s back.

“Spread your arms and legs a little, that’s it, you’re doing a good job,” James said, encouragingly. He was a quick learner too.

Harry looked up at him and smiled at the praise, but it broke his concentration.

“I’m here, don’t worry. I see you. Head down, son, if your head is up, your hips and legs will sink,” James told him. “Relax.”

“I am relaxed,” Harry insisted.

“You’re doing great,” James said. “Will you be okay if I let you go? I’ll be right here.”

“I’m fine,” Harry told him, and James slowly let go. Harry continued to float.

“I had a pond outside my parent’s house growing up,” James told him. “We had a lot of land, and my Dad taught me how to swim just like this.”

“Really?”

“Yep,” James said, popping the p. “I was smaller than you, mind, it was before I went to Hogwarts, but Dad would spell the pond so it was as warm as bathwater and we’d spend hours playing outside.”

“It sounds perfect,” Harry said, a wistful tone to his voice.

“It was wonderful, but not perfect,” James said, splashing the water with his hand. “All of my parent’s friends were old, you see. None of them had children around my age, so I didn’t really have a lot of friends before Hogwarts.”

“Did you not make any in school?” Harry asked.

“My mum taught me at home, and I had tutors in other subjects,” James said. “They wouldn’t have thought to send me somewhere before Hogwarts.”

“Was it lonely?”

“Sometimes,” James said, lying back to float next to Harry. “But then I went to Hogwarts and met Sirius and Remus and…Peter. And your mum later, and I didn’t feel lonely for a long time.”

“I didn’t have any friends before Hogwarts either,” Harry confessed.

“If someone doesn’t want to be your friend, they’re a real idiot,” James told him, the confession tugging at his heart.

“Thanks Dad,” Harry said, rolling his eyes at him. James wished he could put that move in a pensive, trap it forever.

His son making of fun of him, looking so happy, the beginnings of a tan on his young face.

It felt like a holiday from real life. Before he died, his world was at war. He had a full life after Hogwarts but the spectre of Voldemort was always above him in some ways.

A little wave came in, and knocked the two of them down, but Harry came up a moment later, finding his balance quickly, standing up in the water that now came up to his collarbone; they had floated out a little further from the shore.

“Was this what your summers in Greece were like?” Harry asked.

“A bit, but with the addition of me stuffing my face with souvlaki,” James said. “Oh, do you want to hear a story about how your godfather saved the two of us from a siren?”

Harry nodded eagerly. “They’re real?”

“Most things from legends are. I was 15, and so was Sirius, his parents let him go with us to Greece for a week as we made some ridiculous argument about how visiting the pure-blood heritage sites would ‘give him context to his noble background’,” James said, remembering how he even got his mum in on the plan to break Sirius out of Grimmauld Place, if only for a little while. “And we wandered off from the main magical beach close to dusk one night, we were just exploring, we weren’t looking for danger.”

“But it found you anyway?”

“Exactly,” James agreed. “We found this excellent abandoned diving spot, a small cliff and a deep pool of water. But just as I’m about to dive in, I saw a flash of red hair and heard a laugh that sounded a little like your mum’s. So I start walking toward it, ignoring the obvious fact that there was no way Lily was there and I know there’s all types of magical creatures that would like to lure young men into the sea.”

Harry pulled a face, and James carried on.

“Right. So I get to the other side of the cliff and see the back of a woman, all long red hair and pale skin, and something in me felt a pull to try and get closer to her. I get ready to dive in so I can say hello and Sirius tackled me down to the rocky ground, not letting me go anywhere. And it’s a good thing too, the water wasn’t as deep on that end and I could have busted my head open. The siren just turned around at the commotion to wink at us both, and Sirius tried to curse her, but it just swam away into the water, unbothered by the whole thing.”

“I’m glad you didn’t jump,” Harry said, his hands making small circles in the water.

James was glad too. He remembered the fear and anger on Sirius’s face. What am I supposed to do you without you, Sirius had asked, shoving him back down on the ground after James tried to get back up to his feet.

Be top of the class? James had joked, but Sirius wasn’t in the mood to hear it.

“Sirius I were always getting each other in and out of trouble,” James said finally.

Notes:

I pictured the swimming scene a bit like the one in Moonlight, though of course Harry is older. Thanks for everyone who has been following this so far, your comments mean so much xx

Chapter 8

Remus was just about to go to sleep, no reason for unemployed werewolves to stay up alone, when he heard the low growl of a dog outside the door to his little house.

He grabbed his wand, and swung the door open, only to see Padfoot barking on his front step. But something felt wrong, the hairs on his arm were standing up.

Why was Sirius still in England?

“Padfoot?” Remus asked. The dog just barked, and ran in the direction of the woods.

Remus followed him, stopping to catch his breath by an old oak tree. The little forest was green and alive with the vibrancy of summer, life humming all around them, but stilled when the dog and Remus got near. All was quiet for a moment, and it was wrong.

The dog came running up to him, and pulled at the leg of his trousers, barking loudly.

“I don’t speak dog, Padfoot,” Remus snapped.

At that the dog whined, cocking his head at deeper into the forest.

“I won’t follow you until you talk to me, and like I said, I don’t speak dog,” Remus said, every well-honed instinct in his body primed to fight. He was a predator in a deep, dark part of him, and he could recognise another.

The dog shimmered, until something looking like a man took its place. But it wasn’t Sirius.

“You were lying when you said you don’t speak dog,” the creature joked.

“What have you done with my friend?” Remus asked, wand up and ready to spell the truth out of it.

The creature laughed, a low, terrible sound. “Nothing that the little star didn’t ask me to.”

“Is he alive?” Remus asked, voice shaking a little.

“More or less,” it said, and Remus exhaled.

“What did you do to him?” he asked again.

“I made him a deal, and he gave me this,” he said, turning into a dog and back again. “It’s not something I could do and it’s really something.”

“Quite,” Remus replied. “And what did you give him in return?”

“Just the desire of his heart,” the creature replied. “And I could give you yours, how would you like not to be a werewolf anymore?”

“I would like that very much, but I wasn’t born yesterday,” Remus said plainly. The danger was too great.

It made a dismissive noise.

“Your friend was much easier work, you I’ll have to convince some other way,” it muttered.

“He always did look before leaping,” Remus commented, grip tightening on his wand. “Where is he?”

“Oh, some far-away beach where another star used to swim,” the creature said, like it hadn’t a care in the world.

Remus made a move to hex it, and it disappeared.

Another star? Remus had to get to Spain.
--------------

 

James was exhausted, after a full day of shopping, swimming with Harry, and being out on the beach.

The sun had set over the sea, and he had washed the sweat and salt off his body, and wished his son a pleasant night of dreams.

Harry had replied “You too, Dad,” and it was funny how three words could go straight to his heart.

But it was back to the same with Sirius, who was in their shared bedroom looking like he wished he could stay awake forever.

“Do you think you can sleep in the bed tonight?” James asked him. “Because sleeping on the beach was nice, but waking up to sand in strange places wasn’t my favourite.”

Sirius laughed, but it rang false.

“Yes or no, Padfoot,” James prodded.

“All I can do is try,” he admitted eventually.

James look over at Sirius, his gray eyes clouding over with guilt and shame again. He wanted to reach out and hold him, but he didn’t look like he would accept the comfort in that moment.

“I’m kind of used to sharing a bed, actually,” James said, fiddling with his wand. “Lily would have told me if I kick during my sleep.”

"I already know you snore a little," Sirius replied, blinking at him.

James felt nervous for a moment, which was ridiculous, it was an emotion he hadn’t felt in ages. He wanted to speak, but couldn't get the question out.

“What do you want, Jamie? Because you’re going to have to spell it out for me, I’m not as fast at jumping from A to B as I used to be, you can blame the dementors for that,” Sirius admitted.

“You’ll get there,” James promised him, his voice steady and strong, the same way he promised him they’d become Animagi, the same way he promised Lily that he wanted to be a father, that he couldn’t wait to meet Harry.

Sirius just gestured grandly at him, old haughty pureblood body language returning in his frustration.

“I think I might sleep better if I share the bed with someone, and you might too,” James said, trying to sound casual. “The bodyheat might remind you that you’re here with me and not in that place anymore.”

“I certainly didn’t share a bed with anyone in Azkaban,” Sirius said, raising his eyebrows.

“Then it’s settled,” James said, transfiguring the bed to make it bigger. He stripped off and jumped in, taking the space closest to the wall.

Sirius took a deep breath, looking up toward the ceiling.

“You’re not walking the plank,” James pointed out. “It’s just me.”

“Just you,” Sirius muttered. “Right.”

Sirius stripped down to his boxers, and curled up on his side, facing away from James.

James could see the little constellation of freckles dotting his right shoulder, he hadn’t been this close to him in a long time,

He wanted to reach out and trace them with the tips of his fingers, but he didn’t.

Instead, he listened to the waves crashing onto the shore, and fell into a dreamless sleep.

In the low light of the early morning pre-dawn, James woke to Sirius clinging onto him, his head on his stomach, his arms around his waist. Sometime in the night, he must have reached for him.

James ran his hands through his friend’s jet-black hair, it smelled of the salt of the ocean. Sirius was awake, he could tell.

Sirius moved around in his sleep and mumbled, he was never quiet or still.

“This okay?” James asked him, as he continued his petting, dragging his nails over his scalp.

“Feels good,” Sirius murmured. James could feel the vibrations of his voice near his cock, something slow and warm building up in side of him. He wasn’t a monk.

“I want you to feel good,” James said, dropping one hand down to touch Sirius’s cheek.

He leaned into it, looking at James like he was a man dying of thirst and he was an oasis in the desert.

“I want you to feel good too,” Sirius mumbled. “James…”

“Yeah?”

“Can I suck you off?” Sirius said, biting his lip afterward. His gray eyes dilated with arousal and something softer.

James swallowed, and looked up at the wood beams in the bleach-white ceiling.

“It’s been a long time, but I used to be fucking fantastic at this…it’s probably like riding a broom, you can’t forget how,” Sirius joked.

“Sirius, no. You never wanted this with me,” James reminded him.

“Don’t tell me what I want,” Sirius snapped back. “I’ve wanted you in this way for as long as I can remember.”

“Are you sure you mean that?” James asked. “Because I’ve got a pretty clear memory of you turning me down after I kissed you.”

“When we were sixteen?” Sirius said with a snort. “You were drunk and horny and bored and just wanted to distract me from how much pain I was in.”

“That’s not how I remember it,” James replied.

“Alright,” Sirius said eventually, reaching out to drop a kiss to the pads of his fingers. “You wanted me. Can I suck you?”

“I... don’t think it’s the best idea right now,” James said, being as gentle as he could.

Sirius tried to jerk away from him, but James pulled at his hair. “Get up here,” he commanded, and Sirius scooted up the bed so he was eye-level with him.

“I’m sorry. ‘S not fair to Lily,” Sirius mumbled, almost into his collarbone.

“Lily will be okay,” James said, running his hands up and down Sirius’s back. “We had no secrets up there, she knows I love her, she knows I love you, when I see her again, she won’t be cross with me about it.”

Sirius tensed at the mention of him going back.

“Relax,” James said. “I can’t promise anything Padfoot, but I don’t want to leave you and Harry again—I never wanted to. But if I do, know that I’m happy and it’s good there.”

“Alright,” Sirius said, resting his head on James’ chest, like he was listening to the steady, calm press of his heartbeat. “I know Azkaban did a number on me, I don’t look like I did.”

“No. But you’re still you,” James insisted. “And fuck, Padfoot, I can’t believe I’m arguing my way out of a blow job, but give me some time to sort my head out,” and yours, James added silently.

“It’s fine,” Sirius said, opening his mouth like he was about to take back the whole thing, so James rolled onto his side onto Sirius and shoved his hand over his mouth.

“Don’t apologise or lie and tell me you didn’t mean it,” James said.

“Okay,” Sirius said, voice low and yearning. James had him pinned, and Sirius seemed grounded by the weight of his body.

“You like me on top of you?” James asked, feeling Sirius harden underneath him. Sirius always made him feel special, but now he felt like a god, like a veela, something magical, making his wild friend so still in this moment.

Sirius just nodded.

“I’ll make sure and remember that,” James said before kissing Sirius on the corner of his lips, a sweet promise of something to come.

James summoned all his self control and got up off the bed, pretending not to hear the low whine Sirius made.

It was all too soon.

Notes:

Sorry about the delay, I kept re-writing this. Let me know if you're still enjoying this story.

Chapter 9

Harry woke up startled, for a moment forgetting where he was.

It wasn’t the burgundy and gold and dark wood of the Gryffindor dorm or the Spartan surroundings of the Dursley’s spare room, but instead the room was all white and airy.

He could hear seagulls and the waves crashing on the beach and he finally remembered, he was on an island with his godfather and his not-so-dead-Dad.

It was like a dream from another person’s life. These gifts didn’t come to him, he had stopped wishing for miracles years ago.

He walked downstairs, and spotted James Potter, his father! sitting at the kitchen table, hands twisted in his messy hair. He looked pensive, and a little guilty.

“Good morning,” Harry said instead of asking him what was wrong.

James turned at the sound of his voice, and his Dad’s whole face changed, a soft smile breaking out, like he was the best thing his father had ever seen. No one had ever looked at him like that before.

“Good morning to you! Did you sleep alright, kiddo?”

Harry nodded. “How about you?”

“Ehm, it was fine,” his Dad said quickly, his cheeks colouring, avoiding his gaze.

“Is Sirius still asleep?”

“Ah, I’m sure he’ll come down here when he feels like it, he needs a bit of space when he doesn’t get his way,” he muttered, tugging at his messy hair.

“What?”

“Ah, nothing, your godfather is a complicated man. Say, are you hungry?” James asked.

“I could eat,” Harry admitted. “Would you like me to make a fry-up?”

His Dad’s hazel eyes narrowed. “Let me cook for you. It’s been a while, but I’m pretty sure I’m supposed to make sure you’re fed, clothed and sheltered as the very basics for not being a complete failure as a parent.”

Harry still remembered how much it hurt when the few times when bacon grease hit his hands when cooking for the Dursleys.

Petunia grabbed him away from the stove and stuck his hand under the cold water tap, yelling at him about what a clumsy, stupid boy he was. The cold water barely helped.

Harry watched as he got up, and started pulling groceries out of the cold cupboards. “A fry-up, huh? I can do that. How do you like your eggs?”

“Scrambled,” Harry said, running a finger over the tiny burn scar on his wrist.

“I’m glad you said that,” James said with a grin, cracking the eggs into a little glass bowl. “Because that and fried are the only ways I can actually fix these.”

Harry smiled, watching his Dad magically toast and butter bread, as the eggs scrambled themselves with a flick of his wand.

They could have had so many mornings like this.

James finished cooking with a dramatic bow and floated the plates to the table. The kitchen wasn’t very big, it would have been even less effort to just carry it, but he supposed that wouldn’t have had the same effect.

But his Dad made him breakfast, and they were eating together, like so many of his dreams.

“Alright there, Haz?”

“Yeah,” he replied. “These are just really good eggs.”

“I am enormously talented,” he joked, but something in his expression told Harry that he saw right through him.

Harry took a deep breath, and stared at his fork. “I used to cook breakfast most days for the Dursleys, before I went to Hogwarts.”

“You start attending Hogwarts at eleven,” James said flatly, eyes narrowing at him.

Harry nodded, and James dropped his fork and knife, wincing at the loud clang it made.

“It wasn’t a problem,” Harry said, and he wasn’t really lying. The cooking wasn’t the worst of it, not by far.

“Right, sure,” James said, and the silverware drawer rattled from his magic going haywire. He took a deep breath to calm himself, and the rattle stopped. “Sirius said his parents weren’t a problem until he showed up on my doorstep, and it’s not my place to tell you the details, but his family had really hurt him, in a few creative and terrible ways.”

“It wasn’t like that, Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon didn’t hit me or anything,” Harry protested, though mostly because he was too fast for them to catch.

“I’m glad, but we both know there’s more than one way to hurt a person, and I don’t want you to be hurt at all.”

Harry looked away from his father’s too-earnest face. “It doesn’t matter.”

“It does matter and I want you to listen to me.”

“I am.”

“Harry, you are never going back there. Do you understand me? Never.”

He swallowed past the lump in his throat. “It sounds nice, but I’m not sure Dumbledore will let that happen.”

“Dumbledore?” James scoffed. “He’s a headmaster of a school. And I guess Supreme Mugwump, but you’re my son. You have my grandfather’s name, as well as mine. The blood of me and your mother, two people who love you more than anything runs through your veins. Professor Dumbledore doesn’t get a say in this. We’re family, that’s a magic more ancient than anything.”

“I’m named after your grandfather?”

“Yeah, kiddo. Your mum wouldn’t let me saddle you with a name like Fleamont, and the first Harry Potter was also a pretty wonderful man.”

Harry felt warm at the praise, like he could cast the world’s biggest patronus. “Fleamont?” he asked.

His father’s face fell a little. “My Dad, your grandfather.”

“Right,” he agreed, not wanting to tell him it was the first time he ever heard that name.

“There’s a portrait of him and my mum in my parent’s house,” James said, reaching across the table to grab his hand. “We didn’t live there for a bunch of reasons, but also I didn’t want to hear their voices every day and know it wasn’t them, not how it counts. I never sold the house though, will you go there with me? I’d like you to meet them, or as much of them as you can.”

“Of course I’ll go with you,” he said quietly. He’d never wanted anything more.

“Thanks Harry,” he said, squeezing his hand before letting go. “Seems a bit silly to be scared of a portrait, right?”

“No,” Harry said, but it did, a little. “I would have liked to have seen a portrait of you.”

“It’s a very complicated charm and memories though, portrait me couldn’t do this,” James said before sending out a light tickling spell to him. Harry squirmed, and bit back a laugh.

“You can’t go flying with a portrait either,” he added. “Do you want to fly over the sea a bit before it gets too hot out?”

“I would love to,” Harry said, and meant it.

Chapter 10

The bed was still warm and smelled like James. Sirius didn’t want to get up. He could smell eggs sizzling downstairs and a pot of coffee starting, but he didn’t want to move.

He felt safe, a feeling so rare in his life, even in his earliest memories of being a child. He was always doing something wrong.

Sirius curled up in the foetal position, and tried to fall back asleep.

It worked for a while; he awoke to a soft hand brushing his hair out of his face.

He blinked. It was James, he was dressed casually, a golden glow to his skin, carrying a broom, and beaming at him, mischief on his face. It could have been any year at school.

“I’m going to go flying with Harry, if there’s another broom somewhere, you can join us?” he asked, smile not faltering.

Sirius shook his head.

“Alright, mate,” James said easily. “There’s food and coffee downstairs under a warming spell for when you get up, I’ll see you in a bit then?”

“I’m not going anywhere,” Sirius grumbled, tossing his forearm over his eyes to keep out the light.

“Sulky, stroppy, Sirius,” James replied, cuffing him gently on the shoulder.

“Judgmental James.”

“Pain-in-the-arse-Padfoot,” he said, his voice low, sitting down on the edge of the bed. The mattress dipped a little from his added weight.

“I didn’t mess everything up, did I?” Sirius asked him, the words spilling out of him.

James flicked him on the ear. He had forgotten just how tactile his best friend was, James had always been like that, giving out comforting touches like it cost him nothing.

“You didn’t mess anything up, don’t spend all morning in a Scorpio overthinking cycle,” James said with a sigh.

“Alright,” he agreed, rolling over onto his stomach.

“In that case, Harry and I will be back soon, don’t do anything I wouldn’t do,” James said, rising back to his feed.

“Good thing that’s a short list.”

“Well, you’re not wrong,” he said, his voice just this side of teasing, just the way he had remembered.

“See you then,” Sirius said, pushing down the impulse that made him want to follow James and Harry out of the house, just to see if everything was okay.

Instead, he remembered just how right James’s body felt on top of him, how absolutely gorgeous his hazel-eyes looked all wide with lust, and the strange newness of it all.

He didn’t know what kind of lover James was, but it seemed like he would treat sex like he did everything else, loudly and with heart and attempting to be the best at it.

Knowing him this way had never felt like an option, though he had wanted it for as long as he could remember wanting sex and affection.

Sirius fell back into a hazy, mid-morning slumber, until he awoke to a persistent knocking at the front door. He grabbed his wand and padded down the stairs, body bracing for a fight.

No muggles or uninvited wizards should have found their way onto the property, it was too well-warded for that.

He put his ear to the door, and listened for another knock.

“Sirius!! Open the damn door,” the voice said, and he swung the door open to see Remus, looking even more pale and disheveled since the last time he saw him.

“What was the last thing I said to you before this year?” Sirius asked, wanting to rule out intruders.

Remus glared at him. “That if I was working for Voldemort, you hoped the werewolves tore me apart.”

Sirius rubbed the back of his neck. “I didn’t mean it.”

“If I had been, you’d be quite within your rights to wish that,” Remus replied, mild-mannered. “And what did you say I say back to you?”

“I can’t remember the words exactly, but something-something-inbred prick—get your head out of your arse—I’m not a traitor,” Sirius said with a wince.

“That was the gist of it, yes. Can I come in?” Remus asked.

Sirius gestured grandly, and guided into the kitchen. “Do you want anything to eat or drink? We have orange juice, tea, some beer?”

“Maybe later,” Remus said, pulling out a chair. “You know, the strangest thing happened to me yesterday.”

“Are you alright?”

“I’m always alright. Werewolves are very hard to kill, as you well know,” Remus carried on, waving a hand dismissively. "A massive black dog was on my front step, and I followed it into the forest, wondering what you wanted to tell me. But it wasn’t you, was it Padfoot?”

“No,” Sirius said softly. “What did it want with you?”

“I’m not entirely sure. Surprisingly enough, I must not have seemed desperate enough at that moment for a chaos demon to make me a deal I would accept. The question, my friend, is what happened to make you give up your animagery?”

Sirius barked out a laugh. “October 1981 happened, Remus. Spending my twenty-second birthday, and nearly every one after in Azkaban.”

“Right,” Remus said, exhaling loudly. “But what did you give it exactly and what did you get in return?”

“I’m sorry I’m not Padfoot anymore, you know we did it for you,” Sirius said, his voice low and true. “But I’d give up everything except my soul for this, only because I know he’d never forgive me.”

“I’m glad you still value your soul, if nothing else. These creatures bargain with destinies, with chaos, with loopholes, you should be happy you’re alive still. Again, what did you give and what did you get?”

Sirius reflexively tightened his grip on his wand. “I’ve exchanged Padfoot for James, he’s brought him back.”

Remus looked at him like he was touched in the head. “James has been dead for nearly 13 years, Sirius.”

“I’m well aware,” Sirius snapped. “But he’s back now, and it’s really him, he’s out flying, he’ll be back soon and I know that he’ll want to see you.”

“Sure,” Remus said, clearly humouring him. “And James won’t mind if I run a few diagnostics spells to see if it’s really him?”

“Moony, don’t you think I’d know him anywhere?”

“I think you’ve been through a terrible ordeal and would believe anything if it meant you had James back,” Remus countered.

“He’s Prongs, not some sort of imitation,” he insisted.

Remus threw his hands up, and went to grab himself a glass of water. He peered out the window and turned back to Sirius, his face a mixture of anger and disappointment.

“Is that Harry’s owl out by the Hippogriff in the garden?”

“Harry’s here, yeah,” Sirius said.

“God, Sirius, don’t you think that’s the last thing he needs?”

Sirius snorted. “What, a parent that loves him more than anything? The first thing James wanted when he came back to life was to see his son.”

“And if it’s not James, if it’s some mud-creature that returns to dust? What then for Harry, won’t that make it worse?”

“It’s him,” Sirius repeated again, getting fed up of this conversation. “And if something happens to him, then Harry can know he has a father that loved him when he was born and loves the boy he is now, it’s a hell of a lot more than I got—or you, for that matter.”

Remus sat back down, and threw his hands up. “What has Dumbledore said?”

“We haven’t quite involved him yet,” Sirius admitted. “We just want some time to settle in.”

Remus sighed, a sound Sirius knew well. “At least you look well,” he said gesturing to him.

“Less like a skeletal escaped convict?”

“I was trying to be polite,” Remus grumbled.

“Cheers, Moony,” Sirius said. “Can’t say I was even thinking about that the last time we spoke.”

“Well, the last time I saw you, you were quite single-mindedly focused on Wormtail,” Remus replied.

Sirius felt the familiar rage bubble up inside of him, but he did his best to push it back down. “And you were right there with me, until the moon rose.”

“Details a bit fuzzy after,” Remus said with a familiar smirk that reminded Sirius of so many other days after the full moon.

Sirius grinned back, before hearing the door swing open

“We’re back, so you better not still be sleeping,” James yelled as he walked in.

Both of them grabbed their wands, and stood up. Sirius glanced at Remus’s face, he had paled in recognition of James’s voice.

“Remus is here,” Sirius yelled back, “we’re in the kitchen.”

James and Harry rushed into the room, carrying their brooms, looking windswept, tan and happy, and Sirius didn’t think he could love them any more.

“Moony?” James asked, dropping his broom in the corner to come and greet him.

“Keep back,” Remus warned, wand out.

“Professor Lupin?” Harry asked, trying to step between James and Remus, but his Dad didn’t let him.

“It’s fine, Harry,” James replied. “Professor Lupin,” he said, sing-songing the name, “wouldn’t hurt me.”

“That’s not an opinion you’ve always held,” Remus snapped, a wound long-buried rising to the surface.

“Yes it is,” James replied. “I didn’t seriously entertain the thought that any of my friends was a traitor, which was one of the biggest mistakes of my life, but I didn't think it was you, truly.”

Remus nodded, and began silently casting, gold and silver light erupting out of his wand, glowing around James. “Well, you’re alive, at least. And a man.”

James wagged his eyebrows.

“Meaning you’re not a dark creature, no need to be crude,” Remus said with a sigh.

“You were just a Hogwarts professor and you find that crude? I guess the standard for teenage jokes isn’t what it used to be,” James joked.

“It sounds like him too,” Remus said, turning to Sirius, sympathetic expression on his face.

“It’s not Polyjuice,” Harry added, “we’ve been around him for days, and he’s not drank anything we haven’t.”

“And I’m not boggart or a kelpie or the world’s most handsome inferius, thank Merlin, so can I say that it’s good to see you, old friend? I missed you,” James said, reaching out to give Remus a hug.

Remus let him, and when James pulled away, Sirius could see Remus’s cheeks were wet, and he never cried.

“Where are we in your monthlies, friend? Would you like to stay here with us for a few days?” James asked.

“Waxing gibbous,” Remus replied. “And if you wouldn’t mind, though I will need to go home for the full, I don’t think this little cottage and stretches of sandy beach are especially safe for any of you with me then.”

“Not for Harry and Sirius, no,” James said, reaching out to squeeze Sirius on the shoulder.

“I’m afraid we may have to transfigure one of the couches in the sitting room to a bed,” Sirius said, changing the subject. “It’s not the biggest house.”

“It’s fine,” Remus said with an easy shrug. “I’ve slept in far worse places.”

Harry nodded, like he had too, and James looked between the two of them. He clenched his jaw and swallowed, looking up to the ceiling for a moment, before regaining his composure.

“And I hope you’ll never need to again,” James replied, looking between Remus and Harry.

“James Potter, you may have just returned to the land of the living, but I can assure you that things haven’t got any better for werewolves in your absence,” Remus said, sinking down into a chair, looking slightly defeated.

“Doesn’t make me any less angry,” James said, summoning over a carafe of cold orange juice, and pouring them all glasses.

“You were the best professor we ever had, and it’s absolute rubbish that you were sacked,” Harry added, his voice clear with conviction.

“Thank you, Harry. If only the Potters could change the world by sheer stubbornness alone,” Remus replied.

“We can try,” James said.

Notes:

Remus has arrived! Come talk with me in the comments, your feedback has meant so much.

Chapter 11

“So Professor Moony,” James said, taking a seat at the little table. “What was our Harry here like as a student?”

Remus smiled. “He was a lot less trouble than you.”

James snorted in reply. “That’s not saying much. Details, please?”

“He’s a talented wizard.”

Harry looked embarrassed. “I’m alright.”

“It’s true,” Remus added. “I’m not saying your essays were anything to write home about, but you’ve got a real knack for Defense. You were top of your year in my exam, and many fully grown wizards can’t conjure a corporeal patronus, and you’ve succeed at 13.”

“I did that because I had to—I had no other choice,” Harry protested.

Sirius remembered the circumstances, and winced. James’s baby son had saved his very soul.

“It’s still impressive,” James argued.

Remus glanced between Harry and James before speaking again. “His patronus is Prongs.”

“I know,” James replied. “I’ve seen it, but if you wouldn’t mind son, I would love to see it again?”

Harry looked torn between pride and embarrassment, but pulled out his wand, and conjured the great, ghostly stag. Prongs.

James winked at his son before casting a Patronus of his own, which immediately started tussling in a friendly way with the Patronus Harry had made, the two stags locking antlers.

“Expecto Patronum!” Remus said with a mischievous grin. His wolf run ran along and joined the pack, the creatures of magic bringing a warm, happy glow to the room.

“I love magic,” Harry added, watching their patronuses play.

Sirius looked between them and took a deep breath before attempting the spell. He used the same memory he always used to, James cutting his palm and mixing blood with his, saying he was the brother James had never had.

But Padfood didn’t come. Only a wisp of smoke came out of the tip of his wand. He had failed. Sirius rested his head in his hands, covering his face.

James leapt out of his chair, and put a reassuring hand on his shoulder. “It’s alright.”

“It’s the memory bit,” Sirius confessed. “I remember having happy memories, I know I had good years, but they don’t feel right after Azkaban.”

“It won’t be like this forever,” James assured him, and Sirius wanted to believe him.

“Can I ask what memory you used?”

“You already did.”

Sirius rolled his eyes.

“I was thinking about the day my son was born,” James said. “Harry, has anyone told you about it?"

"Of course not," Harry replied.

The who was going to tell me remained unspoken, but they all heard it anyway.

"Right, I'm sorry," James said. "Is it alright if I tell you now?

Harry nodded, his green eyes very wide. He was leaning toward his father, trying not to show just how much he wanted to hear this story.

“Right. Lily woke me up at around 6 in the morning on the 31st, and told me it was time. I summoned our overnight bag we had packed for St. Mungos, but I was so eager, I may have smacked myself in the face with the bag and given myself a black eye,” James confessed. “We flooed together to the maternity ward, and one of the healers asked if your mum gave me that black eye and warned not to upset heavily pregnant witches.”

Sirius laughed; he could picture the scene in his mind so clearly.

“Your mum yelled at the healer to mind his business and that I had given my own stupid arse that black eye and they shut up and gave us a private room, but you took your sweet time coming, kid. Lily kept having contractions, and her magic was lashing out, shaking the furniture. Late in the evening, they spoke to us about taking her in for an emergency c-section, but she insisted that you were on your way and she had pushed for this long, she would keep on pushing.”

Harry nodded, soaking up the story like a little sponge.

“And you kid were almost an August baby. But Lily was right, you were on your way and finally made your grand appearance into this world just before midnight. You had these little tufts of dark hair and you were red-faced and screaming, Merlin, the set lungs on you, but you calmed down when the healer handed you back to your mum. I got to hold you a few minutes later, I was so nervous that I would drop you or do it wrong, I hadn’t held a baby before, but you looked at me and it was like you know I was your Dad, and that was the happiest moment of my life and what I think about when I conjured my patronus,” James finished.

“I was there, in the waiting room,” Sirius added. “I came in when the healers said the Potters could receive visitors. Your mum was so tired but couldn’t stop smiling, and Prongs here kept crying and talking about how tiny and perfect you were.”

Harry looked at him.

“Happy tears! I’m an emotional bloke,” James said with a shrug.

“I didn’t know that I was almost an August baby,” Harry mused.

“Yeah, you were born as the seventh month died…” James muttered, and slumped back into his seat.

Sirius spoke up. “I think it was technically the first of August when I got to meet you. Lily asked if I wanted to come closer and properly meet my godson, but I was also terrified of dropping you on your head when she passed you over to me. She said she trusted me not to mess up something this important.”

“You were so good with him,” Remus said, “You used to volunteer to babysit on the weekends.”

“It was great fun,” Sirius said, grinning at Harry. “All I had to do was make silly faces or turn into Padfoot and you would giggle for hours.”

Harry turned his head, embarrassed. “I wish I could remember.”

“There’s loads of photos somewhere,” Sirius said. “I doubt the aurors could have got into my flat after I was arrested, I have so many.”

“Have you been back to your flat?” James asked, and Sirius shook his head.

“I thought the aurors might look for me there, and it’s not like I cared about any of my stuff, I just…” he trailed off.

“Wanted to get Pettigrew,” Remus finished for him.

“We can pick up some of your old things when we leave this island after Harry’s birthday. But I’m not letting you stay in that bachelor pad by yourself.” James said.

Sirius shrugged. “It’s all moot if I’m still a wanted criminal anyway.”

“You won’t always be,” James said, smacking his open palm on the table like he could fight the ministry and world by sheer force of will alone.

“I have so missed you,” Remus said quietly in response.

“I’m sorry,” James said, and Remus waved the apology off.

“A bit weird for you to be so much younger than me though,” Remus commented, running his hands through his salt-and-pepper hair. “You don’t have a single gray.”

“This body’s last birthday was 21,” James said quietly.

“Of course,” Remus said.

“You don’t look that old Moony, and besides, I’m sure the professorial look works for a lot of witches.”

“Yes, women are lining up to date a broke, recently unemployed werewolf,” Remus joked.

“Don’t tell me the last date you went on was when I was still alive, with that Ravenclaw, what was her name?” James asked, summoning bread, cheese and fresh fruit to the table.

Remus shoved a piece of manchego in mouth his lieu of a reply.

James raised his eyebrows at him, and Remus glared back. “No, I’ve been on dates, I’ve not taken a vow of celibacy, thank you for your confidence in me.”

“That’s more than I can say. The options in Azkaban were dementors, my cousin Bella, or the wardens,” Sirius joked, but no one at the table found it remotely funny.

“Did any of them touch you?” James asked, his voice as cold and unforgiving as the Scottish winter.

Sirius shook his head. “No one touched me in that place, and if they did, they would have got Padfoot's sharp teeth lunging at them.”

“Good,” James said, his voice just-this side of possessive. He flushed, before turning to Harry. “Any boys or girls in your life, Harry?”

Harry shook his head.

“You have time, kiddo. My first date was in fourth year and it was an absolute disaster, so please don’t feel like you need to rush on my account,” James replied.

Sirius and Remus exchanged a look and smirked.

“No need for you two goons to ruin my reputation in front of my only son,” James said, holding up a hand over Sirius’s mouth so he couldn’t speak.

Harry laughed. “You can tell me the story later.”

“You lot are the worst,” James grumbled, but didn’t mean it.

Sirius looked at his best friend, still so young and so beautiful and full of hoped despite everything.

He took a deep breath, and tried the spell again, not wanting to give up quite so easily. “Expecto patronum,” he said clearly, thinking not of when James promised to be his brother, but instead of how good his hands felt on his skin and how safe he felt in his embrace.

Padfoot didn’t come out of his wand like he expected, instead another deer came out, matching James and Harry’s patroness.

James’s jaw dropped, and Sirius looked away from him.

Padfoot was gone forever.

“Sirius?” James questioned.

“It must have changed as part of the bargain,” Sirius lied. “The dog’s gone.”

“That’s probably it,” James muttered.

Sirius stood up, wanting out of the room, where his patronus was still playing with a wolf and two matching stags.

“I’m going to get some air, I’ll be on the beach if anyone needs me,” he announced, walking out of the room, sparing one last glance at the look of shock on James’s young, beautiful face before heading out toward the sea.

Notes:

Thanks for those of you giving comments or kudos, I truly appreciate it! Sorry if Sirius is frustrating; he's gone through some pretty big drama and his upbringing was also awful.

Chapter 12

Sirius was left alone with his thoughts on the beach for longer than he expected. He calmed himself by watching the tide, and tried to slow his breathing. In and out with the waves. His heart kept beating too quickly, reminding him what he had shown them with his Patronus.

James wouldn’t embarrass or hurt him, he knew that, but he felt like he had cut his heart out of his chest and held it out for him to receive on a silver platter. It was his, it was always his, but now everyone that mattered knew it.

He had never felt this vulnerable before, it was undignified and his mother would call it weak. It was terrifying. Sirius wanted so badly to become Padfoot, his thoughts were never this jumbled as a dog, their emotional needs veered toward hunger-cuddle-protect, but he couldn’t shift. Not anymore.

Sirius sighed, and looked toward the horizon.

James joined him on the beach hour or so later, a beer and a sandwich in his hands.

“In case you’re hungry,” he said, passing him the ham-and-cheese.

“Alright, mum,” Sirius said, gesturing for James to sit down next to him.

James sat a little too close, resting his thigh next to his. “You’re joking, but that comparison makes my blood boil, actually.”

Sirius laughed. “I was thinking of your mum, actually.”

James grinned. “In that case, I’ll take it.” He nudged his leg with his knee, the simple touch making him feel more grounded, like this was all really happening. His hazel eyes were bright, his smile a little crooked, and the few days he’d spent in the sun made his skin a little browner and gods, Sirius thought he was the most handsome man on this earth.

I’m so, so, fucked, Sirius thought to himself.

“What did Remus and Harry say?” Sirius asked, breaking the comfortable silence.

“About you? Not much. They had plenty to say about the other third years, Harry has some sort of nemesis already with the Malfoy kid, did you know that?”

“I didn’t, but I’m sure he’s a little tosser if he’s anything like his parents,” Sirius admitted, grateful that James wasn’t going to force any confessions about the patronus out of him.

“Yeah. Remus knows all about it. He knows my son better than me,” James said, filling the silence. “It feels pretty shite to be jealous of Moony, but I am. Does that make me a terrible person?”

“No. Not at all. I think that it makes you human,” Sirius responded.

“You’re probably the wrong person to ask, though,” James said. “You wouldn’t think I was a terrible person if I murdered somebody.”

Sirius laughed. “I’d help you bury the body.”

James smiled, but the smile was strained, something pained behind his hazel eyes.

“What are you thinking about?” Sirius said.

“I’ve never wanted to kill anyone, except Voldemort,” James replied.

“I know,” Sirius said, confused. “I didn’t think you had?”

“No,” James said with a sigh. “I’m not explaining myself well---just the war was horrible—and from what Harry says, Voldemort’s not all the way dead. I don’t want it to be back.”

Sirius nodded, understanding. The constant dread of looking for a dark mark over houses, of always being on your guard and waiting for betrayals was truly awful, but more so for James, who grew up trusting people and thinking that people liked him. Sirius never assumed either thing.

“I didn’t want to die, I didn’t at all, I had so much to live for, Lily and Harry and you,” James said, reaching out to squeeze Sirius’s hand. “But at the end, when it came, I thought at least I didn’t have to be scared anymore.”

Sirius didn’t know his heart could break this much.

“It’s fine,” James said at the look on his face. “I’m fine, it’s just, I don’t want Harry to feel like this, like something is always lurking around the corner for him, like death and destruction is closing in.”

“I don’t think he feels that way,” Sirius said.

“And how would you know that? You barely know him,” James replied, eyes narrowing. And it hurt like one of his mothers flaying curses, because it was true.

“I know,” Sirius admitted.

“I used to think you’d be like his cool uncle, he could tell you things he didn’t want to tell his lame parents, you could let him borrow your motorbike and drink your firewhiskey and talk about girls or boys and things I wouldn’t want to hear about,” James said softly.

Sirius’s heart sank. He wanted that too.

“You know it’s quite near impossible to be angry with you with that hang-dog expression on your face,” James replied, sighing.

“I’m sorry I haven’t been there for Harry, you know I wish I could, but I’ve seen him at Hogwarts. He has friends, James. He’s on the quidditch team. He lost so much when you and Lily left, but I don’t think it’s all been bad for him.”

James nodded, but looked ready to explode.

“And he has you now, right? And me. And Moony.”

James just got even more tense. “Harry could barely speak when Voldemort came for him, Padfoot. He used to throw peas at my head, the only thing he was a threat to was the amount of sleep Lily and I got…Why did the prophecy have to be about my son?”

“I don’t know,” Sirius said, before reaching out and grabbing James. He pulled him against his chest and wrapped his arms around his middle. James let him do it, and relaxed against his body. He wondered if Prongs could hear the fast beating of his heart, the too-quick staccato rhythm.

“I’m sorry, mate,” James said. “I’m just worried.”

“I know,” Sirius said. He wanted to tell James it would all be alright, but he couldn’t lie to his face.

James took a deep breath, and got to his feet, pulling Sirius up. “Enough of this, then. Eat your sandwich, and we’re going back in and we’ll play exploding snap and then maybe in the evening, we can all go out for some food and sangria and I think I saw a cinema on our walk the other day. Do you think Harry has gone to a cinema, do you remember Lily took us?”

Sirius nodded. “You nearly got us kicked out by assuming the moving pictures would talk back to us.”

James laughed. “Lily was so, so cross. It was brilliant.”

“I think secretly she thought it was funny,” Sirius admitted.

“Yeah, everyone just thought we were drunk public schoolboys,” James responded, a faraway look on his face. “She said she could never go to the Cokeworth cinema again.”

Sirius squeezed his hand.

“Let’s take Harry to a film,” he said. “He can’t be any worse than you.”

Notes:

I've written a one-shot that goes along with this, if you click on the series tag, you'll see it, that shows Sirius running away from his family. If you're enjoying this, maybe give that one a browse too?

Hope you're enjoying, more to come soon! -J

Chapter 13

The four of them got out of the cinema in the late afternoon.

The film showing had been The Lion King which had a bit too much evil uncles and fathers dying for Sirius’s tastes, but it was bright and colourful and fun, and he couldn’t get the little ditty from the opening out of his head. He was humming it to himself, off-tune. Lions, indeed.

“You do know that it was just Hamlet with a happier ending,” Remus lectured as they spilled out of the old cinema onto the cobbled street.

James kept glancing at Harry, a worried look on his face. Prongs was many things, but subtle was never one of them.

“I liked the film Dad, you can stop staring at me like I’m going to cry just because Simba’s dad dies,” Harry spoke up.

“Maybe I was just staring at you because I’m proud to have such a handsome son, did you think about that?” James joked.

“He looks just like you, you massive narcissist,” Remus said, and the four of them burst out in laughter.

“I don’t want to go back home yet,” James said, dramatically taking a spin in the sunshine. “Let’s be proper Europeans and have a drink and some food outside.”

“Is that what makes a proper European?” Sirius joked, but they followed him down the little side streets until they found another café with outside seating that spilled out onto the streets.

James dismissed the first few they saw as not looking ‘lively enough’.

They sat down at the third cafe, and ordered pitchers of sangria—and lemonade for Harry—as well as padron peppers, bread with tomatoes, and cheese and ham.

The peppers felt too spicy for his stomach after years of mouldy apples and stale bread at Azkaban, but he could hardly care about a little thing like that.

It was the golden hour, the daylight was red and soft, casting gorgeous shadows across James’s face. He felt warm, and the sangria tasted sweet and heady against his tongue.

Remus was laughing as Harry was telling a story about some prank the Weasley twins pulled earlier in the year on the Quidditch captain.

Sirius felt like he could cast a thousand patronuses.

“Oi, is there anyone in there,” James said, flicking him on the forehead. “Harry just asked if you remembered the best prank we ever pulled.”

“Sorry, Harry,” he said. “There’s too many to count, it’s amazing we graduated at all, but my personal favourite prank was sixth year. The day before we left for end of term, we enchanted the breakfast to insult the Slytherins. I nearly cried laughing when a croissant jumped out of my brother’s hands, calling him a pasty-faced-little-dullard that didn’t deserve to eat him.”

“I didn’t know you have a brother,” Harry replied.

“He died before you were born, Harry,” James said gently.

“I’m sorry,” Harry said.

“It’s absolutely not your fault,” Sirius told him.

“What was his name?”

“Regulus,” Sirius said, staring up at the darkening sky that was turning pink from the setting sun. “The brightest star in the Leo constellation, should be easy to spot this time of year.”

“Whereas Sirius is always easy to spot, or at least hear by his massively loud mouth,” Remus said with a wink, lightening the mood.

The café had started to fill up with people as the sky got darker and the hours got later.

One of the bartenders had turned on a radio, some fast-paced muggle pop was blaring from the outside speakers.

A few couples had started to dance near the square, young and drunk and happy and a table of women next to them had started to gaze in their direction.

Sirius sank down in his seat, covering his face with his hands, James had transfigured him again before going outside, but he was still a little afraid to be noticed.

“They’re probably only looking because they think we’re fit, relax,” James whispered in his ear, and he did.

A blonde woman downed a glass of wine and giggled before walking up to them. He’d give her points for bravery, if nothing else.

“Vamos a bailar?” she asked James, her accent very charming. She was very pretty, dark hair and eyes, maybe twenty-five.

“Sorry, what?”

“She’s asked you to dance,” Remus translated.

“Ah, right,” James said, grinning at the woman. Sirius looked down at his half-empty glass of sangria.

“I’m afraid that I can’t, but my friend here is an excellent dancer,” he said, pointing to Remus.

Remus glared daggers at him, but smiled softly at the Spanish woman, and took her offered hand, rising to his feet.

“One thing you should know about Moony, Harry,” James said. “Is that he’s actually a very good dancer.”

Harry laughed, but it was true.

“His mum was a dancer, in the ballet before she met his dad,” Sirius said. “Beneath the whole mild-mannered werewolf exterior, he’s actually got better rhythm than any of us.”

The three of them clapped dramatically as Remus finished dancing with the woman, kissing her on the cheek before returning to the table.

James even wolf-whistled, the absolute tosser, before ordering another round of drinks and snacks.

Sirius wasn’t sure his heart or his belly had ever been this full.

They wandered through the town later that evening, taking the long way home. A tiny little owl, the same one he had gifted Harry’s friend, was following them, and dropped a letter on Harry’s head.

“Pig!” Harry said delightedly, snatching the letter up.

“Who is it from?” James asked.

“My best mate Ron,” he explained, squinting over the text in the dark as they headed back to the cottage. “Can I write back?”

“I’d never stop you from writing to your friends,” James replied. “Maybe…give him an edited version of events for the time being though?”

Harry nodded. “I’ll write back later.”

Sirius couldn’t help but ruffle his hair as they walked back in, enjoying the longsuffering face Harry made in return.

Once back inside the safety of the wards, James undid the transfiguration, setting Sirius’s face back to normal, the way it was on the wanted posters. Sirius felt a frisson of fear, but shook it off, and raced James up the stairs to take the first shower in the master bath.

He let the spray wash the dirt and grime off his body, enjoying the feeling of being clean after a long day spent in the Spanish heat.

His hair was still messy and didn’t feel all the way clean even after two shampoos, but what did it matter in the grand scheme of things.

Sirius got out of the shower, wrapping a towel around his waist.

James was sitting on the edge of the bed waiting for him, a strange, soft look on his face.

“Padfoot, your hair is so long,” James commented as Sirius tied it up.

He shrugged. He used to keep it relatively in style to the muggle trends—his father kept it long like purebloods of old—but it wasn’t as if he had reason to care in recent memory.

“Can I cut it?” James asked, and Sirius nodded. He couldn’t help but say yes to anything he asked him.

James led him back into the bathroom, and transfigured a little stool to sit on, before tenderly wrapping another fluffy towel around his shoulders.

The small act of kindness tore into his heart, making him feel like he mattered.

Sirius blinked up at James. “Do you even know how to cut hair?”

James grinned, showing his teeth. “Of course I don’t, but I can’t mess it up any more than it already is, can I?”

“Do your worst,” he dared.

“I just might,” James replied, rummaging around in the vanity for a hairbrush, and finding a very fine silver comb.

“Only the best for the Blacks,” he joked before running it through his wet hair, carefully getting the knots out. He started at the root, going so slowly through the strands.

“You can yank them out, it doesn’t bother me,” Sirius said, feeling strangely vulnerable as James tugged lightly at another tangle.

“Everything bothers you,” James countered, no less gentle on the next stroke of the comb.

Sirius shrugged, he wasn’t wrong. After what seemed like ages, he put the comb down, and picked up a pair of scissors he found in the bottom drawer.

“Best get on with it, then,” Sirius said, and James started to cut. He could hear the snick-snick of the scissors, and watched as bits of jet-black hair fell to the floor.

“Don’t worry, you’re not going to be bald,” James said. “Just trying to clean this up a bit.”

Sirius nodded, and James carried on cutting. He stepped in front of him, and Sirius noted his furrowed brow; the same stupid concentration face he made during years of essays and exams.

James cut a little near his fringe, and then brushed it away from his face, before helping him to his feet in front of a mirror. “How did I do?”

Sirius stared at himself. There were still bags under his eyes that would never go away and his cheekbones were razor-sharp in a way that told of the four-thousand-odd days he starved in Azkaban, but his hair was drying in a soft wave that ended near the nape of his neck and he almost liked the way he looked.

He looked neat at least, like a man who cared about his appearance.

“You did good, Prongs,” Sirius said, clapping him on the back.

“Maybe someone will ask you to dance tomorrow,” James joked, but Sirius didn’t find it remotely funny.

“You know I don’t care about muggle women, don’t be stupid,” Sirius said, banishing the hair off the floor to avoid looking at him.

“I know,” James said. “You used to, though. Don’t lie to me and pretend that you didn’t.”

Sirius ran his hands through his newly shorn-hair. “It was just sex, James. They didn’t know who they were fucking. The men either.”

“I know you,” James insisted.

“Yeah, you do, Prongs. Better than anyone.” Sirius said, voice rough.

James ran his hands through Sirius’s hair, before dropping a kiss to his forehead.

Sirius whispered in his ear. “There’s ways you don’t know me though. You don’t know how greedy I am in bed, how absolutely desperate I’d be for your hands, your mouth, your cock."

James jerked away, and looked up to the ceiling. “You should probably go and leave me in here for my shower before I do something we both regret.”

Sirius swallowed, and left the room, slamming the door shut behind him.

 

------------------------------------------------------------

 

Sirius, James, Harry and Remus spent the next week swimming, exploring the Muggle old town, having big lunches, long siestas, and lazy late nights outside on the beach.

Some of the clothes Sirius had bought were starting to fit him properly now, instead of hanging off his frame like a scarecrow.

Harry still looked at James like he was something out of his imagination, but his eyes stopped tracking him when he left the room, like with every passing hour he was a little less and less afraid that he would disappear into the ether.

Sirius knew how he looked at James—like he hung the moon and the stars-- but he hadn’t brought it up again, despite spending every night curled up against his chest.

Jamie had his back to them now, he was cooking breakfast and humming ‘I just can’t wait to be king’ to himself whilst putting the finishing touches on egg omelettes.

Remus was starting to look a little peaky, the full moon was getting close, and Harry had his head in his hands, half-asleep.

Sirius wanted to keep the moment in a pensive forever.

James floated the breakfasts over to them, and they dug in, but something felt wrong, he could feel strange vibrations in the core of his magic.

It took him a second to figure it out—it was the wards. Someone was coming. Sirius dropped his fork and picked up his wand.

“What’s-the-matter?” James asked him, mouth full.

Remus was quicker on the draw, standing up with his wand, while Harry soon followed.

“Someone’s here,” Sirius all but growled.

James took a protective step in front of Harry. “I want you to take my invisibility cloak, and hide, alright? Only come out if I say it’s okay.”

“I can help, I know loads of spells,” Harry protested, but James’s stony face left little room for argument.

He summoned the cloak, and Harry shot one last betrayed look at him, before disappearing from sight.

“The wards will last for another few minutes if we want to leave,” Sirius said, tapping his family magic into the cottage.

“There’s always the option of seeing who it is, first,” Remus suggested, his whole body poised to attack.

Sirius and James nodded, and Remus crept over to the door, casting a spell on it. The outline of Albus Dumbledore appeared, and Sirius felt a curious mixture of relief and terror.

“You might as well let him in,” James said, keeping his wand high.

Sirius flicked the door open with wandless magic, and Albus Dumbledore was staring at the three of them.

His face scanned to James immediately, ignoring Sirius and Remus like they were expected.

“You’re looking very well for a dead man, my boy,” he said, casting a hazy golden identification spell over James.

He let the spell examine him with an easy shrug. “I’m not dead anymore, as you can see.”

“How curious, you aren’t,” Dumbledore replied. “May I come inside?”

Sirius showed him to the sofa that Remus had been sleeping on, and they all sat down.

Dumbledore, for all that his face was calm, was still holding tightly onto his wand. “I had seen your body, and prepared the mourning robes for your funeral. You were so young.”

“I wondered who did that,” James replied. “Thank you for that kindness you showed to me and my wife.”

“Is Lily here too?”

James shook his head. “It’s just me. I chose to come back---as a sort of boon a creature gave Sirius.”

Albus stared at James. “Chose?”

“I could have stayed where I was with my wife and parents, but I had unfinished business you see,” James said, his tone pleasant but just on the knife's edge of dangerous.

Remus cut in. “Headmaster, for what it’s worth, I’ve run every matter of diagnostic spell I can think of on James. I’ve observed him for the week, if it’s an imposter, he believes it to his bones. It’s not a potion or a golem or a skinwalker or anything other than a magical wizard who thinks himself James Potter. I think it’s him, too.”

“Thank you, my boy. How interesting,” Albus replied. “In that case, welcome back to the land of the living.”

James nodded his thanks."And before you ask, it seems to be about as permanent as every other life is.”

“I see. Is that why you’ve kidnapped Harry from the safety of his Aunt’s home?”

“I don’t know which words I disagree with more. Kidnap, safety, or home,” James said with a sneer, his voice as cold with anger as Sirius had ever heard it.

Albus didn’t even blink. “His mother died for him to be safe, and he is behind the blood wards of Privet Drive.”

“Don’t talk about her to me,” James said, his voice shaking a little. “Lily loves Harry more than life itself, but how he grew up would break her heart. It breaks mine. We wanted him to be safe and happy and he’s neither. Can’t you see that?”

Albus sighed, and put away his wand. “Is Harry here? His friends were very worried about him when he wasn’t answering their letters, and his Aunt said he left weeks ago. I’ve tracked him here, and would like to speak to him.”

“You may speak to him in front of his father,” James replied.

Albus nodded, and James stepped closer to one of the world’s most powerful wizards.

“Remember this before you talk to him, Albus. I have broken a lot of promises to my son. I didn’t see him off to the Hogwarts Express or cheer him on during his quidditch first game, and I don’t know him even a fraction as well as my father knew me, but I won’t fail by breaking another promise. I’ve promised that he’s not going back to that house, and he isn’t.”

“I’m afraid that’s not up to you,” Dumbledore said, his tone cool in contrast.

“I’m his father, and I love that boy. Who else should it be up to?” James said, his hands shaking.

“Headmaster, in Azkaban, the dementors had a lot of misery to choose from when it came to me,” Sirius spoke up. “Switching secret keepers was the worst, but after that, the dementors had my entire childhood to play with. Growing up with people who can’t stand you is a unique kind of misery. Knowing that the people who share your blood think you’re worthless is no way to live.”

Dumbledore looked to Remus for reassurance, but didn’t find any support on his face.

“You can come out now, son,” James shouted, and Harry took off the cloak and walked into the room, clearly having overheard the entire conversation.

“Hello, headmaster,” Harry muttered, face very pink.

“Nice to see you well, Harry, that tan rather suits you,” Dumbledore said, smiling at him.

“Thanks,” Harry said.

“Have you had a nice time here? Your friends, Mr. Weasley especially, were very concerned about your welfare.” Dumbledore asked, staring him dead in the eyes.

Legilimency, a voice in Sirius’s head said.

“It’s been like something out of a dream,” Harry said, his jaw set in a stubborn manner.

“I see,” Dumbledore said. “And you’re looking forward to the new term in September?”

“I would never keep my son from his education,” James cut in. “He’ll obviously be going back to Hogwarts with his friends.”

Harry looked between Dumbledore and his Dad like he was ready to break up a physical fight.

James was challenging the most powerful wizard of their time, not backing down, and Sirius was reminded why he was Prongs, antlers ready to defend what was his.

“Of course you wouldn’t keep Harry away from school, you loved Hogwarts and it loved you,” Dumbledore replied. “If you can find suitable lodging in Britain and I reinforce the wards, I don’t see why you can’t keep living together during the school holidays.”

James sighed, like that had knocked the fight out of him. “He lost me, but I cannot lose him. He’s my son. Do you understand?”

“I understand,” Dumbledore replied. “We can discuss logistics after Harry is back in school, I’ll send you a portkey so you can take him to the Hogwarts directly when the time comes.”

“Thank you,” James sighed. “And pardon me for asking, but my grip on current events isn’t what it once was. Are you still Supreme Mugwump?”

He nodded.

“Then what are you going to do about the grave miscarriage of justice that Sirius has gone through?”

“I’m not the entire Wizengamot, James.”

“He didn’t even get a trial, headmaster,” Harry spoke up, and Sirus felt his heart swell with love for the Potters.

“You’re right. We can make that happen, at the very least” Dumbledore agreed. “I’ll leave you to it, and see you soon. I’ll send a message with Fawkes.”

James nodded.

“It is good to see you again, my friend,” Dumbledore said, before apparating straight out of the cottage, breaking through the wards.

After Dumbledore left, James wrapped Harry in a tight hug. “You meant it,” Harry whispered.

“I did,” James said. “Every word. I love you, kid. More than anything. You're never going back.”

Harry started to cry, and Sirius walked into the kitchen with Remus, leaving the two of them together.

Notes:

The Dumbledore scene was one of the first ones I wrote when dealing with this massive plot bunny.

Hope you're still enjoying, thanks for all those who have been reading + commenting. I appreciate it.

As ever, happy to chat in the comments.

-J

Chapter 14

James ran comforting circles down Harry’s back the way he used to when he was teething. It was a lot easier to distract him then.

“I’ve got you,” James said.

Harry pulled away after a moment, wiping at the salty tears on his face. James conjured a hanky for him, and looked away, giving him a moment to compose himself.

James did the same, forcing down the fear and adrenaline and the neverending worry in the back of his mind that this was all temporary.

He couldn’t afford to fall apart now too.

“I don’t normally do this,” Harry explained.

“What, hide from the headmaster whilst your father shouts about you? Bit of a day all around,” James joked.

“I meant all the crying--I'm not a baby--but thanks,” Harry replied, raising his eyebrows.

“Kiddo, if my father showed up at the door, I don’t think I’d be able to stop crying, and I grew up with him,” James confessed.

Harry met his eyes. “I’d still like to meet his portrait.”

“I’ll get our house ready to live in by Christmas holidays, alright? You can then,” James said.

Harry nodded, and a thought struck James.

“You should probably write to your friends if you feel up to it, Dumbledore just mentioned that they were worried about you, kiddo.”

“I wilL! It’s not that I didn’t want to write them, it’s just that I didn’t know how to explain this,” Harry said, gesturing to James. “Lots of strange things happen to me, but they’re usually not good.”

James nodded. Gods, this kid broke his heart a little more and more every day. “You should talk to them, I’m the last person to try and keep you from your friends.”

“Ron invited me to go to the Quidditch World Cup with his family,” Harry said, too casually.

“That’s amazing,” James replied. “Who is playing?”

“Ireland and Bulgaria, I think,” Harry said, shifting on the balls of his feet. “I’m not going to go.”

James blinked at him. “You’re picking us over the Quidditch World Cup?”

Harry nodded, his jaw set in a firm line.

He would have never picked his parents over Quidditch, except at the end, when they got sick and he would have traded all the matches and broomsticks in the world for more time with them.

“If you change your mind, you can tell me,” James replied. “We’ll make it work. I don't want to be between you and something as big as the World Cup.”

“I don’t think I will change my mind,” Harry said.

“Right. Then, later today or tomorrow, we can go back into town and look for some hand mirrors.”

Harry looked at him like he was cracked. “There are mirrors here, if you need one?”

“Sure, but Sirius and I figured out how to enchant mirrors so we could see and hear the other person holding them. Necessity being the mother of invention, we were very bored in detention.”

“That’s kind of brilliant, actually” Harry said. “So it’s like a phone?”

“Ehm, maybe? Do you need to put coins in it to make those work?”

Harry laughed. “Some of them.”

“Right,” James said, trying to think back to muggle studies. “So Sirius and I will make the mirrors, and you can get Hedwig to deliver them so you can talk to your friends without having to wait for owl post, so if you're not going to the World Cup, you can at least hear about it in real time.”

“Thank you,” Harry said, smiling brightly at him.

“It’s no bother,” James said. And it wasn’t, he would do a million more complicated charms and run to every store on the island to see another smile like that on Harry’s face.

The four of them went out to the town, and that afternoon after a swim in the placid, nearly-warm sea, he corralled Sirius into charming the mirrors for them.

After the charm work and dinner, James begged off to bed early, and headed upstairs by himself.

The anxiety and fear he had shoved down deep inside of him was bubbling back up, and breathing in and out felt like a huge task.

He didn’t want Sirius to see him like this, so he stripped off and sat in the shower, charming it as hot as his body would handle.

He sat down, wrapping his arms around his knees, enjoying how the steam fogged up his already near-sighted vision.

The last time he had tried to fight for his family, he died.

Dumbledore wasn’t Voldemort, he knew that, but if he tried to fight him with magic instead of words, he probably would have lost everything all over again.

And then what would happen to Harry, who acted so surprised and grateful at every kind word spoken to him? And Sirius, who clung to him in his sleep like he was the only thing keeping him anchored to this world? Remus was a survivor, but he kept smiling at them like his face wasn’t used to making that expression anymore, and he finished every meal with gusto, like it might be his last.

James blinked back tears, and tried to calm his breathing. In and out. He stared at his hands, getting pink and wrinkly from the constant spray of the hot water.

He was alive. He was here, and no one was taking the people he loved away from him, he kept trying to remind himself that but it wasn't sticking.

He closed his eyes, and opened them again sometime later when he heard the shower door open.

It was Sirius—who else would invade his privacy?

James turned to look at him, eyes glassy with unshed tears. Sirius had stripped down to his boxers before getting in the shower, and was looking at him so softly, with such concern, the same way his mum used to look at Sirius.

“Let’s get you out of here, hmm?” Sirius said, turning off the water, and wrapping James in a fluffy towel. He cast a drying charm on his hair, and toweled off his body gently, before curling up next to him on the tile floor.

“I’m sorry,” James muttered. “I was just thinking how…how I was so ready to fight Dumbledore for Harry. And the last time I tried to fight for my son, I lost my life you see. And I don’t care if I die, but I care if I leave and you two are miserable again.”

“You'll be alright, Prongs,” Sirius said, pulling him in for a hug. He curled one hand around the nape of his still-wet neck.

James leaned into his arms, taking the strength Sirius was giving him. He could feel Sirius's magic and love for him reaching out to comfort him, wrapping like tendrils around his battered heart.

“I'm sorry, it's stupid,” James said quietly.

“It’s not,” Sirius replied, helping James to his feet.

He followed Sirius into the bedroom, not letting go of his hand. He stopped, and looked up at his best friend’s face. The hair he had just cut, the new lines he was starting to know, those piercing gray eyes he would know anywhere—the look of concern and love and heartbreak and hope all pointed in his direction.

All his self-control broke like a dam, and came flooding out of him. Life was so short, who was he to keep denying what they both wanted?

James closed the distance between Sirius and himself, capturing his lips in a fierce kiss. Sirius made a small noise of surprise before responding, fisting his hands in James’s hair.

Sirius opened his mouth, letting James deepen the kiss, and James was aware that the only thing separating their bodies was a flimsy towel and a wet pair of boxer shorts.

James pulled him over to the bed, and Sirius lay down on his side next to James.

“Do you want me, or do you want to feel something? I’ll give you what you want, either way, Jamie, I’ll make it so good for you,” Sirius said, his voice unusually quiet.

“I want you,” James insisted. “Not just your mouth or arse or whatever you were just about to offer me, alright?”

Sirius nodded.

“I’m going to make you believe me,” James said, before wandlessly locking the door and silencing the room.

Sirius leaned in to kiss him again, hooking a leg over his, no space at all separating their bodies. James let Sirius peel the towel off of him, and he tugged Sirius’s boxer shorts down, laughing when it took him longer to expected to get them off as they were stuck to his body from the water in the shower.

He felt giddy with excitement instead of nerves, the adrenaline in his veins feeling running hot instead of chilling him down to his bones.

Sirius was peppering kisses down his neck, sucking at his pulse point, and James ran his hands up and down the flanks of his back, stopping to squeeze at his arse.

James was hard, and he could feel that Sirius was too, his length hot and heavy near his hip.

“I’ve wanted to get my mouth on you for so long, can I?” Sirius asked, something still so vulnerable and loving in his gaze.

“You can do whatever you want to me, you know I’ll tell you if I don’t like it,” James said imperiously, gesturing down.

Sirius laughed, and wiggled lower as James propped himself up on his elbows to get a better look.

Sirius grabbed his cock and ran his hands up and down the length before doing the same with his tongue, paying special attention to the head.

James moaned and he swore Sirius winked at him before taking nearly the whole thing inside his mouth, bobbing his head up and down.

“Fuck, give a bloke a little warning,” James choked out, his hands settling in Sirius’s newly-shorn hair. He tried not to buck his hips as he stared down at Sirius, meeting his eyes.

“You’re so good at that, darling,” James said with a moan, feeling pressure build instead of him, his whole body feeling electric and connected and warm.

Sirius sped up, and James knew he wouldn’t last much longer, it had been so long.

“I’m close,” he warned him but Sirius waved a dismissive hand, and James didn’t pull out and came with a loud cry down Sirius’s throat.

Feeling loose-limbed and free, James reached down and wrapped a hand around Sirius’s cock. He was so turned on, just from this, Sirius could barely speak.

“More,” Sirius begged, and James rolled over in a quick movement, trapping Sirius beneath him.

“I’m here,” James said, continuing his ministrations. “Let go, Sirius,” he commanded, and Sirius shook, coming all over his first, his eyes blown wide with lust and something much more intense.

James reached for his wand and cleaned up them both, before curling up in the bed back next to Sirius.

“That was pretty great,” James said, dropping a kiss to the hollow of his collarbone.

Sirius nodded, apparently losing the power of speech entirely with his orgasm.

“Sirius, love?” James said.

“Sorry, I had just forgotten how good sex is,” Sirius said, and James had laughed, because he hadn’t, not at all.

Sirius still looked worried though, so James grabbed his hand, and kissed his palm, making it feel like a promise.

“This isn’t a one-off, love,” James said, knowing he needed to hear the words. "I'll be here, and I'll still want you when the sun comes up."

Sirius nodded, and closed his eyes.

Notes:

And there is this! Hope you're still enjoying x

Chapter 15

James knew he was dreaming immediately. He was in the kitchen of his old house, he was trapped there for so long he recognised every centimetre, every cracked tile on the floor. He had paced these steps so many times he was surprised he didn't wear a hole down in the floor.

Lily was sitting across from him at their table, staring like she could see into his soul with her green eyes so bright and alive.

“Hello, darling,” he said, reaching out to tuck an errant strand of red hair behind her ear. “I’ve missed you.”

“I know you have,” she replied.

“Harry is so like you, Lily," he said quietly.

"Tell me about him," she commanded.

"I’m not just saying this because we made him, but he’s so special. He’s kind and—and funny. And brave, and he just…soldiers on with the card he was dealt in life and it breaks my fucking heart, Lils. I just love him so much.”

Lily nodded, and he knew that she understood. “Do you remember when we took him home, James? And I told you that my whole life had changed, that colours seemed brighter and smells were stronger and my magic felt more real and wild and alive than ever and it was like I had cut my heart out of my chest and put it inside of him?”

James reached out and grabbed her hand. “Of course I remember.”

“Take care of my heart, Jamie. Take care of Harry.”

“I will. I promise,” he said, not even needing to say the words.

James cleared his throat, and stared at the curve of her jaw. He wanted to kiss her, she was always so lovely it hurt to look at her sometimes.

“I slept with Sirius last night.”

Lily rolled her eyes at his proclamation. “I’m not a priest, Jamie, you don’t need to ask me for absolution.”

“Are you very cross with me?”

Lily sighed. “Of course not, I think you’ve come back to a very difficult world and if being together brings a little light into your darkness, Merlin knows you both deserve it. And he’s loved you for so long.”

“You knew?”

He didn’t, not in a way that went beyond brotherly love—philia—their strong bond that the years had earned them. But this. This was new. Eros. The raw sexuality and longing and the wanting to be inside them--with Lily and again with Sirius--he understood why eros was called the madness of the gods.

“Well, it’s all bit obvious,” Lily said, tossing her shock of red hair behind her shoulders.

“It wasn’t,” James muttered, like a petulant child.

Lily grinned, showing her white teeth. “Do you know what the difference between you and me is?”

James swallowed. “Potions talent, a worse temper, and you’re a million times more beautiful? Also, I’m not ginger.”

Lily flicked him on the forehead. “Not untrue, but Jamie, you don’t look for double motives in people. Sirius says he’s your brother, you accept it. I didn’t realise you truly loved me until a little before our wedding even though I loved you so much.”

“Really?”

Lily nodded. “You were always loved and knew who you were, darling. Euphemia and Fleamont were magical too and wanted you so much and spent every day they were alive showing you that in one way or another. My parents loved me but…were really hoping I was a boy. And they didn’t understand my magic, or my ambitions, and my sister… well.”

“I could kill Petunia,” James replied. “I could! How could anyone not love our son?”

“I don’t know,” Lily said, looking down at the table where Harry had eaten his first meals. “Something about jealousy twisting into hate—but he was only a baby.”

“It’s not your fault,” James said.

“Oh, I know,” Lily said. “It’s hers.”

James got up out of the chair to hug her, and she clung onto his neck.

“Lily, are you really here with me, or are you just in my dream?”

“I don’t know why it can’t be both,” Lily said.

That made a weird kind of sense in his mind. “Right.”

“Jamie, just promise me this. When you wake up, if you remember nothing else, remember that I love our son and you and Sirius, and that you’ll all be with me again one day.”

James nodded, and jolted back into consciousness.

He reached out to grab Sirius, wanting comfort and love and maybe a handjob, but the bed was empty.

He felt blindly angry for a moment. He knew Sirius loved him, knew Sirius wanted him, why would he leave him to wake up alone?

He was halfway through composing the speech in his head about how angry with Sirius he was when the man himself walked back in the bedroom, in a dressing gown, his hair wind-swept and smelling like the salt of the sea. His cheeks were rosy and flushed, and he looked healthy and so damn handsome, like one of the covers of the Victorian wizarding erotica his mum had hidden in her bookshelf.

James folded his arms across his chest. “For future reference, I don’t like waking up alone after sex.”

Sirius crawled back in bed, but James turned on his side away from him.

“I had a nightmare,” Sirius confessed. “And didn’t want to go back to sleep and you looked so peaceful. I was hoping you’d still be sleeping and wouldn’t even have noticed I left. I just popped out for a walk. I was always coming back.”

James felt his anger slip away at once. “Alright, darling. Wake me up next time?”

Sirius nodded, and placed a kiss to his shoulder. James snuggled up next to him, his back touching Sirius’s chest.

“I ran into Remus this morning, he was already up,” Sirius said.

“And how’s our Moony? He’s off today, right?” James said, calculating the phases of the moon.

“Yeah, he said he would wait until after breakfast, he wants to say goodbye to you and Harry before he heads out.”

“I wish we could be there with him,” James said, hating the thought of Remus tearing himself up in some dark cellar somewhere, waking up naked and in pain and worst of all, alone.

“Me too,” Sirius replied. “James?”

“What is it?”

“Moony may have….possibly healed a few love bites on my neck this when he saw me.”

James felt proud and oddly possessive for a second. “He figured out you didn’t give them to yourself? He’s a smart one, our Moony.”

Sirius sighed. “You’re not upset that he knows.”

“Of course not, Remus knows how to keep a secret, doesn’t he?”

James felt Sirius freeze up, and he rolled over so he could look at his face. “No, that’s not what I mean. You’re not a secret.”

“Then explain the words that just came out of your mouth,” Sirius huffed.

“If I could, I would pay the Holyhead Harpies to write out James loves Sirius in the sky…you're not a secret. I’d just like to figure out how to tell Harry first before he sees a love bite and comes to his own conclusions.”

Sirius nodded, and let James kiss him, soft and sweet, but he could tell that he was still hurt by his careless use of language.

James had a sudden memory of Kings Cross, saying goodbye to his parents before fifth year and scanning the platform for Sirius. Sirius found him first, and ran to him, escaping Walburga Black’s screams about how he was such a shameful son, to be associating with blood traitors and scum.

Her shrill voice echoed throughout the platform, making Sirius’s face flush with anger and fear, though he tried to play it off like he didn’t hear her.

“I could never be ashamed of you,” James whispered, his heart bursting with love for that Sirius and this one who was brave enough to go to bed with him.

Sirius nodded, and James felt like he was starting to believe him.

“What did Moony say? About the lovebites?”

Sirius barked out a laugh. “Oh, he just said, good for you Padfoot, and wondered who he should give the shovel speech to.”

James grinned. “Is that all?”

Sirius squirmed a little. “Ah, no. He did say that I had given you my heart in all the ways possible now, and that he hoped you took care of it.”

“I will,” James said, making it a promise.

Notes:

This James is pretty clearly bisexual (and so am I), I'm sorry if the dreams didn't work for anyone. But his relationship with Lily was real and mattered to him.

Sorry about the delay in getting this chapter out!

Chapter 16

James kissed Sirius before leaving the bed. He was so soft and sweet underneath him, but sweet wasn’t a word he normally associated with Sirius. Loyal. Brash. Hot-headed, maybe, but not sweet, not before last night at least, opening up so gently under his hands.

“You’re mine, aren’t you?” James asked, before dropping another soft kiss to his jaw.

Sirius whined and arched into him, but said nothing.

“Use your words, darling,” James insisted. “Tell me you’re mine. I want to hear you say it.”

“Of course I'm yours, James. I think I always have been,” Sirius admitted, grabbing his hand and placing it over his heart. “Can't you feel how fast it's beating? It kept on ticking when you were dead, but I wished that it would stop. But it didn’t. It just kept on going.”

“I’m not going anywhere now,” James replied, kissing a worry line on his forehead. “I don’t mind these, you know. It means you’re still here, that you survived.”

Sirius pulled away from him. “It wasn’t as heroic as you’re making it sound, not really. I was just Padfoot. And alone.”

“You’ll never have to be alone again, alright?” James said, trying to not fall into despair again at what had befallen Sirius in his absence. Sirius may no longer be an animagus, but the dog form fit his soul perfectly. He was a domestic animal, not meant to be alone the way he was for so many years, without someone to love and take care of him and take his love and protection in return.

“If you say so,” Sirius agreed, clearly humouring him.

James grabbed Sirius’s wand hand, and moved his pointer and index fingers over the pulse point in his neck. “I’m alive, Sirius. You can feel my heart beat, the blood carrying my magic throughout my body. I’m not going to let you be alone again. I'm here, darling.”

Sirius moved his hand and kissed his neck, sending sharp shocks of pleasure throughout his body.

He smiled, and pulled away. "Later, we'll finish this. Now, we should probably get up and make breakfast for Remus and Harry before Remus has to leave.”

"Since when are you the responsible one?" James whined, wanting to feel Sirius's hands on his body again.

"I'm not," Sirius groaned. "But Harry will be up soon if he isn't already, and I don't like to start things I don't plan on finishing."

"Fine," James said, jumping out of the bed and throwing clothes on before he could persuade Sirius to change his mind--it wouldn't be very hard. He left the bedroom first, and walked out in the hallway. The door to Harry’s room was still shut. He knocked, but heard no reply, so swung the door open.

Harry was still fast asleep, looking younger than his nearly 14 years. He was curled up on the bed like he was used to taking up less space, and had kicked off the light summer blanket at some point during the night.

James padded over to him quietly, and re-arranged the blanket so it covered him, and planted a kiss over his messy head of ink-black hair.

Harry blinked his eyes open, and yawned, the sound filling the room. “Dad?”

“It's just me, kiddo. Go back to sleep and come down for breakfast whenever you’re ready.”

Harry looked at him, green-eyes wide and full of something like wonder. “Okay,” he said, and rolled back over.

James felt grateful that Harry trusted him enough to be this vulnerable, and that he was used enough to him by now that he wasn't still constantly surprised by his presence. James left his son to sleep and went downstairs, seeking out Moony. Remus was curled up with a book on the sofa, transfigured back from the bed it was earlier in the night.

“Can I talk to you for a minute?” he asked, sitting down next to Remus, casting a spell so they wouldn’t be overheard by Harry or Sirius.

“Of course,” Remus replied. “I assume this about those lovebites I healed earlier?”

James nodded. “To be honest, I'm a bit disappointed I didn’t get a chance to see them myself, but thanks for taking care of it.”

“What you do with Sirius is your own business,” Remus said. There were dark shadows beneath his eyes and a weariness to his tone that suggested the full was very close.

“Sure,” James said. “But you’re our friend, so it is a little bit your business too, isn’t it?”

Remus nodded. “If you like.”

“I know you have something else to say Moony, so you should probably just go ahead and say it.”

“I almost forgot quite how stubborn you are,” Remus grumbled.

“The most, yep,” James agreed. “Out with it, then.”

“You’ve never liked being alone and always loved attention, James,” Remus said.

“And?”

“Sirius has loved you forever and I’m sure it feels good to have his sole focus on you, but what happens when you’re off this island and back to the one you belong on? There will be plenty of other witches and wizards happy to give the father of the boy-who-lived-attention, and you know you’re nice to look at. It’ll destroy him if you let him go, even if you do it gently,” Remus said, voice even-keeled.

That hurt like the cruciatus. “I didn’t think you thought so little of me, Moony.”

“I don’t,” Remus said, squeezing his hand lightly.

“I'm in this,” James protested. “I love Sirius, I’m not going to leave him once we’re back in England and I have options that aren’t muggles in cafes, come on. This isn’t about that. It means something”

“Good, then best of luck to you both,” Remus said.

“I could hit you for suggesting I’m having it off with Sirius because he’s convenient, there’s nothing easy about him at all. Nothing!” James grumbled.

“Go on and hit me then,” Moony said, turning his cheeks and James sent a tickling hex his way instead, forgiving him.

Moony always did worry too much.

“Do you think after the moon, you can do me a favour?”

“Probably,” he replied, too smart to just agree to anything the way Sirius might have. Or not too smart—just not in love with him.

“You were never taken off the wards at my family home. Do you remember where it is?”

“Of course,” Remus replied.

“Can you go there and take some gold from me and buy Harry the nicest quidditch set you can find for his birthday from us? And there’s a mini family tree on the wall in my old bedroom, can you bring it to us here?”

“Not a problem,” Remus said. "Where can I find it?"

"There's lots in the house, my grandfather had a dream that a Potter upset Gringotts by freeing a dragon, so he stashed gold beneath the floorboards in all the bathrooms," James told him. "I trust you Moony." Remus blinked back at him.

“And if you have time, do you think you can start making the place habitable? Not cleaning, obviously, we would have elves for that, but if there’s any creatures that have made the place their home in our absence, if you could take care of them, Mister Defense-Against-the-Dark-Arts-Professor? I'll pay you to do that for us, of course," James asked.

"I don't actually need your money," Remus snapped.

"It's a job, I'd like to pay you for it," James responded. "And it sounds a bit like from the stories they've told that it's a bit Sirius's and Harry's fault you're not a Professor anymore."

Remus shook his head. "It's mine. And I think that it is because of Sirius that I got the job in the first place."

'What?"

"I think Dumbledore thought I would be more of a help finding him than I was, back before we knew he was innocent," Remus admitted.

Not for the first time, James felt himself getting cross with Albus. "How the Headmaster or anyone who knew us could have thought that Sirius betrayed me is beyond my comprehension. It's Sirius!"

"Well he's from a dark family, but at least he's not a dark creature, right?" Remus said, showing his teeth.

"No, Remus," he said. "It's just like you implied earlier, you can see how much he loves me."

Remus nodded, and James saw the fight go out of him. "I think I should go now, before I say anything else I regret."

James moved closer and grabbed Remus in a fierce hug. "Take care, Moony. Come back soon, and in one piece."

"I'll do my best. Give Harry and Sirius my love," Remus said before disapparating with a loud crack.

Chapter 17

James watched Remus leave, and couldn’t decide if he was angry or not with him. He wasn’t wrong to be concerned. Moony was probably right that Sirius would fall apart at first if he left him.

But he wouldn’t, how could he break his heart? Sirius was always like his missing piece, his first real friend and the best one at that. He couldn't cause him more pain, not on purpose at least.

James closed his eyes and thought of Hedwig. His son's beautiful owl was probably flying somewhere over the sea with the mirrors for Harry’s best friends, alerting them to his existence. Slowly but surely he was opening up their world and he wasn’t scared, but a possessive, hidden part of him enjoyed having the people he loved safe here away from the rest of the world---and away from the ministry that went after Sirius but apparently left Death Eaters like Lucius Malfoy alone.

“Wanker,” James muttered to himself, lost in thought.

He yawned and went back up the stairs. Breakfast would keep for later. Harry—Merlin’s beard, his teenage son--was still fast asleep.

And when he pushed the door open to their room, Sirius was half-dressed, clean from the shower and lounging on the bed.

The soft morning light was casting warm shadows across his pale torso, and the tender look Sirius shot him warmed him more than the sun.

“I’ll be ready in a second,” Sirius mumbled, pushing a stray lock of black hair away from his face.

“There’s no rush,” James replied. “Harry’s still sleeping and Moony just left to get ready for the moon.”

Sirius shot him a look. “Your tone is weird, Prongs. What happened with Remus?”

“Nothing,” James lied.

Sirius snorted. “Try that with someone who doesn’t know you like I do, maybe they’ll believe your rubbish.”

“Remus was just looking out for you, and asked me a few questions is all.”

“He didn’t have to do that,” Sirius replied, a crease appearing on his brow.

“No, but he meant well,” James said, sitting on the bed next to him. He sat close enough next to him to smell the clean scent of the muggle soap they bought, and he watched as tiny rivulets of water rolled down the nape of his neck, and James wanted to trace the droplets of with his tongue. He carried on talking instead. “Not to worry, I assured him I was pardon the phrase, serious about you.”

Sirius smirked. “And you are?”

“You know that I am, Padfoot,” he replied.

Sirius smiled back at him in return, and James knew he didn’t need to hear the words back.

“Remus is going to open our house for us,” James explained.

“Your parents’ house?”

He nodded. “I want it to be ours. Harry and Remus will live there too of course.  We can’t stay on this island forever, it won’t agree with your English complexion for one thing.”

Sirius looked up to the ceiling. “I wonder what Fleamont and Euphemia would have thought about all this.”

James laughed. “What matters to them is that I’m happy—and you are. Don’t worry about that.”

Sirius still did look worried though, so James leaned over and kissed him soundly, trying to snog the worries and fear and years of his worst insecurities out of him.

When he stopped for breath, James reached for his wand and cast a one-way silencing charm on the room so he’d still be able to hear Harry if he needed him.

“A privacy spell, hmm? Planning on making me scream, James?” Sirius asked, looking almost cocky.

“I’m counting on it, actually. Can I touch you?” he asked.

“I’ll be cross if you don’t,” Sirius muttered.

“Tell me if I do something you don’t like, I know you better than anyone but not like this yet,” James said, reaching out to touch the hard planes of his chest, pushing Sirius back on the bed.

Sirius reached out to touch him back but James batted his hands away.

“Hands over your head, let me touch you for a while,” James instructed.

Sirius whined but raised his hands, and James used the opportunity to tug Sirius’s boxers off, leading him naked beneath him. Sirius squirmed with pleasure as James kissed his neck, using his teeth just a little.

He noticed as Sirius started to harden, but he didn’t touch his cock, not yet anyways. His mouth was busy kissing his chest, flicking lightly over his nipples, making him gasp. He took his time, working tortuously, deliriously slow, making his way down his body, showing attention to every inch but his cock.

After biting at his hipbone, James raised his head, meeting Sirius’s dark gaze. “You’re doing so good, Padfoot. Do you know the spell for lube?”

Sirius laughed, and twitched his fingers and James’s wand-hand was full of just the right amount.

“Wandless and wordless, I’m impressed,” James said, nudging Sirius’s legs apart. “Can I?”

“Bloody well get on with it,” Sirius said impatiently, and James shut him up by dragging his hand lazily down his cock and balls, pausing for a second at his entrance before slowly pushing his index finger in.

Sirius relaxed against him, letting him push up and in. “I can take more,” he insisted.

“Let me figure out what you can take, hmm,” James said, before smacking his upper thigh lightly with his other hand. Sirius moaned and he liked that, so much, he could tell. He added another slick-coated finger, ignoring how hard his own dick was, this was about Sirius, he wanted to make him even more delirious with pleasure. James’s fingers found a rhythm, and reached a place inside Sirius that made his whole body tense and toes curl.

“Don’t even think about coming before I’m inside you, alright,” James said, pulling out his fingers abruptly.

“Such a tease,” Sirius moaned.

“You love it,” James replied, sitting up to pull off his own clothes, doing it slowly to give Sirius a bit of a show.

“I do, yeah,” Sirius said softly, his hands twitching trying to stay in place.

“I need to slick up my cock,” James said, straddling Sirius’s chest. “You can do your spell again, but I’d rather use your mouth.”

Sirius nodded, and moaned as James scooted forward to feed it to him, inch by inch. James closed his eyes, lost in the wonderful sensation of his best friend’s marvelous tongue and Sirius humming around his cock, the vibration feeling incredible. When it started to feel a little too good, James pulled away and lay onto of Sirius, positioning himself just above his entrance.

Sirius nodded, and James entered him with one swift movement, knowing that Sirius didn’t want him to take his time anymore. He grabbed Sirius’s hand, interlocking their fingers as he thrust wildly against him, setting an uneven, desperate pace.

James closed his eyes and Sirius squeezed his palm hard. “I want you to look at me,” he begged, so he opened them again, dropping a sloppy, open-mouth kiss to his lips.

James untangled his right hand from Sirius’s and reached down to grab at his cock and with a few, easy, strokes, Sirius was coming undone beneath him, sobbing with pleasure as he came over his hand and belly.

James followed a moment or two later with a loud cry, spilling inside of him. He collapsed on top of Sirius, softening but not wanting to be separated from him just yet.

“That was so good, you’re so good,” James said, once he could find words. He looked over at Sirius, he was a beautiful, sweaty, fucked-out mess in the early morning daylight.

“It was amazing,” Sirius agreed. “You’re…a little bossy, you know?”

“Just with you, I wanted to be,” James confessed.

“I liked it,” Sirius replied, a naughty grin appearing on his face slowly, like the sunrise.

“I know you did,” James replied, all arrogance, but deservedly so.

Notes:

This was mostly porn. I'm not sorry.

 

As always, please come chat in the comments or let me know if you're still enjoying this.

Chapter 18

Harry woke up to the warm sun on his face, and the smell of bacon frying downstairs.

He felt a frisson of fear for a moment, a holdover from all his years at the Dursleys, that he should be the one making breakfast and earning his keep, but he forced the feeling down and headed downstairs, stomach rumbling with hunger.

Sirius was standing behind his Dad as he cooked, his arms wrapped around his waist. His eyes were closed and he looked peaceful, and Harry felt a little guilty intruding on…whatever this was.

“Morning,” Harry yawned, making his presence known. Sirius all but jumped away, a guilty expression flashing across his face.

“And a very good morning to you, son,” James said, face slightly pink. “Did you sleep alright? You looked like you could use the lie-in.”

“Fine, thanks,” Harry said, helping himself to some fresh orange juice. “Is Remus gone already?”

James nodded. “He’ll be back before your birthday. I asked him to make sure our house was safe, back in England, there’s no telling the shape it might be in after a decade of neglect.”

“I suppose we can’t stay here forever,” Harry mused, his brain still foggy in the early morning.

“It would be nice, not having to deal with English weather,” James mused, sending the eggs and bacon to the table with a flick of his wand. He sat down next to Harry, leaving a wide gap of space between him and Sirius.

Sirius stabbed a piece of bacon particularly viciously.

“Is everything okay?” Harry asked. He hoped his Dad didn’t play poker because he had such an expressive face. Harry wondered if he himself was that transparent.

“There’s absolutely nothing for you to be worry about,” he replied, after exchanging a loaded glance with Sirius.

“I’m not a kid, if something is happening, you can tell me,” Harry protested, at war with himself.

His entire life, he wanted a parent, but he didn’t need to be coddled or protected. He had seen plenty.

James twined his hands in his messy hair. “I know exactly how old you are Harry. And something is happening, you’re right. But it’s nothing bad, and I will tell you, but I wanted to wait a bit longer, until the time seems right.”

Harry frowned, puzzling over the words. "I’m not a big fan of waiting for things, as it turns out.”

James laughed, a clear, open sound. “I’m not a very patient person either. I hate waiting for things....and staying still. It took me a few days longer than Sirius to become an animagus because I had trouble focusing during the meditative state part of the transformation. Kept thinking about quidditch matches or the shade of green of Lily’s eyes instead of forests and hooves and the spirit of the stag.”

He was distracting him, but it was working. “I still want to learn, you know. How to be an animagus.”

“This island is thoroughly muggle,” Sirius said, “so we might not have any luck getting you a mandrake leaf, and that's the first step. But we can owl-order some books on the transformation, and we can teach you what we remember if Jamie doesn’t mind.”

“Of course I don’t,” James replied. “I don’t think you’ll be a stag though.”

“No?” Harry’s stomach sank.

“Nah,” he replied. “I’ve seen the way you fly, like you were born in the air. I think you’ll be a bird of some sort.”

“I can see it,” Sirius added, before moving more food to Harry’s plate.

James nodded, and looked thoughtful. “How good are you at transfigs, Harry?”

“I’m fine, nothing special,” he said.

“I’m sure that’s not true,” he protested. “Even if you aren’t amazing at say, turning a mouse into a cuckoo clock, you can still become an animagus if you’ve got strong magic and are hardworking, qualities you have in spades.”

Harry couldn’t stop the smile that broke out on his face, he didn’t care if it made him look silly. It was such a novelty still, having an adult who didn’t think he was a waste of space.

“James is right you know,” Sirius added, clasping him on the shoulder, finally looking less awkward.

“Never a sentence I tire of hearing,” his Dad joked. “So what do you two want to do today? I was thinking we could head into town and hire some motorbikes and ride to Deia? Have a swim, have a little lunch in this restaurant that’s built into the sides of one of the cliffs and come back in the evening for some sangria?”

“You had me at motorbikes,” Sirius joked, dramatically gesturing at his heart.

“That sounds great,” Harry agreed. “Can I have my own?”

James laughed. “Maybe next year or the year after, I don’t want to have to confund any muggle so that they'll rent a bike to an underage kid. You can ride on the back with me or Sirius. Sorry. ”

Harry sighed, but he didn’t mind, not really.

“Lovely, that’s settled then, lads,” James responded. “Let’s pack a little bag and head out in twenty minutes or so?”

Harry finished his breakfast, and got ready to go in record time, looking forward to seeing a new part of the island and riding on a bike that his Uncle Vernon would scoff at.

The three of them walked into town, Sirius looking mostly the same, James had just lightened his hair a little. It seemed like each day that he wasn’t caught, Sirius looked lighter and happier. Especially today, Harry could see the handsome, carefree man in his parent’s wedding photos, and he felt like things always should have been this way.

As they got into the centre of the touristy muggle old town, Harry heard a very posh voice shouting his name, and he felt a chill, despite the heat of the Mediterranean sun.

Harry heard his name shouted again, so he turned and saw Justin Finch-Fletchley waving at him, surrounded by what could only be his Muggle family.

“Is that a friend of yours?” James asked quietly, taking a step ahead of Sirius, trying to block him from sight. He could practically feel the fear radiating off of Sirius.

“Classmate, Hufflepuff,” Harry replied. “Muggle born, so his family won’t know us.”

Harry waved back at Justin, hoping that would be enough, but it wasn’t. Justin walked up to him, smiling brightly.

“Nice to see you, Justin,” Harry mumbled. “What are you doing here?”

“Oh, my father’s business partner owns a villa here, we’re all visiting for the week,” Justin said, gesturing back to the finely dressed muggle in summer linens. “The real question is what are you doing here? Is that your Uncle?” he said, pointing to James. “He looks just like you! And I say, that man behind to him looks remarkably like Sirius Black!”

Harry’s face must have given away his terror at Sirius being found out, because Justin took a step closer to him and whispered. “Are you in danger, Harry? I can yell for the police in Spanish, and I’d rather not use my wand here, but if need be, we can get you out of here.”

Harry grabbed Justin’s arm. “I’m not in danger, I promise.”

Justin snorted. “Stockholm Syndrome.”

“Look, you’re right, it is Sirius Black, but he’s innocent! He’s had plenty of chances to kill me. Do I look hurt or in danger to you?” Harry whispered back, begging Justin to believe him.

“Well, no, I suppose you don’t,” Justin said, looking him up and down. “No offense, Harry, but this is the best you have ever looked.”

Harry rolled his eyes. “I’m glad you can see that. Can you promise not to call the police or tell anyone about this? Not any of our classmates, I mean it.”

Justin looked wary. “Didn’t the man kill twelve muggles?”

“He’s innocent, didn’t you hear what I just said,” Harry snapped. “Look, I’ll explain everything back at Hogwarts, I promise, just don’t tell anyone!”

“I’m sure I saw a BBC drama with this plotline that ended badly,” Justin said, frowning. “But fine. I didn’t bring my owl on the trip and it’s not like Ernie or Susan even have phone lines that I can call…but I don’t like this, Harry.”

“I promise you I’m safe,” Harry said, smiling at Justin’s parents, who were looking a little concerned. “Have a fun time at your villa.”

“Enjoy the rest of your holiday,” Justin said, walking back to his family.

“Nicely handled, Harry,” James said, watching them retreat. He was still holding onto Sirius, who looked like a stiff wind would knock him over. “I’m afraid that our motorbike day is canceled, we’re going home,” he added, swiftly walking to an empty alleyway.

Sirius looked up at the sky and then at his Dad. “If the Aurors come for me, Prongs, I want you to kill me instead of letting me go back to Azkaban.”

“Shut the fuck up, you’re not dying or going back there,” James said, hazel eyes narrowing.

“It will all have been worth it, I want you to know that,” Sirius added.

“What did I say about shutting up?” James shouted. “Have you apparated before, Harry?” he asked him.

He shook his head.

“Right, this is going to be unpleasant, I’m sorry if you’re sick,” he said, grabbing onto his arm. “We’re going back to the cottage now.”

Sirius nodded, and in the space of a moment, the three of them were back inside the cottage. Harry’s ears were ringing and it was terrible, he felt like he would sick up, but James steered him to a chair and helped him sit down and he swiftly felt better.

“What are the chances of that boy telling the Aurors—Muggle or Magical—about what he just saw, Harry?” James asked, pacing back and forth.

“I don’t know him very well,” Harry admitted. “He’s muggleborn, posh, Hufflepuff, hangs out with Ernie MacMillan and Susan Bones mostly.”

“Bones? Any relation to Amelia Bones at the DMLE? She was a few years ahead of us at Hogwarts,” James asked, continuing his pacing.

“I don’t know,” Harry said, eyes darting to Sirius, who was grasping his wand so hard Harry was afraid it would break.

“Stop staring at the door, if Dumbledore couldn’t get in right away, then a muggleborn kid isn’t going to force down the door or even be able to find us now,” James said, sitting down next to Sirius.

Sirius nodded, and grabbed onto James’s hand as if it was a lifeline.

“Fucking hell, I am going to miss this place,” James said eventually.

“I knew it was too good to last,” Sirius muttered and James smacked him on the shoulder.

“Knock it off, we’ll be back here one day, and nothing is over,” James replied.

“Where are we going?” Harry asked.

James looked wistful. “To the house I grew up in, that I was just telling you about. We’ll all have to do some work restoring it, I was going to have Remus get a head start on it, but the wards are secure and no one will look for Sirius there, because if he did betray me like they said I did, the wards would kill him on entry.”

“I didn’t know wards could do that,” Harry admitted.

James shrugged. “You can do all sorts of things with blood magic, but just because you can do them, doesn’t mean you should, and now I’m quoting my own father.”

Sirius said nothing, and Harry remembered how scared and hopeless he felt fighting dementors, and tried to imagine for a moment feeling that terrible for years.

He’d be scared too. “We won’t let you go back to Azkaban,” Harry promised him.

“You’re a good kid, Harry,” Sirius said, looking up at him.

“He’s the best kid, and he’s right,” his Dad insisted. “We’re all going to pack, and say goodbye to this lovely cottage, and maybe we’ll be back next summer, and Harry can bring his friends.”

“That sounds nice,” Harry said. “Will Hedwig be able to find us where we’re going?”

James nodded. “I bet she’ll appreciate not having to fly the thousand-odd miles back to us, too.”

"Buckbeak will have to make the trip on his own," Sirius said, frowning. "But I think he's sick of the heat anyway to be honest."

“Right,” Harry said, not making any moves to leave or start packing either yet. His life had never been as wonderful or as peaceful as it was before he came to this island.

“Let’s start packing then,” James said, hauling Sirius to his feet. The three of them made their way up the stairs, and Harry put his stuff in his suitcase using magic, wondering if the decree for underage sorcery would apply to him again once he was back in Britain.

He walked into Sirius and James’ room, hauling his trunk and Hedwig’s cage, and watched as his Dad directed everything back into a tiny suitcase.

“Magic is great, isn’t it?” his Dad said, making his socks dance as they folded themselves.

Sirius just rolled his eyes, and sat on the bed. There was just the one in the room, but Harry didn’t give it much thought. Not then anyway.

“Are we apparating there?” Harry asked, stomach still feeling queasy.

“I’m afraid so,” he replied, grabbing his arm again.

Harry couldn’t help but feel like his whole life was changing, again. He didn’t want to leave.

Notes:

It's been a while, I'm sorry, things have been manic. Thanks to all those who have let me know you've enjoyed this beast of a story.

Our boys are all back in Britain!

--J

Chapter 19

They arrived just on the outside of a beautiful, brick house.

It was drizzling, and Harry shivered as he followed his father and Sirius forward. They weren't in Spain anymore, that was for sure.

There was a prominent lion door knocker, and James touched it tenderly, before grabbing the handle and swinging the door open.

James took a step inside and held up a hand, stopping Sirius and Harry from going any further.

He transfigured his wand into a knife and cut his palm without wincing, smearing his blood on the threshold. He started to chant, loud and fast in Latin as his blood mixed with the magic of the house, a golden glow surrounding his Dad and the doorway.

“As the new master of the house, it’s safe to come in now,” his Dad said, bowing low to the two of them.

Harry felt a ripple of magic pass through him as he entered the house, judging him down to his marrow. It seemed to accept him after a moment, and he felt a tingle of something like comfort.

They were in a bright entryway, with a big bannister leading to the upstairs and a parlour behind them. It was only the second magical house he had been in after The Burrow, but it had a similar feeling of warmth.

"Give me that, you're dripping blood on the floor," Sirius muttered, grabbing James's hand and healing it with a spell Harry had seen Madam Pomfrey use.

His Dad just let him do it, trusting him completely.

“Right, we’ll give you the tour in a minute. The kitchen’s through the parlour to the right, with the formal dining room just behind it, all the bedrooms are all upstairs,” James said, sneezing through the dust.

Sirius took a step forward and opened all the windows on the ground floor with a flick of his wand, and made a sort of tornado motion and started sucking the dust away with a spell.

“I loved living here,” he said, looking at the walls wistfully as he cleared a path forward for them.

“And you’ll love it again,” James said, following his lead on the cleaning spells, magicking away the signs of age and disuse as they walked into the parlor.

On the walls, he saw photographs of his Dad as a child, looking so happy with two older people that could have only been his grandparents.

“I like this one,” Harry said, pointing to a gold-framed photograph of James on a training broom, zooming around in the parlour, knocking over things in his wake.

“I was a menace,” he said, with a smile, continuing over to the fireplace. He lit a Lumos, directing the spell-work to all the scones in the room, making it glow with soft, conjured light.

“Hello Mum, Dad,” James said, waving shyly at the portrait over the fireplace.

“Wake up Monty, he’s here!” the woman shouted, nudging the man in the frame awake.

“Hello son, it took you long enough,” he replied, beaming at the three of them.

“Well, in my defense, I had a very good excuse,” James said, rocking on his heels.

His grandfather sighed. “It doesn’t matter, you’re home now. We know Sirius of course, but this little man can only be a Potter.”

“Meet my son, Harry,” he said, gesturing to him.

Harry waved at the portrait.

“Come closer now, let us see you,” his grandmother said, adjusting her glasses. “Oh, James, he has your hair!”

Harry nodded.

“And how old are you then?” she asked.

“I’ll be 14 in a few days,” Harry told her.

“Ah, well, don’t worry, Jamie didn’t have his proper growth spurt till 16 or so and he grew up nicely,” she said, hazel eyes sparkling with mischief.

“Stop it Mum, he’s perfect as is,” James whined, making Sirius laugh.

“Of course he is dear, he’s my grandson,” she replied, winking at him.

“14, hmm? Is old Albus is still in charge of Hogwarts?” his grandfather asked.

“Yes sir,” Harry replied.

“No sirs here,” he said. “I know I’m just a portrait, but you can call me Grandfather or Monty if you like.”

“Alright,” Harry agreed.

“We’re moving in, the three of us,” James told the portrait. “I can’t feel any dark magic or creature infestation, but have you seen anything in the other frames that we should know about in the house?”

“Of course there’s no dark magic here, though some doxies might have got into my potions lab,” Monty replied.

“Jamie dear, I think there is something in your room. Probably just a boggart, I’ve heard noises,” his Grandmother added.

“Right, we should go take care of it,” James said, smiling at the portrait.

“Get on with it, we’ll see you later,” Monty replied, shooing them away with a fond look on his face.

Harry followed his Dad and Sirius up the mahogany staircase, and stopping at the second bedroom to the right.

“We can change whatever you like, colours, carpet, décor, whatever, but I was thinking this could be your room Harry,” his Dad said, opening the door.

He wouldn’t have to change much, the room felt like it should have always been his. There was a huge four-poster bed in the middle, and the softest carpet that he had ever walked on. The windows were stained glass red and gold, with little quidditch scenes on them, and he could see the pond his father mentioned outside. The ceilings were high and the room felt airy, it couldn't be any farther from his cupboard.

“It’s great,” Harry told him. “Where are you going to sleep?”

“Just the next room over. I’ve paid the price in the blood magic to be the master of the house, so I’ll have to sleep in the master suite, no matter how weird I feel about living in my parents bedroom,” his Dad said, looking a bit sheepish.

“Right,” Harry said. “And Sirius?” he asked, half-already knowing the answer.

James took a deep breath, and sat down on the bed, magicking away the dust before he spoke. “If Sirius wants the guest room that used to be his, he’s welcome to it, but otherwise he’ll be in there with me.”

Harry looked over at Sirius, who was very deliberately looking out the window. “You’re together?”

“Yes, Harry,” James replied gently.

“For how long?” Harry asked, his voice increasing in pitch.

“Not very long,” James said. “Er, yesterday or so, really.”

“But what about Mum?” Harry shouted, making the windows shake with his magic. The wardrobe started rattling as well, but the three of them ignored it.

“I love your Mum so much, my life with Lily was real and wonderful,” he said, matter-of-factly, taking a step closer to him. “I just love Sirius too.”

Over by the window, Sirius was looking like a guilty dog, but his face went soft and slack when he heard those words, and some of the anger deflated out of Harry like a balloon.

“Are you gay?” Harry asked, remembering some of Uncle Vernon’s favourite insults for people after ‘freak’.

“I think the word is bisexual Harry, I do like women, all my experience has been with them before Sirius,” he explained, face reddening.

“I don’t need to hear that!”

James shrugged. “Maybe that was too honest, kiddo. Are you going to be okay with this?”

“I don’t have much of a choice, do I?”

James tugged at his hair, looking miserable, and Harry felt so guilty. “I’m not going to stop loving Sirius, but you are the most important thing in my life and I don’t want to make you uncomfortable or unhappy.”

“These past few weeks have been the best I’ve ever had, you don’t make me unhappy,” Harry protested. “It’s just...sudden, I guess.”

Sirius spoke up, finally ending his impression of a statute. “It might feel sudden for you, Harry, but I already lost Jamie once and I’ve loved him for my entire life. But if it would make things easier for you, we can hold off until you go back to Hogwarts. I can sleep in my old room, if that would help.”

“You don’t need to do that,” Harry mumbled. “It’s fine.”

James opened his mouth, probably to do something horribly kind like thanking him, but he was stopped by the sound the wardrobe rattling again.

“Probably the boggart my mum mentioned then,” his Dad said. “No time like the present to rid the room of it.”

“I can take care of it, Remus taught me the spell last year,” Harry volunteered.

“It’s no bother, I’ll do it,” James said, rising to his feet, looking happy to be ending that conversation.

He started walking forward, and pulled the door to his wardrobe open.

Nothing emerged for a moment, just a mist, before the boggart took the measure of his father. A nursery scene appeared in front of them, and Harry knew what this must be.

A small baby that could only be him was crying, all alone, a jagged, lightning-shape cut bleeding profusely on its forehead. The baby was making a lot of noise, banging on the bars of the crib and shouting for Mummy and Daddy.

“It’s not Harry, you know it isn’t, your son is right here, and he’s not alone,” Sirius said, watching the scene like it physically pained him.

“But he was,” James whispered, looking between him and the boggart. He took a breath and shouted ‘Riddikulus’ but it wasn’t enough, it just swirled and changed shape until it wasn’t him anymore.

It took the form of Sirius instead, bone-thin, wearing a tattered Azkaban uniform. He looked seconds away from death, even worse than he even when Harry met him again in the Shrieking Shack.

“You did this to me,” Sirius-the-boggart shouted. “James Potter, always so loved, never believing that one of your friends could betray you. You got to rest in peace while I rotted away in Azkaban, I’ll turn 23 here and 24 and 25 and waste away alone because you never let anyone know about secret keeper switch. You thought we were so clever, how could anyone outsmart Potter-and-Black?”

The real Sirius grabbed James’s other hand and squeezed hard. “It's just a boggart Jamie, I'm right here with you.”

But the boggart kept going, feeding off of James’s fear. “I’ve brought you back from your rest just so you can see how spectacularly you’ve failed everyone you’ve ever loved,” it said in a horrible mockery of Sirius’s voice.

“I know it’s a boggart, but it’s true,” James responded, looking at Sirius and Harry with tears shining in his eyes, and Harry couldn’t take it anymore.

He stepped ahead of his Dad, and watched as the boggart started to transform into a dementor. He banished it with a Riddikulus spell and turned around to see Sirius embracing his father.

“You’ve not failed us Jamie,” Sirius whispered, and Harry felt like he was intruding.

“I did though, I did leave you two alone,” James muttered into Sirius’s neck, and pulled away swiftly. “Harry---I’m so sorry I couldn’t take care of the boggart. It’s third-year stuff.”

“It’s fine,” Harry said. “One of my best friends failed Lupin’s defense exam when the boggart turned into McGonagall telling her she’d failed all classes.”

James smiled, but it was hollow. He turned to him, and kissed him on the forehead, right above his scar.

“People are always staring at that,” Harry said, turning away.

“I see you, kiddo,” his Dad replied. “And I’m not a fan of anything marring that face you have, but it looks at least a little cool.”

Harry laughed, some of the tension from the day finally starting to drain out of him.

“What a fucking day,” Sirius muttered.

James looked a clock on the wall and sighed. “And it’s only 12:30.”

Notes:

Two updates in a weekend! I hope you're still enjoying, as ever, come talk to me in the comments.

Me and the little one have been ill so I've been writing as neither of us has been getting much sleep.

--J

Chapter 20

James left Harry in his room, going to tackle the master suite with Sirius, the boggart still weighing heavily on his mind.

“Well, that could have gone better,” Sirius muttered as they walked down the length dusty hallway. Great Uncle Charlus waved to them on the walls, and Aunt Dorea winked at Sirius with the same gray eyes he had.

“It could have gone worse,” James said. “And it was very….chivalrous of you to volunteer to give me up for a bit for Harry’s comfort.”

Sirius stopped walking and grabbed James’s arm. “You can’t actually be cross with me about that.”

“I’m not,” James lied through his teeth. “Aren’t we a team though? Isn’t that half the point of a relationship, not just the shagging?”

“Oh, I’m sorry,” Sirius replied, tone as dry as the Sahara. “I should have known that from all the relationships I’ve had, hmm?”

“Ah, right,” James replied, distracted from the argument as he opened the door to the master suite. He hadn’t been in it since Mum and Dad went to St. Mungoes, and he stopped by home to get them spare robes. He didn’t realise they would never be back.

Sirius took the first step into the room, grabbing his hand and making him follow.

James shivered as he passed through the threshold, the family wards judging him down to his marrow. He passed. It would be safe for him and Sirius to sleep here. James closed his eyes, and cast a simple spell, just a lumos, so the room could get a feel for him and know its new master, the head of the Potter household.

“Open your eyes. This is your home, Jamie,” Sirius said, cupping his face. “It’s yours by magic and blood and your parents would be so proud to see you and Harry here.”

He nodded, doing his best to believe him, before opening the window and letting fresh air in for the first time in the better part of 15 years.

He cleaned the dirt from the floor and changed the bed sheets by hand, freshing them with the few households spells his mother had taught him.

“I can’t wait to wake up in this bed with you next to me,” James confessed. The windows faced east and he knew Sirius would look gorgeous bathed in the morning sun.

Sirius grinned in reply, showing his teeth, something primal and animalistic in his smile despite the fact the Padfoot was gone.

“Later,” James promised, and entered the bathroom, wand drawn.

There was a half-empty bottle of his mum’s perfume at the vanity, and James sprayed it into air, the top note of bergamot blossoming into the air.

“May her memory be a blessing,” Sirius said quietly, helping him clean the room as James started his little treasure hunt.

He jumped on the tiles, looking for the loose ones, before marking an X over the spot where the gold was, like the treasure maps of old.

“Go on, open it!” Sirius said, eyes lighting up with the mystery.

James laughed, and pulled the tile off of the floor with his bare hands.

Just as he expected, beneath it was a box charmed to fit hundreds of galleons. Merlin honour his paranoid ancestors.

“Nice one,” Sirius said, helping him collect the coins and patch the bathroom back into shape.

Once they were satisfied with the upstairs, they went back down to the kitchen, saving the potions lab for another day.

“Ugh, all that household magic and cleaning has made me so hungry,” James complained, throwing open the empty shelves and frowning.

“You’re always hungry mate,” Sirius said, tying his long hair back out of his face. There were beads of sweat on his neck that James wanted to lick off, another kind of hunger entirely.

“Are you not anymore?” James asked, poking him in his still too-thin belly.

“Ah, well, it’s hard to tell when I’m hungry now,” Sirius confessed. “I was hungry all the time in Azkaban and on the run, there was never a second when I was full. I’ll forget to eat sometimes now that I’m not actually starving.”

“Right,” James said. “That’s messed up, darling.”

Sirius laughed, James knew he would hate any more sympathy than that.

“Speaking of, I need to get food for us anyways, any special requests?”

“And just where do you think you’re going?” Sirius asked, his voice sounding worried.

“The grocers in Diagon? I could get house-elf food delivery with all the hundreds of galleons we have stashed around here,” James mused.

“Why bother? There’s a Tesco in town,” Sirius protested. “We used to get cigs there, remember?”

“Of course I do, but we don’t have any of their weird notes and I’m not up to confounding any muggles today,” James argued back. “It’ll be fine, I’ll transfigure myself, no one will recognise me in Diagon.”

Sirius looked up to the ceiling, as if praying to a god he didn’t believe in for strength. “Fine, then.”

“Voldemort’s not going to pop out behind the potatoes,” James said with a lopsided grin.

“Excuse me for being worried when you’ve died once already,” Sirius snapped and the amusement bled out of James instantly.

“I’ll be careful,” he promised. “And bring you back some toffee, is it still your favourite?”

“I’ve not had it in a very long time,” Sirius said.

“I’ll bring some,” he said, and kissed Sirius on the lips, deep and fierce, putting all of himself into it. Sirius gave as good as he got and pushed him against the cabinets.

“Fix my face before I go out of here,” James said and Sirius rolled his eyes before transfiguring his black hair a dishwater blond and his crooked nose to more of a beak.

James looked at himself in a mirror and grimaced. “I look like the ugly lovechild of Narcissa and Snape.”

Sirius laughed hard that he nearly collapsed. James gave him a two-fingered salute and headed upstairs.

He knocked on the door to Harry’s room.

“You can come in,” Harry said, and James swung the door open. Harry was curled up on the window seat, reading his novelized history of the Falmouth Falcons. He looked up at him, his big green eyes so expressive.

“Dad?”

“Yeah, don’t mind the face—it’s just a bit of transfiguration before I go out,” James explained.

“Sirius left your eyes the same,” Harry observed. “Where are you going?”

“We’re going to need food, so I’ll hit the grocers, I shouldn’t be too long,” he explained.

“Okay,” Harry said. “Do you need me to come too?”

James groaned. “Why does everyone think I can’t be trusted to go on a food run?”

Harry looked back down at his book. “Don’t know Dad, can’t think of a single reason.”

James rolled his eyes, and kissed Harry on the forehead. “Cheeky kid.”

Harry smiled and at that, James apparated away, arriving in Diagon. It looked much the same since the last time he was there, but he didn’t recognise anyone at first on the streets.

He hurried down to the grocers, but stopped dead in his tracks when he saw a Wanted Poster for Sirius tacked up outside the Owl Emporium.

He looked quite mad and close to starving, and James shot a spell at the poster to make it fall onto the ground. He picked it up and quickly put it in his pocket and continued on his way.

The grocer on the corner of Diagon and Ration Alley was as busy as ever, filled with families and elves of those who thought shopping beneath them.

It was little trouble to load up a bag with a lightening charm with groceries and set up an account to have weekly delivery under a fake name.

Galleons spoke more than words did, and the boy behind the counter wouldn’t have cared if he was Voldemort himself, as long as he had the gold to pay for it.

James was about to apparate home, but he went for another walk down the Alley, and stopped outside of Quality Quidditch Supplies for a moment.

The world’s most gorgeous broom was in the window. It was the Firebolt, the same one that Sirius sent Harry. His son flew on it like he was born in the air.

He stepped inside, looking for something new to buy his son. A golden set of snitches or soft leather gloves to handle his broom with, when the proprietor tapped him on the shoulder.

“I saw you admiring the Firebolt in the window,” he said with a grin.

“It’s a nice broom,” James said.

“Harry Potter has one, you know” he replied, pointing to a framed picture above the till.

“Excuse me?” James replied, going to look. It was Harry, catching the snitch, decked out in his Gryffindor finest. A look of pure joy was on his son’s face, he was being cheered on by two ginger twins and an older, burly boy who was openly crying with happiness.

“The-boy-who-lived flew on a Firebolt to win the Quidditch Cup at Hogwarts last term,” he said, looking at James like he was thick.

“Did ‘boy-who-lived’ gave you permission to use his image to sell brooms?” James asked, wand-hand itching with anger.

“Well, no,” he confessed. “But we're thinking of running a promotion on it--it hasn’t been half-bad for business to see him on our brooms!"

“I bet,” James spat out. “Does a 5 percent share of the profits go to his Gringotts account under the Licensing Act of 1897?”

The man's eyes narrowed. “Are you his solicitor?”

James shook his head. “Just someone who had a father who knew about business.”

The shop owner exhaled, relieved. “It’s all above board, everyone does it, I’ve had no complaints! And there’s no need to be testy if you can’t afford to buy the same broom as Harry Potter, we have lots of cheaper models round the back.”

James wanted to curse him, but he wanted to see the look on Harry’s face when he came home with a present for him more.

“I’ll just take a set of snitches and the seeker gloves in a size medium,” James said, hating himself for giving money to this man who was profiting off of his son.

Was this what being the father to the boy-who-lived would be like?

Or it would be, as long as he hid under a fake face and in the shadows.

James knew then that he had to step back into the world somehow, to protect his son more than he could now.

He needed a plan.

Notes:

Long time, no update! I hope you lovely people are still enjoying this, it was my first foray back into fanfic after a long absence. The comments and kudos have meant a lot.

-J

Chapter 21

James came back to his home with bags full of shopping and a glossy black owl that he named Raja.

An idea swirled around in his head. Harry and Dumbledore might hate it, but if he pulled it off, it might be his greatest prank yet. James couldn’t keep living in this stasis, of having to hide being alive, but it was nothing compared to what Sirius had to do. His soul was on the line as an escaped Azkaban Prisoner.

James set up a cage for the owl, and grabbed his gifts for Harry and Sirius, running up the stairs to Harry’s room first. It felt strange to think of it like that after so many years of being his, but it felt right.

He rapped on the door. “Can I come in?”

“Sure,” Harry replied, and James dropped the glamour he had on as he walked back inside. “You’re back!”

“I told you I wouldn’t be long. And I got these for you,” James said, tossing the gloves at Harry, who caught them without even looking. Seeker reflexes!

“Thank you,” Harry replied, smiling at him, his green eyes very wide. “Can I ask why you got these?”

“No reason, I just thought you would like them,” James replied. He did it with Lily too, he’d bring home flowers and potions books and sweets just to see her eyes light up like that. They had glass faces, he could see the emotions underneath so easily.

“I do, they’re great” Harry said, fingers running over the butter-soft leather. It was just a little thing, but Harry was looking at the gloves like James had given him the moon.

“My Dad would go away for a week or two at a time when I was a kid. Potion’s conferences and things like that,” James explained. “He would go all over Europe, America, even magical Beijing during one trip. He’d always bring me and my mum back something, even if it was little. I had a whole set of little magical quadpot players from a trip to Boston, things like that.”

“Is that what are on the shelves?” Harry said, pointing them out.

James nodded. “The charms may have worn off, but I think I was trying to be like my Dad.”

Harry smiled back at him, and the moment was broken when he heard a ruffling of feathers. He looked up and Harry’s snow-white owl was staring at him from the windowsill.

“Hedwig found me when you were out,” Harry explained

James nodded. “I knew she could find this place, she’s a smart owl.”

“I was able to use the mirrors you made me,” Harry continued, looking away from him.

James raised his eyebrows, and Harry kept talking.

“I spoke to Ron and Hermione and well, they really want to meet you.”

“I’d love to meet your friends. This is your home kiddo, I want you to bring them here. I might have to you know, make it a bit more public, the me not being dead thing, but I have a plan.”

The corners of Harry’s mouth turned up in a half-smile. “Should I be worried?”

“No,” James said firmly. “It’s my job to be worried. Speaking of, have you seen Sirius?”

A selfish, small part of him assumed he’d be waiting at the door, like his Mum did when Dad was away at potions conferences, but James had only been gone an hour.

“I think he’s in your room, he told me he’d be there if I needed anything, but shockingly we haven’t had an emergency in time that you were gone,” Harry joked.

James mussed his hair and left the room, swinging the door open.

The master bedroom room was even cleaner than he had left it, and there were pictures on the bedside table of a younger him and his parents, beaming at him when he got his Head Boy Badge. He wondered where Sirius had found it. It was Sirius who had taken the photo, once he had stopped laughing over the thought of him as head boy.

James heard the sound of water running, and went into the bathroom. Sirius was in the bathtub, covered by bubbles, his hair slicked back with water. He looked like a present that James wanted to unwrap.

“Well don’t you look cozy in there,” he said, announcing his presence.

Sirius blinked his eyes open and smiled lazily in his direction. “I forgot how nice these are, Jamie.”

The cottage only had showers and Azkaban didn’t come with bubble baths. Of course.

He walked over and sat on the edge of the bathtub. “Close your eyes.”

“But I want to look at you,” Sirius whined for a second before fluttering his eyes shut.

James reached in his bag and found the toffee. He broke off a piece. “Open your mouth.”

“Is the surprise your dick?” Sirius joked and James laughed.

“No, but that can be arranged, keep your eyes shut and mouth open,” he ordered, and Sirius did. He slipped a small piece of toffee in his mouth.

“Go on, enjoy,” James said and Sirius moaned as he ate his favourite sweet.

“Merlin, that’s so good.”

James gave him another. He deserved it. When Sirius finished, James leaned down to kiss him, careful not to slip in the tub.

“You taste so sweet,” James murmured when he pulled away.

“This tub is big enough for two,” Sirius said, his voice deep, and James stripped off and sunk down into the warm water, his back touching Sirius’s chest.

Sirius kissed the back of his neck and James felt some of the anger and tension that had been with him since the Quidditch shop encounter start to bleed out of him.

“How was Diagon then?” Sirius asked him.

“Shite. Harry’s everywhere, shops are profiting off him, and there’s wanted posters up with your stupid mug on them,” James grumbled.

“Still?”

James nodded. “I’m going to have to be out in the world again, Padfoot.”

Sirius splashed the water, and made a displeased noise.

“I’m going to use the press, get my return out there on the best possible terms that don’t incriminate you,” he explained.

“And how do you plan on doing that? Escape convict gives away his animagus ability to some sort of demon to raise his best friend back from the dead isn’t the type of headline that will give me another trial,” Sirius pointed out.

“I’ll meet up with a journalist as soon as I can and think up a better story--trust me,” James implored.

“Alright,” Sirius said. “You were always the better planner out of the two of us anyway.

----------

Boy-Who-Lived’s Father Alive!
By Rita Skeeter

Readers, forget everything you know about that fateful Halloween night in 1981 that saved our way of life. Harry Potter survived the killing curse, but he wasn’t alone that night. His Father did too. Yes, James Potter is alive! He sent this newspaper an owl, and I went to investigate, thinking it would be a hoax rather than the scoop of the century, but it's true. James Potter is as living and breathing as you or I—and I’ve seen it with my own eyes. It seems like there’s some Felix Felicis in the Potter genes or the fates are simply on their side.

James looks exceptionally like his famous son, and much too young to be a father of a teenager. How are you alive are the first questions that come out of my mouth. Potter-senior runs a hand through his messy hair--ironic given the Potter fortune comes from the Sleekeasy hair potion-- and just smiles sadly at me.

“Well, I wasn’t dead—Voldemort must have put me in a magical coma with some unknown curse,” he explains. “I can’t tell how you horrible it was to wake up and realise what I missed! Thankfully wizards in my family bury the wands with the dead, so when the spell wore off, I was able to blast my way out of my grave instead of dying for real. So I’m back from my grave, but not the dead as it were.”

What a terrifying way to return. I ask him how he found out about his wife’s fate and how he is coping with missing out on the childhood of his son.

James Potter just looks away, a single glassy tear rolling down his cheek, and this reporter changes the subject. What about Sirius Black, I ask him next. Is he out for vengeance?

“It’s a grave miscarriage of justice,” James tells me. I sympathise, how awful that the ministry hasn’t caught him yet when James Potter yet drops another bombshell. He tells me that Sirius Black wasn’t his secret keeper and that the real betrayer was Peter Pettigrew.

I ask him if that’s why Sirius killed him, and James tells me he has evidence that Pettigrew is alive and rat animagus. Check with the auror department if you or your children bring home a rat with a missing paw.

I wonder if he’s sure, being in a magical coma so long, but James tells me that he’s never been so sure of anything in his life. He insists multiple times on Black's complete innocence, that his dark family background means less than nothing.

“It’s a real miscarriage of justice that Sirius served so long in Azkaban without a trial,” James says, his hazel eyes flashing with anger. “When I feel well enough to go to the ministry, I personally plan on finding out who made this horrible mistake. Sirius is an innocent man.”**

I did some digging, and it’s true that Black was sentenced without a trial. I ask James if he’s seen the Black Heir since his miraculous return. He says no, but asks me to write that he would love to see his best friend again as a free man, so that his son could get to know his godfather. So Sirius Black—if you’re reading this—come back to England. I’m sure the Ministry wouldn’t deny an innocent man a fair trial and a chance to right a wrong in the life of the Boy-Who-Lived.

Speaking of, Potter-Senior just shakes his head however when I ask about his son, giving me no details on what must have been a very emotional reunion between Harry and a father he has no memory of.

“Harry’s a wonderful kid and I’m so proud of him and I know his mother would be too,” is all James Potter will say on the subject.

James declines to tell me what he’ll do next, but he’s a handsome, strong wizard who looks ready to take on anything despite being in the ground for 12 years. Sometimes magic will surprise us all!
**response from Bartemious Crouch and the DMLE on page 3.

Chapter 22

Notes:

This is (mostly) porn with feelings and some character development.

Feel free to skip it, you won't miss a plot point. It's set in their first night in the house, before the article comes out. More later this week but enjoy and you're warned re: the smut!

James came to bed, his hair windswept and his skin a little chilly from the night air.

“You were flying then?” Sirius asked him.

He nodded. “Just wanted to make sure the protective spells around the house are as strong as they can be. Especially with the article coming out tomorrow”

“And they’re fine?”

“We’re safe as we can be, for now at least,” James said, turning to kiss him. He deepened the kiss, and tugged Sirius's shirt up over his head.

“Wait,” James protested. “I want to break in the bed.”

Sirius raised his eyebrows. “I was getting to that, wasn’t I?”

“No, I mean. With magic.”

“How do you want me?” Sirius asked. “Tying me up? A good old incarcerous?”

“No. I mean, yes, that can be fun, let’s do that sometime if you’re down for it, but I was thinking of the lectum in domum suam ritual,” James said, blushing a little. “

Here? On your parents bed?” Sirius asked, not believing him. 

“Our bed,” James corrected.

“Have you done it before?”  

James nodded. “With Lily, yes. It feels good. It’s a little exhausting magically, but neither of us are weak and I think we could all use the blessing the spell could bring.”

 “You realise that you won’t be able to have sex with anyone else unless you burn the bed or I die?” Sirius asked, frowning.

“I know how the spell works, Sirius,” James snapped.

“Alright,” he said, hands up. “I was just reminding you.”

“I don’t need a reminder,” he said, and reached for his hand to hold it. “Don’t you know that I’m in this? I don’t want to shag anyone else. Just you.”

Sirius nodded. “I know  you feel that way now Prongs, but the magic will hold you to that.”

“And it'll hold you to that too,” James replied. “Is that why you’re hesitating?”

“Don’t be ridiculous, don’t you know that you’ve always been it for me?” Sirius said, then kissed James’s palm, not letting him go.

James smiled at him.

“Is that what you wanted me to say?” Sirius asked.

“I just want you to believe that I feel the same. Have you ever known me to not give my whole heart to something?”

“Potions class, fifth year before your OWLS,” Sirius responded.

“Fair,” James replied. “But I mean when it’s something I care about?”

Sirius shook his head, and let James kiss him, falling beneath him under the covers.

James stopped the kiss, and spoke again. “It’s fine if you don’t want to perform the magic or don’t feel like doing it tonight, but not doing it because you want to give me an out if I change my mind is infuriating, Padfoot. I’m in this. With you.”

Sirius believed him, he really did. “How do we do this then? I’ve not done this kind of sex magic, it’s something about wand sharing?” he wagged his eyebrows.

“You can touch my wand whenever you like,” James joked, and they both laughed. “But we just shag, and when I feel like I’m about to come, I say the incantation, and then hand my wand to you, you say it and we’ll have a pretty intense orgasm and we’ll feel the magic radiate through the house.”

“You had me at intense orgasm, I’m in,” Sirius said, and raised his hips up to grind against James.

“Are you sure? We don’t have to if you’re not sure, we can just shag, or I would be happy just to hold you tonight,” James said, biting back a moan as he matched his rhythm.

“I’m sure, can’t you feel it?” Sirius said, reaching up to tug James’s boxers off. He moved himself down lower, wanting to get his mouth on him, to memorise how he tasted, hot and heavy on his tongue. He loved feeling him harden is his mouth, he felt powerful, magical. Special in this moment.

James fisted his hands in his hair. “You’re so good at that, your mouth feels amazing,” he muttered. “Too good, maybe.”

Sirius pulled off him, in a slick wet pop and looked up.

“You’re gorgeous, let me look at you,” James said, pulled him closer toward him and wrapping a hand around Sirius’s hard cock.

Sirius moaned as James moved his hand with just the right amount of force.

“Be as loud as you like, there’s wards on the door,” he said, and Sirius moaned even louder, making James laugh.

Sex with his best friend was the most fun.

“I want to look at you while we do this. Do you think you can ride me?” James asked.

Sirius nodded, and grabbed James’s wand off the nightstand and conjured lubricant, and started touching himself, stretching himself to make him ready.

“No fun unless I help,” James muttered, but his face told a different story.

“I think you like watching,” Sirius said, putting on more of a show, fluttering his eyes closed, and tossing his head back, letting the pleasure rush through his body

“I like watching but I like touching more,” James said, conjuring slick for himself, and replacing Sirius’s fingers with his own.

“More,” Sirius cried out, James was being too gentle, too considerate, he wanted to feel this tomorrow and the next day and James listened and pushed harder, increasing his pace and ferocity.

“Are you ready?” James asked him, and he nodded.

“More than,” he replied, finding the words after a moment.

James moved until his back was up against the headboard. He crooked a finger toward Sirius and pulled him close, kissing him deeply, before Sirius raised himself over him, and slowly sank down on his cock, taking him centimetre by centimetre until there was no more he could take.

James groaned and grabbed at Sirius’s hips, letting him set the pace as he started to move, first leisurely and then faster and faster until they set a brutal rhythm, lost in pleasure against each other.

James bit his lip and grabbed for his wand desperately and cried out lectum in dome suam and passed the wand to Sirius, who shouted out the words back to him.

Pleasure shot through them at the same time, heightened by their combined magic and he came, feeling James’s release at the same time.

Intense was an understatement. The magic moved through the house, finding them true and worthy and adding to the protections and he felt good from the crown of his head to the arches of his feet and more alive than he had ever been.

It lasted for several wonderful, blissed-out moments before the pair of them collapsed on the bed, sweaty and exhausted and spent.

James could barely speak, he just kissed Sirius’s pulse point and he fell asleep like that, curled up against him.

Sirius closed his eyes a moment later, losing the fight to stay awake. His last thought was that James always did have the best ideas.

Chapter 23

The next morning –the first in this old home in his second change at a life—started out perfectly. He, Sirius and Harry were eating breakfast together just like his family used to, and James was feeling the most content he did since coming back to life. The house's magic enveloped around them so warmly and the people he loved were here and safe, what else could he truly want?

He dropped a kiss over Harry’s messy black hair—so like his own—as he deposited pancakes in front of him.

“Special breakfast for our first day here,” James explained as he plated up some pancakes for Sirius, giving him extra cream and berries.

His life was so devoid of anything sweet for so long, he could spoil his boys a bit now that he was back.

James sat down with his own plate after the two of them were ready, and kept staring out the window.

“A watched cauldron never boils, Prongs,” Sirius muttered, reaching out to flick him on the forehead. “The paper will get here when it gets here, and no sooner.”

“What’s in the paper?” Harry asked. 

“Quidditch scores, potion advertisements, and a carefully edited report of my return from the dead. I might even make the front page.” James said.

Harry dropped his fork, it made a terrible clanging noise on the silver plates. “So now everyone will know you’re back? The whole world? Even Voldemort?”

“If he subscribes to the Daily Prophet, sure,” James said, but no one at the table seemed to find that amusing in the least. “I can’t advocate for you, or Sirius if my existence is a secret, and I can't live like that,” he explained.

"But I don’t need advocating,” Harry protested.

“That’s not up to you, as it turns out,” James said because Harry absolutely did, but he was cut off by the front door swinging open.

As the master of the house, he felt the new occupant in his bones and marrow and knew who it was immediately. “Come on in Remus, we’re in the kitchen!” he said, the magic of the house carrying his message over to Moony.

The kitchen door swung open a minute or two later, and it was Moony, looking rough after a transformation. In one hand, Remus was clutching an old suitcase, and in the other, he was holding up a copy of the morning’s paper. “I stopped by Diagon on my way here, and what do I see besides your face plastered everywhere! James Potter, you absolute menace!”

“Let’s see it then,” Sirius said, and Remus tossed the paper at him. Harry ran over to stand behind Sirius as they both started reading the paper.

James glanced at himself on the cover. The picture wasn’t half bad. He was waving at the audience, a sad look on his face, but at least he wasn't crying.

“This is just how I remembered you,” Remus said quietly to him while Sirius and Harry tore through the article.

“What, trouble?” James joked.

“Yes, but the best kind,” Remus replied. “Willing to stand up for your friends even when it meant putting your own neck out there.”

James smiled at Moony, glad that this part of him had survived in his friend’s memory. “What do you think of the article?”

“I think Dumbledore and the Ministry might go spare, but it’s the best chance you have to get Sirius’s name cleared,” Remus said.

“You mention me quite a lot here, I didn’t think you were going to do that,” Sirius said, staring at him.

“Of course I'm going to do everything in my power to clear your name,” James said.

Sirius nodded, and James hoped he knew just how much he loved him. He thought that maybe Sirius was starting to understand that.

“And I had to get my face back out in the world before the start of term, anyway, right?” James said. “I want to take Harry to Platform 9 ¾ and watch him flatten Slytherin in the Quidditch Cup, and I can't do that if I'm still legally dead."

Remus and Sirius nodded, but Harry didn’t look at all happy with him. His face was a picture of anxiety, Harry was picking angrily at his pancakes, his brow furrowed. 

“Speaking of the ministry,” Harry said, pointing to a black eagle owl that was pecking at the window. “That looks like one of their letters!”

James used his wand to flick the window open, and a big scroll with the ministry seal on it was deposited right in front of him. “Have you received lots of things from the ministry, son?”

“Ehm, well, a notice for underage magic a few times. But once it was a house-elf,” he grumbled, and that was a story that James had to hear. But later.

For now, he opened the scroll and started to read.

“What is it?” Sirius said, his voice shaking a little. “What do they want from you?”

“Minister for Magic Cornelius Fudge and Head Auror Rufus Scrimgeour from the Department of Magical Law Enforcement request my presence to meet at the ministry at my earliest convenience,” James said, in the most pompous voice he could muster up, trying to get smile out of Harry. It didn’t work.

“Are you going to go?” Sirius asked him.

“Yeah, I’ll go this morning,” James said. “But it’s breakfast time and we’re having pancakes now and Fudge can wait. Moony, help yourself, and put your things in the guest bedroom when you have a minute, Sirius cleaned it out for you yesterday.”

“Thank you,” Remus said, and sat down properly at the table.

“I’ll come to the ministry with you,” Harry offered after a moment. “I know Fudge.”

“Close friend of the minister, hm?” James asked, raising an eyebrow. He had met Fudge a few times back when he was junior Undersecretary and wasn’t impressed.

“Not exactly,” Harry said, his gaze flickering over toward Sirius. “I ran away from my Aunt’s house last summer and met him at the Leaky Cauldron.”

Sirius caught the glance. “And Fudge was afraid I had murdered you in between you leaving your relatives and making it to Diagon?”

Harry nodded, and James angrily speared a piece of pancake and shoved it in his mouth instead of going on the rant he wanted to go on about injustice and how Sirius was incapable of hurting him or his son.

“I did see you then, as Padfoot,” Sirius said quietly. “When you were leaving their house. I wanted to speak to you, tell you who I was, but I couldn’t make myself change back, I didn’t know where to start, and then the Knight Bus came and took you away.”

“It’s alright,” Harry said with a shrug.

James’s heart broke again, for Harry who was so used to adults disappointing him and for his love, who had forgotten to be human after so long in Azkaban.“Your face will stick like that if you don’t change it,” Sirius said, nudging him with his foot, and James did his best to shake off his melancholy.

“So what time should we leave for the ministry?” Harry asked, and James shook his head.

“There's not a we in this. I’ll go after we eat,” James repeated himself. “I can do this, I’m confident I can handle a few pomped-up politicians. And Scrimgeour was always fair enough when I worked with him, he shouldn’t be much of a problem.”

Harry looked set to protest, but James reached out and grabbed his hand. “You have to trust me on this. I’ll be back soon, I promise. And the Ministry isn't going to do anything to me, not with a glowing article about my miraculous return on the front page of the Prophet, anyway. It's rubbish for public opinion, and that's half of what those tossers care about, trust me.”

“Okay,” Harry said, pulling away.

"Love you kid," James said and stood up, ready to get ready to go. "I promise I won't be gone long enough for you to miss me! Listen to Sirius and Remus when I'm gone, but feel free to ignore them if they suggest anything too ridiculous."

Harry rolled his eyes, and James walked up the stairs, and opened the doors to his Father's wardrobe. He pulled out robes with the Potter family crest. They had charms on them to keep them fresh and free of moths, and it still smelled a little like his Father's cologne.

He got dressed and fixed his hair and stared at himself in the bathroom mirror for a moment, readying himself to go face the world. But his father had taught him business and the law, and he had talked himself out of trouble so many times. He could do this. He might not be a Slytherin, but he was taught to fight to win, and he would do that now. 

James took a deep breath, grabbed his wand, and apparated to the visitor's entrance of the Ministry of Magic.

A young witch was working the reception desk, and her jaw dropped when she saw him.

"James Potter, here to see the Minister, I do believe he's expecting me," he said, giving her a little wave.

She blushed and handed him a name badge. He laughed when she saw it, it said "James Potter, Appointment with Cornelius Fudge, Public Relations Mission."

Fair enough, he thought, as she waved him in the ministry. People were stopping to stare at him in the Atrium, he could hear their whispers like bees buzzing around him. He paid it no mind, and he stopped outside of the Minister's Office, where a woman who looked like a toad and dressed all in pink waved him in. She smiled at him, but James could see the malice behind that smile.

This woman would be a thorn in his side, he had a feeling, but shrugged it off, and headed on to see the minister. 

Cornelius Fudge was sat behind the desk, and Rufus Scrimgeour was standing behind him, arms folded, a grim expression on his face.

"Mr. Potter, I presume?" Fudge said, waving him in. "Please, have a seat."

"Nice to see you again, and congratulations, we couldn't have a better minister," James said, lying through his teeth as he sat on the sofa across from him.

He felt his body tingle with several identification spells, and he raised an eyebrow at Rufus Scrimgeour, who had his wand out, a silver light flashing from it.

"Fair enough, hit me with your best identity spells, I wouldn't expect any less. Just tell me what you find out?" James asked, opening his arms wide, letting the magic happen. He wouldn't resits.

"You're a twenty-one year old wizard, not currently wearing any glamours or on any known potions," Scrimgeour said after a few minutes had passed.

"Correct," James said. "And we all know that you can't make Polyjuice from a dead man and if I'm not glamoured, I am who I look like--James Potter. I'm not as dead as you thought."

"So it seems. Welcome back, Potter" Scrimgeour said.

"Yes, welcome," Fudge muttered. "It's a miracle you're alive."

James nodded and Fudge just kept talking.

"You do understand Mr. Potter, that we might have appreciated notice of your return instead of having to read it in the Prophet with everyone else? You were a Ministry Employee when you died, after all," Fudge said.

"I actually handed in a leave of absence to the Auror department three months before the event of October 1981," James protested. "I think you were my manager at the time, Rufus? Do you remember?"

"I do, yes," Rufus said.

"Lovely. Now, do either one of you feel like explaining how my innocent best mate was locked up in Azkaban for over a decade for crimes he didn't commit?" James said, twirling his wand in his fingers.

"I wasn't Head Auror at the time, but I understand he was found at the scene of the crime, laughing maniacally," Scrimgeour replied.

"Did an Auror perform any diagnostics on his wand to see if he had performed any deadly spells? Did you question him under veritaserum?" James asked.

"I'm not sure," Rufus replied, which James took as a no.

"For Merlin's sake, he confessed to the crimes," Fudge added.

"Could he have been confunded? I understand my son and his friends saw Peter Pettigrew at Hogwarts, a man that Sirius was jailed for killing?" James suggested mildly, and Fudge's face started to turn red. It was almost comical.

"You're making a lot of assumptions for a man who has been in a coma for the last twelve years," Fudge spat out.

"Oh, not at all, I understand this was all mistakes made under the previous administration and I'm not holding either of you liable at all," James said, his voice steady and strong.

"Liable?" Fudge asked.

"Well, the law doesn't allow us to hold pureblood without a trial for more than six months and Sirius was jailed for over a decade without being tried by the Wizengamot," James said. "He's probably entitled to quite a payout from the ministry as well, but I haven't consulted my barristers yet. I was wondering if we could just solve this now without lawyers and the press and a mess."

"A mess?" Fudge asked.

James nodded. "No one needs a lengthy battle in the Wizengamot. I have a son to raise, I assume Rufus has criminals to catch, you have laws to pass. If we can agree to a Ministerial decree to have all charges dropped against Sirius Black, I won't have to go to my Dad's old law firm and get the problem solved that way, or in the court of public opinion."

Fudge looked at Rufus. "How sure are you of Sirius Black's guilt?"

"I wasn't at all involved in his intake, trial or sentencing," Rufus replied, just like the politician he always was.

"There wasn't a trial, as it were," James pointed out, "so of course you weren't involved in it."

"As you keep mentioning, yes," Fudge said, shuffling some parchment on his desk.

"I keep mentioning it because you've doomed a man's soul with no cause!" James said.

Fudge sighed, and looked up from his stack of parchment, finally meeting his eyes. "I suppose it might be possible, if you can find your friend, to have an official trial for Sirius Black this autumn. There's a very full schedule, but we can make room for this."

"In the autumn? Minister, no. The right time for him to have been tried was twelve years ago," James argued, standing up. "The law is clear that if a pureblood isn't tried, the charges must be dropped."

"Our citizens want law and order, this won't sit well with them!" Fudge said, standing up to meet him.

"And you're following the letter of the law exactly and doing the right thing by dropping charges against an innocent wizard," James said.

Fudge sat back down, and looked contemplative, and James knew he almost had him. It was in his hand, like a quaffle at a match, he was so close to scoring the goal he needed to win freedom for Sirius.

"I'm sure my new friend Rita Skeeter would love to hear what a fair and just Minister we have, who was wiling to correct a grievous mistake made by the previous fellow who had his job. It shows a real strength of character, just what we want in our minister,," James offered, giving him his most dazzling grin.

Fudge nodded. "Alright. I'll expect to read about this by the end of the week."

"I promise," James said, and extended his wand-hand, and Fudge shook it.

Rufus was looking at the pair of them with disgust, but it didn't matter. James would make slimier deals and bigger promises to get Sirius free.

"Can you sign a decree for me now about his freedom and send one out to the Wizengamot immediately afterward? I'll try and send an owl to Sirius, perhaps we can find him, and get some lovely photos for the Prophet, hmm?" James offered and Fudge nodded.

He dipped a quill in ink, and with a few quick flourishes of his pen and a tap of his wand, Sirius was free, and James was holding the proof of it in his hands.

"Thank you," James replied. "Now, was there anything else you fine gentlemen needed from me?"

Fudge shook his head, but Scrimgeour nodded. "I wouldn't mind having a chat about the Auror department if you have a minute."

"Grand, grand, why don't you do that over in your office?" Fudge asked. "I have to go get these papers filed."

"I understand, thanks for your sense of justice, Minister," James said, and nodded to Fudge as he left the room with Scrimgeour.

Scrimgeour led him over to the cafe outside the DMLE, and sat down with him, getting them both coffees. "You'll find it's harder to pull the wool over my eyes than the Minister's."

James blinked his eyes, confused, like a deer. "Sorry?"

Scrigmeour chuckled. "I don't believe for one sorry second that you haven't seen Black, or at the very least, have knowledge of his whereabouts."

"I'm sorry to disappoint you," James replied, his heart beating too-fast. He remembered Mad-Eye Moody, and took a fake sip of the coffee, wondering if Scrimgeour had somehow dosed it.

"I'm not disappointed, I'm impressed, if he is as innocent as you say," Scrimgeour said. "That kind of fast-thinking is what the Auror department needs and I remember you were just as fast with your wand."

"I'm not looking for a job until at least the beginning of the new term," James said. "I have a lot of catching up to do with my son."

"Of course, the boy-who-lived," Scrimgeour replied.

"Not the boy-who-lived, Harry," James protested. "My son. He'll be fourteen in a few days."

"Of course," Rufus Scrimgeour replied. "He's going into his fourth year at Hogwarts, we all know."

James sighed, and took another fake sip of his coffee.

"You might be able to see your son a little during time-time if you do join the DMLE again," Scrimgeour offered. "We're running some extra security during the Tri-Wizard tournament this year and it'll be at Hogwarts."

"I thought that tournament had stopped forever because of the high death rate?"

Scrimgeour shrugged. "They're bringing it back this year. Don't ask me to explain Dumbledore's mind. And it's been relatively quiet these past few years, so the international magical community feels like Hogwarts can host an event of this magnitude."

"Interesting," James said, and it was. "Can I let you know my decision later?"

"Of course," Scrimgeour replied. "I look forward to seeing you on September the 1st."

James raised his eyebrows and looked back down at the magically binding document promising Sirius's freedom. "I'll let you know. For now, I must get back home. I have a letter to write to my newly freed friend."

"Of course you do," Scrimgeour said skeptically, and James apparated back home, feeling so much lighter.

Notes:

40K words, woo-hoo!
Thanks to all you lovely people who have been following this story since it's inception. Things are kicking into gear.

Lots of love,
J

Chapter 24

Sirius felt like a vise was tightening around his heart during every second that James was gone.

His breathing was too shallow, his muscles tensed for a fight. He knew he couldn't keep James here forever, locked up, like he was.

James Potter wasn't a princess in a tower, that isn't who he fell in love with, but he didn't trust the Ministry with his safety for one single second. The ministry condemned him to rot in Azkaban without any semblance of a trial, what would they do to James if he upset the wrong person? Sirius couldn't stand the wait.

It would be so much easier as Padfoot. Time went differently for dogs, faster somehow, thinking was less hard.

He looked over to Harry, whose big green eyes were staring straight at the door, he must have been just as nervous.

Sirius sighed, and didn't even feel Remus move until his hand went to his shoulder. "A watched cauldron never boils, you know that. Give him a little credit. He'll be back soon. "

"I give Jamie all the credit, I know he can handle himself," Sirius protested. "It's just the ministry I don't trust. They're full of twats." He looked over to Harry, who smirked at his language. "Sorry, Harry."

Harry shrugged. "I hear much worse on the Quidditch pitch and in the dorms, you don't have to say you're sorry about that."

Remus smiled, remembering something. "Sirius, you'd appreciate this story, and sorry if you've heard this already Harry, but speaking of language... both George and Fred Weasley handed me in a piece of homework after Snape covered my class that if you read the first letter of every line, it spelled out Snape is a bell-end. Both of their essays, which were different, spelled that out!"

Sirius laughed so hard his belly hurt. "And what did you say to them afterwards? Or let me guess, you were too professional to mention it?"

"I gave them full marks. Os across the board," Remus replied.

Harry smiled. "You'd like them, Sirius. I wonder how they figured out your map. I solemnly swear I am up to no good is oddly specific."

"It makes me happy that a new generation of mischief makers were able to ditch class and Filch," Sirius replied, his eyes going back to the door.

"Alright," Remus said, rising to his feet. "James is going to think we're the bell-ends if we just sit in here and stare at the door. Who wants to play exploding snap?"

Sirius would much prefer to stare at the door and considering running off to the ministry to save James from whatever had befallen him in the last five minutes, but he nodded, and followed Remus and Harry into the main living area.

The three of them found an old deck of cards stashed away in the little games cupboard along with a chess set, and Sirius set up for them to play snap.

No one's heart was in it. He lost to Harry three times, and Sirius thought that maybe Remus was letting him win.

As their fourth game got underway, Sirius heard the pop of apparition and stood up, knocking the cards off of the little side table, sending them down with a little bang.

"We're in here, Dad!" Harry called out, and a moment or two later, James came running in--and happy was an understatement.

James looked so joyful and proud, the only times Sirius could remember seeing him more happy was when Harry was born and at his wedding.

"So the meeting went well then?" Sirius asked.

James rocked back and forth on his heels and beamed at him. "Better than!" he said, and handed him a piece of parchment. "Read it, read it, out loud, go on!"

Sirius took the paper from his hands, grazing over his fingers jut a second too long to confirm that James was real. "I, Cornelius Fudge, under my authority as Minister for Magic, hereby drop the charges against Sirius Black and confirm the Department of Magical Law Enforcement shall make no more efforts to apprehend him."

"That's amazing!" Harry said, looking over to smile at him and Remus looked dumbstruck.

"It's not a pardon as you were never formally convicted, but it's as good as," James explained.

"This can't be real," Sirius said, eyes going from James back to the piece of parchment that said he was free. His heart was beating too fast again. This was too easy. "What did you give them? What did they want from you?" he asked James.

"I didn't give them anything, except a promise for you to do a photoshoot and a puff piece in the Prophet this week praising the Ministry. You'll hate doing that I know, but a little arse-kissing is worth your freedom," James said.

"How did you do it, Prongs?" Remus asked, coming over to stare over his shoulder at the page.

"There's not a lot going on with Fudge, I didn't have to work too hard to convince him, all those hours practicing debating with Dad actually paid off." James said, so sure of himself.

Sirius took a seat and stared up at Jamie. "James Potter, you brilliant bastard! Are you really telling me that I can leave this house, as myself, no disguises, no transformations, just as me and go stroll down Diagon and buy you and Harry presents and the dementors aren't going to come for me? I'm free?"

James sat down next to him and grabbed his free hand. He didn't even realise that it was shaking. "Yes, darling. Well, maybe not now, let's give the Ministry a day or two to get the news out and for us to get your handsome face in the papers proclaiming your innocence, but yes."

A laugh escaped Sirius's mouth, and he couldn't stop. James was so brilliant. He stopped laughing and leaned in and kissed James dead on the mouth, trying to convey his thanks. He didn't have the words. He pulled away quickly, when heard Harry cough.

"I'm sorry Harry," Sirius said. "I just can't believe that I'm free."

"It's fine," Harry said, only looking a little uncomfortable. "You should have never been there in the first place!"

"I know," Sirius said softly, looking at James's hazel eyes. They were so warm. "I would want to have a party, but everyone I love is right here."

"We can get some of Dad's vintage bubbly out of the cellar, and I'll make us steaks for dinner later, with that red wine sauce and mushroom thing that Mum used to do," James promised. "But speaking of parties, Harry don't think I forgot for one moment that your birthday is in two days. Do you think your friends Ron and Hermione would like to come over here? Would their parents let them?"

Harry nodded eagerly. "If that's okay with you? I want them to meet you!"

"We can make that happen," James said, ruffling his son's already messy hair and Harry looked up to him in gratitude.

Sirius watched them talk, but stopped listening to what James, Remus and Harry were saying, getting lost in the thoughts swirling around in his mind instead. He needed to move, he needed to stop sitting still on this couch, he needed to go somewhere safe, he couldn't be free. Not really. Could James and his pretty words have truly convinced the minister to set him free the same way James convinced Slughorn to never assign him detentions? It couldn't be that easy, could it? And James wouldn't joke about something of this magnitude but the Ministry could have lied to him.

"If you wouldn't mind excusing me for a moment," Sirius said, and he walked up the staircase to the room he shared with James, doing his best not to run up or to cause a scene.

He tossed himself on the bed that had anointed with their love and magic and he wrapped himself under the duvet. He had neither a bed nor blankets in Azkaban and it smelled like James here.

Freedom, he thought. It couldn't be real. He didn't know how to not worry about his soul or how to not be afraid of losing James, now that he had him again.

When he had nothing, all he had to lose was his soul, and now he had everything to lose. A partner. A family. And it couldn't be this easy for James to get him freed, was that all it took? Someone who knew how that ministry worked and was willing to fight in his corner? Was that it?

Sirius reached his hand to his face and realised it was wet. He felt the bed shift, James had come into the room and slid down next to him under the covers.

"Let me take this, you'll get it wet," James said gently, removing the minister's decree from his hand and putting it on the bedside table.

"I'm not crying," he insisted. "I think I'm just in shock."

"You're still beautiful like this, how is that fair?" James muttered, as he wiped away some of the tears with his thumbs. "What are you thinking? Tell me."

"Bossy," Sirius complained, but he didn't mean it as an insult, of course. He took a deep breath. "I just expected for the Ministry to never change their mind about me. That I would always be Sirius Black, Wanted Convict and 'Voldemort's Right Hand Man' until the day that I died."

"No one hates Voldemort more than you," James replied, so angry on his behalf. "Except maybe me and Harry."

Sirius nodded, and let James card his fingers through his hair, softly massaging his scalp. "It just seems too good to be true."

"I know," James replied. "But you have to let good things happen to you, Padfoot. Don't you think you deserve it after everything?"

"They don't happen to me like they do to you, I never had your luck," Sirius protested.

"You know as well as anyone that I wasn't always lucky, I never thought my death day would be at 21," James said sadly. "But we're making our own fate now, you hear me?"

"I do," Sirius replied, and almost, almost believed it.

"Oh, remember Scrimgeour?" James asked him.

"Not really," Sirius said honestly.

"Ah, well, he trained me back when I was an Auror," James explained, looking sheepish.

"And he wants you to come back?" Sirius asked, reading between the lines on James's face.

He nodded, and Sirius turned away from him. He couldn't go through this again.

"I didn't tell him yes," James protested.

"You want to go though," Sirius said. He knew him.

"I haven't made my mind up. What do you think?"

"It's too much like it was before," Sirius said quietly. "You, out there, as an Auror, fighting dark wizards every night, putting your life on the line under an incompetent ministry while Dumbledore does things and give us orders and tells us about the why behind them all later."

"I can understand that," James said. "I was always careful though."

Sirius remembered a time where James nearly lost an arm from going after Bellatrix in a fight. The healers weren't sure if they could fix him at first. "No, you weren't."

James sighed. "Okay, true. But I will be, if I join up again."

Sirius nodded, and kissed the palm of James's wand hand. "I hate the ministry."

"I know," James said. "I'll think about it, alright?"

Sirius nodded, and let James drag him out of bed and back downstairs when he was ready. He was promised champagne and a celebratory lunch after all. 

Notes:

Sirius is trying his very best to be okay, but he isn't yet. And who can blame him after all those years in Azkaban and this one on the run?

Thanks for reading and I hope you all had a lovely long weekend.

As always, feel free to come talk to me about James, Sirius and Harry in the comments x

Chapter 25

James woke up around midnight on his son’s fourteenth birthday.

How was Harry fourteen? He had missed so many good years, it was just a month ago in his mind where his son was just learning how to walk and talk.

Dada was Harry's first word. He joked to Lily that their boy loved him more, but the joke blew up spectacularly in his face when Harry got fussy and wanted his mum to feed him a few minutes later.

"Instant karma," Lily had replied, and kissed Harry's chubby cheek. "Who is your favourite? It's Mummy, right? Not Dada?"

Harry pointed at himself, and the three of them had collapsed into giggles.

James sighed, and pushed down the urge to go check on Harry, who was probably sleeping soundly and not lost in the haze of memory like he was.

“Stop thinking so loudly,” Sirius grumbled, not as asleep as he looked.

“My son is fourteen. He's fourteen!” James replied, rolling over to look at Sirius.

“That’s the age that comes after thirteen, yes,” Sirius joked, yawning loudly.

“And then he’ll be fifteen, and sixteen and then Harry will be an adult who is in charge of himself! He won’t be a kid anymore, he can go off to New York or Delhi or Hong Kong and never see me again if he wants,” James said quietly.

Sirius kissed his forehead before replying. “After Hogwarts, before your parents passed, you spent every Sunday lunch you could here with them. Lily would join, and me too. You didn’t stop loving them any less because you became a man. People who have loving parents still want to see them, it’s just in cases like mine that becoming an adult meant I could be totally free of them.”

“You’re right, I’m just worrying for no reason,” James said.

“I know,” Sirius replied.

“Maybe it’s because you and Lily never did much of that,” James muttered.

“I do now,” Sirius confessed, his voice very quiet. “I can’t help it.”

“You have me for the worrying,” James said, placing his hand over Sirius’s heart, which was beating a strong and steady rhythm.

“I do,” Sirius said. “And I understand where this is coming from, but you’re being a little ridiculous Jamie. Harry loves you, there’s a lot of things you probably should worry about, but this isn’t particular fear isn't exactly one of them.”

“You’re right,” James said, and meant it. And then he had a horrible thought. “Do you know what the cottage looks like now? If any of our things are still there?”

Sirius shook his head.

“We had this baby book,” James said. "For Harry, his first months, steps, words, all of that kind of thing."

“I remember, I took a few of the photos, and charmed that little blanket he was wrapped in for some of the photos. I made it give update on how many days Harry had been alive for,” Sirius said.

“Right,” James said. “So how would you feel about going now and seeing if we can find it to give it to Harry in the morning as a birthday present?”

"How would I feel? Pretty fucking awful, actually,” Sirius said, sitting up in bed. “You died there, Jamie. Lily died there. The place was a wreck. Voldemort destroyed your home. Let me repeat myself, you died there. It’s a horrible idea. One of your worst.”

“I just want to find the book, it’ll take five minutes,” James said.

Sirius let out a loud noise of frustration, but James had made up his mind and he would find that damn book, he wanted to see it and he wanted to see Harry look at it.

“You don’t have to go with me,” James said, getting out of bed and haphazardly throwing some robes on and summoning shoes.

“Don’t be stupid, I’ll always go with you, no matter how absolutely asinine the idea is,” Sirius said, summoning a robe and trainers and looking absolutely furious.

“I love you,” James said, before grabbing onto Sirius’s arm before he could change his mind and apparated the pair of them to outside their cottage in Godric’s Hallow.

It was a wreck, Sirius was right. It looked burned out and unsteady, all these years later. He saw a memorial outside but he didn’t look at it, just charged in, the door was half-off its hinges but it let them in without a fight.

The sofas were charred and moth-eaten, there was broken glass on the floor.

He had died in this room and though his heart was beating, the dark magic from the killing curse seemed to linger. The room felt evil, malevolent, out to hurt him. Magic that dark always left a shadow. James shivered. Sirius was right, this was a bad idea. He turned to say that, but instead just stared at Sirius.

And Sirius was lost in thought, too just staring at a spot on the floor where his body must have been. He didn't remember hitting the floor. Sirius's jaw was tense and his back was ramrod-straight, like he was forcing himself with all his ability to stay upright and keep it together.

“Come on, let’s hurry to the nursery so we can get out of here,” James said, reaching out to grab Sirius’s hand. He didn’t let go as he crept up the stairs.

It was a horror scene, there were blood stains on the floor. Was it Harry’s? Voldemorts? No one had cleaned it and it had stained dark into the wood. And the room was so dark, James took out his wand and cast a Lumos Maxima.

Lily was so good with charms, she had spelled a version of the night sky on the day Harry was born over his crib that lit up in the dark. It wasn’t glowing now, the magic and her light was out forever.

Sirius squeezed his hand and James took a deep breath.

“Accio Harry’s baby book,” he shouted, he couldn’t face digging through the rubble. After a moment or two, the book came flying into his hands, a little frayed around the edges, but still solid and real.

"It's here," James said, happy he hadn't lost it to time or death or thieves.

“You've found it, yes. Have you seen enough yet?” Sirius asked, but his voice was gentle, a side of him that not many other people were lucky enough to see.

James nodded, he didn’t think he could speak anymore, but just closed his eyes, and took the two of them back home in the space of a moment, the baby book tucked beneath his arm.

James put the book down on the bedside table, and opened it to the front page, to a picture of him, Lily and Harry on the day of his birth.

Lily looked exhausted but radiant and he was grinning wildly at the camera, and looking awestruck when his wife passed him his newborn son.

He didn’t feel ready to be a father then and he doesn’t feel ready to be a father to a 14 year old now but fatherhood was the most rewarding challenging of his life and Potters don’t give up.

“Funny how Harry had so much hair, even then,” Sirius said, resting his chin on James’s shoulder and wrapping his arms around his waist.

“Well, I’m his Dad,” James said.

“Yeah, you are. Now, let’s get back to bed, we have a big day coming up,” Sirius said, helping him out of his robes and back into bed. Sirius’s hands were shaking a little, but James didn’t say anything. He knew it was his fault.

“Thank you,” James told him when they were both curled up underneath the light summer duvet.

“I’d never leave you to face hell by yourself,” Sirius replied.

“I’m sorry that I left you to that, but you know I didn’t have a choice,” James said.

“I know,” Sirius said, and they had no more words that night.

In the morning, James woke up early, and enlisted Sirius and Remus into charming banners and streamers around the house for Harry’s party.

It was a gorgeous summer day and he opened the windows, letting the house feel warm and alive.

Harry’s friends would be over in the afternoon, but for now, it was just a family celebration.

He started making eggy bread, and shouted for Harry to come downstairs.

When Harry made it to the kitchen, the three of them broke out into a verse of Happy Birthday and James was delighted to see just how red Harry’s face got when he was embarrassed.

“Thank you,” Harry said, looking toward the small pile of presents on the table. “I feel like Dudley," he whispered.

“Open your presents, birthday boy,” Sirius said.

“I don’t need anything,” Harry protested, but went to unwrap a present anyway, his green eyes very wide with happiness.

His fingers tore at the wrapping paper, revealing a top of the line set of snitches, shiny and golden with newly-charmed wings.

James had charmed Harry’s name onto the box. “For quidditch practice, now you have your own set, so you don’t need to borrow the Hogwarts ones.”

“Thank you,” Harry said, so genuinely pleased. "They're beautiful."

Sirius reached over and plucked one out of the box, releasing a snitch into the air. Harry reached out and grabbed it without hesitating.

"Well done," James said. "Maybe you and your friends can play later?"

Harry smiled and put the snitch back in the box.

“Mine next,” Remus said, pointing to another package on the table.

Harry opened it, revealing a Limited Edition Grave’s Defense Manual, one of the best training books out there for anyone interested in practical magic.

“It’s used,” Remus explained. “But you may find my notes in the margins and variations on countercurses and jinks helpful.”

“Thanks Professor,” Harry said, with a wink at the last word. Remus had spent the last few days asking Harry to not call him that anymore, that Remus would do.

“And this is from Sirius and I,” James said, giving him the baby book. “It’s unfinished, obviously, but I wanted you to have it, to know how absolutely loved you were always, even before you were even born.”

Harry looked down at the photo album, and eagerly flipped it open to that first page. He didn’t speak for several moments, just ran his finger over the photograph of his first day one this planet and blinked. “Mum was so beautiful,” he said eventually.

“Yes,” James agreed.

Harry turned to the next photo, one of Sirius holding newborn Harry. Lily was laughing at him, Sirius looked terrified of dropping him, but was gazing at him so kindly.

“Was it a cold day, when I was born?” Harry asked.

“It was nearly August,” James replied, confused.

“It’s just that Sirius is wearing a leather jacket,” Harry said with a smirk.

“I looked very cool,” Sirius replied, and the four of them started laughing.

“I think there’s one of you sleeping next to Padfoot on the couch in there too,” James replied, and Harry eagerly started looking for the photo.

“Where did you find that?” Remus asked quietly.

“We went to Godric’s Hallow last night,” James whispered, and Remus nodded.

“Now, dig in, and eat your breakfast,” Sirius commanded, using his wand to direct the plates of food to everyone.

“Thank you,” Harry said again and James flicked him on the forehead.

“Stop thanking me kiddo, I like doing things for the people I love and I’ve missed so many birthdays,” he replied.

Harry swallowed past a lump in his throat. “This birthday is the best one I can remember.”

"We'll have to top it next year," James said. He knew he couldn't promise it, but he was here now.

Notes:

As always, come talk to me about these boys in the comments. More guests at the Potter House in the next chapter but James was just having a lot of emotions about being a father.

Chapter 26

James was so amused. Harry was rocking on his heels in front of the fireplace, waiting for his friends, and his excitement was palpable. He looked very young.

Sirius and Remus had gone out to the garden to set up for the party, so it was just him and Harry waiting for the fireplace to come to life.

“I used to be the one waiting for my best mate to floo in during the summer,” James remembered. “The Blacks didn’t let Sirius visit very often, which made him coming over all the more special when he was still living with his awful family in London.”

Harry looked over at him. “No offense Dad, but I don’t feel the same way about Ron and Hermione as you do about Sirius.”

James reached over and mussed Harry’s hair. “I didn’t when I was your age either. In fact, when I was 14, I think my true love was quidditch. I used to dream about that trophy, it was so gold and so shiny,” he mused, clasping his hands over his heart dramatically.

Harry rolled his eyes. “I cleaned that trophy you know, with your name on it? In my first year, during a detention.”

James laughed. “I’m so proud that you’re continuing the family legacy of detentions, son.”

Harry opened his mouth to defend himself, but stopped when the fire roared to life. A gangly, ginger boy who could only be Ron Weasley came out first, then Hermione, a girl with intelligent brown eyes and big hair, and last came Molly and Arthur Weasley.

He had seen them once or twice during his work with the Order, and knew who they were, their world being as small as it once, but they never properly met before.

The kids ran over to Harry, the girl throwing her arms around him in a hug, and the boy following a second afterwards, both saying Happy Birthday.

James walked over to the Weasleys and extended a hand. “James Potter. Thank you so much for welcoming my son into your home during school holidays and for making him feel like a part of your family. I can’t thank you enough for what you’ve done for him.”

Molly batted his hand away, and hugged him instead. “It’s no problem at all, Harry’s a sweet boy. And welcome back, we couldn’t believe the news, but how fortunate for Harry!”

“He’s always welcome at the Burrow, your son saved our only daughter's life, we couldn't be more grateful to know him,” Arthur said kindly, shaking his hand. “I'm happy that Harry has you again, and Holy Merlin, you’re young!”

James didn’t feel young, but just smiled back at him, and turned toward what could only be Ron and Hermione and waved at them. Ron’s blue eyes were very large, and his mouth was open in shock.

Hermione clasped her hand over her mouth and blinked at him like he was a mirage. “Harry does look so much like you!” she said.

“For better or for worse, yeah,” James said, walking over to shaking her hand. “Nice to meet you, Hermione, I understand I have you to thank for any efforts my son made at Hogwarts these past few years?”

Hermione blushed but recovered quickly. “Nice to meet you Mr. Potter! And Harry’s smart when he applies himself.”

James loved her defense of his son. “Please, call me James! And you must be Ron!”

Ron shuffled forward and extended his hand, he had a particularly firm handshake. “When Harry wrote me about you, I couldn’t believe it! I hope that you're really James Potter, but if you aren't, you'll have us to answer to.”

“It is a bit unbelievable, yeah,” James agreed. "But I swear on my magic that I'm me," he said, brandishing his wand and holding it to his pulse point until it glowed golden with the truth. It would have killed him otherwise.

"That's good enough for me," Ron said, and smiled at him. "Nice to meet you!"

"Likewise. Thank you for being such a good friend to my son, and for looking out for him."

Ron puffed up a little with pride.

"You met on the Hogwarts express, right?” James asked, looking between him and Harry.

Ron nodded.

“I met mine too that way, as it turns out,” James said, and turned to Molly and Arthur. “His name is Sirius Black, and he’s innocent of all the charges against him. He’s living with us, and he’s currently outside along with our good friend Remus Lupin.”

“I had read that in the Prophet,” Arthur said. “You caused quite a scene at the Ministry!”

“I think the Ministry needed the kick in the arse, pardon my language,” James said to the look on Molly’s face, and Harry and Ron stifled laughs.

“Professor Lupin is here?” James heard Hermione whisper to Harry, and he laughed.

“Remus,” James corrected. “No professors here! He’s excited to see some of his favourite students though. Shall we head outside?”

The five of them headed through the lounge and formal dining room out to the garden. Harry was giving a little tour of the place to his friends and James’s heart was bursting with pride.

And it didn’t stop, when they finally got outside, his smile had become even wider. Sirius and Remus had done an incredible job making the garden into a perfect place for a summer party.

There were picnic tables set up with Gryffindor red-and-gold tablecloths, with all kinds of snacks, cakes and fizzy drinks. There was a little Quidditch pitch with enough brooms for everyone, and more banners set up that read ‘Happy Birthday Harry!’

“If every day is like this one, it’ll be your best year ever mate,” Ron whispered to Harry, who hadn’t stopped smiling either.

“I hope so too,” James said, winking at him, and Molly reached into her bag to pull out a cake she had made for Harry. It was shrunk, and she pointed her wand at it to expand it to full size.

It was chocolate and looked fantastic, and he told her so.

Sirius and Remus walked over a few moments later, and Sirius’s back was ramrod straight, his posture perfect, a sure sign of how nervous he was with the strangers in his home.

“Nice to meet you,” he said, extending a hand to Molly and Arthur. “Sirius Black.”

Molly hesitantly shook his hand, as did Arthur. This was the first time Sirius was meeting people who only recently thought of him as an escaped convict, and the moment felt significant.

“It’s nice to meet you as well,” Arthur Weasley said eventually, and James let out a breath.

“Hello! You’re looking very well!” Hermione said to Sirius and he grinned back at her.

“Thanks! Not being on the run, having three meals a day, a warm bed and sunshine helps,” Sirius said. “I’d recommend it to anyone!”

Remus laughed, and introduced himself to the Weasleys.

“I just want to apologise for anything the twins might have done whilst in your class,” Molly said.

“I was pranked once or twice, but got them back, and afterwards they were a joy to teach, they’re very inventive wizards, you should be proud,” Remus said, and Molly smiled her thanks.

“And proud of Ron too,” James added. “I’ve been hearing so many good things about him from my son.”

Ron’s face went flame-red at the praise and he managed to say thanks.

“So do the three of you want to play Quidditch? There’s a little pitch set up,” James gestured.

“I’m happy to watch!” Hermione offered.

“I can summon some books from our library if you get bored,” James offered, and her eyes lit up.

“Thanks, Mr. Potter, er James!” she said, before running over to follow Harry and Ron to the makeshift pitch. Ron and Harry had jumped on brooms, Harry had kindly offered Ron his firebolt and he took his old Cleansweep .

James wondered how many lazy summer days would have been spent like this, out here in the garden with Harry and his friends, had Voldemort not killed him.

He grabbed a glass of ice-cold pumpkin juice for himself, and his guests, and they all sat down on the transfigured lawn furniture to watch the flying.

Ron managed to do a dramatic loop on Harry’s broom and his son and Hermione were cheering him on. Harry glanced over at him and he gave a little wave and beamed. James waved back with both arms, spilling a little of his pumpkin juice on his sleeves.

Sirius laughed at him, tilting his head back, exposing the long column of his throat. The sun was shining brightly against his glossy black hair and James’s heart skipped a beat.

Molly Weasley noticed the spilled juice, and vanished the stain for him. “Oh, look at Harry waving, he's so comfortable with you already James, I’m pleased to see that.”

“Thank you, I am too,” James agreed. “And I know I can’t take any credit for it, but he’s such a good kid.”

Molly smiled. “You can, he’s your son, and James—I don’t know you well, but I’d bet anything that you and your wife showered Harry with love during the first year of his life. Babies don’t remember anything, not really, but I think a part of them deep down remembers being held and loved and taken care of, and a part of Harry still knows that love. Or am I just being sentimental, dear?” she asked Arthur.

“You’re being sentimental, but I think you’re right,” he said. “Though I know that look in your eyes Molly, stop it now, you know we’re both past the point of having any more babies ourselves!”

“I know, I know! But they’re so sweet when they’re little,” she said, and looked over at James. “It’s not my place and I know you’re still grieving, but you’re so young. You have the energy to chase after toddlers, you could find a witch when you feel ready, whenever that is, and give Harry a sibling. A little brother or sister.”

James’s bright mood dimmed. Harry would have had a sibling had Lily not died when she did and there was no other witch he would ever want.

James snuck another glance at Sirius, who was staring at the grass quite deliberately. “I appreciate your kindness Molly, but I was an only child who found a brother and love in my friends at Hogwarts, and I think it’ll be the same for Harry.”

“I understand,” Molly said. “But if you change your mind, you’re around the same as our son Bill and he knows some lovely witches.”

“I won’t change my mind, that’s not the kind of man I am,” James said firmly, and tried his best not to look at Sirius again. He snuck a glance out of the corner of his eye, Sirius wasn't giving anything away, but he didn't look unhappy. He hoped Sirius knew how much he loved him.

Molly nodded. “Okay. But try and keep an open mind and open eyes when you’re at the ministry, dear? You never know who you might meet and what could happen if you let it.”

“The ministry?” Sirius asked, his voice deceptively light.

“I might have, ehm, told her that there was some gossip about you coming back to the Auror Department in the autumn,” Arthur admitted.

“Glad to know the gossip machine at the ministry works as fast as ever,” James grumbled. “But I’ve not made up my mind yet about whether I want to come back.”

“I know how backwards that place can be, perhaps more than anyone,” Arthur replied. “But I’ve always felt like you can fight to change the system more from outside it than looking in?”

James nodded. “Perhaps. But I’ve been fighting for so long. I just want to spend some time now with the people I love. I can fight again in a little while.”

“I understand,” Molly said, and James occupied his mouth by reaching out for a crisp. He looked over to Sirius who was still sitting like he was the portrait of his ancestor Phineaus, all prim and proper and lacking any joy or fun.

He want to hold Sirius’s hand and draw strength from the closeness of his body and the power of his magic, but he folded his hands over his lap instead.

Chapter 27

Harry’s heart was so full, he thought it would burst.

His stomach was full of delicious chocolate cake that Mrs. Weasley had brought for him, and his Dad and Sirius had led an off-key version of Happy Birthday that ended with little fireworks set off in the back garden of their house. Sirius was especially talented at setting things on fire, Remus had told him in a stage whisper.

It was like all of his wildest dreams had come to life somehow, people who cared about him were trying to make sure he had a nice birthday, he was equal parts overjoyed and terrified that it would all come crumbling down like a house of cards during exploding snap.

“Are you sure you don’t want another piece of this cake mate?” Ron asked, bringing him back to reality.

“I’m sure,” Harry said.

Ron looked longingly at the lone, last slice.

“Oh, go on then,” Harry encouraged, and he and Hermione shared a look as Ron helped himself to the last of the cake.

“It’s a wonder the wizarding world doesn’t have dentists, with all the sugar,” Hermione said to herself.

Ron’s mouth was too full to respond, but he rolled his eyes.

Harry looked over to spot his Dad.

He was still over at the next table with the Weasleys, Remus and Sirius. Sirius was holding himself up very straight, and looked more tired than Harry had seen him in weeks. It might be exhausting for him, being around new people after being alone for so long, Harry thought.

He watched as his Dad squeezed Sirius’s wrist gently.

It was a friendly gesture, but Harry knew now it was more than that. Sirius seemed to be fighting the instinct to touch his Dad back, he hoped he was okay.

Hermione knocked her shoulder into his. “What are you concentrating so hard about?”

Harry shook his head. “Nothing. I’m happy.”

“Yeah, you are,” Ron said. “It’s a good look on you, you should try it more often!”

Hermione sighed. “I agree that it’s good Ron, but it’s not like Harry could control his circumstances before! But we’re so pleased for you, Harry. That your Dad is here, and wants to be here for you.”

“Yeah,” Harry replied. He took a deep breath. “What do you think of him, really?”

“Well, people weren’t kidding when they told you that you look just like him,” Ron said. “But you talk a bit like him too, and make the same face when you’re concentrating on flying, it's uncanny! But he seems like he loves you a lot, which is what matters.”

“I agree, that’s so obvious Harry. When you told me that Sirius had somehow brought him back, I was so worried for you and just what he brought back, but seeing him now and watching him talk to you—that’s your Dad,” Hermione agreed.

Ron nodded. “Sirius looks like a different person now too, doesn’t he?”

“More like what he’d look like if we didn’t meet him as an Azkaban escapee who was living mostly as a dog for a year?” Hermione asked.

“That exactly,” Ron replied.

Harry just nodded, and looked back again toward his Dad and Sirius.

“They do seem close,” Hermione observed. “It must be wonderful for Sirius to have his best friend back.”

“Not just that,” Harry muttered.

“Oh,” Hermione said, her eyes going very wide.

“What?” Ron asked, putting down his now empty plate.

“They’re together, I guess,” Harry said quietly.

“Since when?” Hermione asked.

“Since a couple of days ago, I think,” Harry replied. “I don’t know or want the exact details, really.”

“Huh,” Ron said eloquently. “Are you fine with it?”

“Yes,” Harry said, and found that he was speaking the truth. “I’m back off to Hogwarts in a month and a day and it’s nice that they won’t be alone while I’m in Gryffindor Tower if that makes any sense?”

“It makes perfect sense,” Hermione assured him, smiling at him, her eyes a little wet. He hoped she wouldn’t cry.

“I wonder if Mum and Dad got lonely when Ginny finally left,” Ron mused. “Or if they enjoyed the quiet.”

Harry laughed. The Burrow was the loudest place he knew, and one of the most magical. Hermione started laughing too, and the three of them collapsed in a fit of giggles.

“Oi, what’s so funny you three?” James asked, walking over toward them.

“Nothing,” Harry said, smiling back at him.

“Padfoot, I’m too old to be let in on the jokes now,” he complained, looking over to Sirius for support.

“Tough luck,” Sirius deadpanned, and Remus chuckled.

“Welcome to being the parent of a teenager,” Mrs. Weasley said, joining them as well, arm-in-arm with Arthur.

“I’m fourteen today,” Harry pointed out. He had been a teenager for a whole year already.

“Of course, dear,” Mrs. Weasley replied, and Harry thought it would be childish to comment any further on that.

“Right, I think we’ve enjoyed the Potters hospitality for long enough today,” Mr. Weasley said, packing up the glass cakestand with an easy wave of his wand. “We’ll be out of your hair shortly.”

“You’re welcome whenever you like,” Dad said graciously. “And that goes to Ron and Hermione as well—my son's friends are truly always welcome in our home.”

“Thanks James,” Hermione and Ron muttered together.

James gave each of them a hug, as they walked over toward the floo and Harry waved as the Weasleys and Hermione departed into the green flames back toward the burrow.

“So,” James said once they were gone, and it was just their little family again. “Good party?”

“The best,” Harry said.

“I’m glad,” James said, ruffling his hair. “I’ll try and top it next year. You can invite some more of your classmates and I’ll try not to embarrass you in front of whatever boy or girl you might be keen on.”

Harry laughed in the face of that threat. “Oh, Dad?”

“Yes?” James said, rocking on his heels.

“Ehm, speaking of, well, that?”

“Spit it out, kid,” James said, his tone gentle compared to his words.

“I told Ron and Hermione about you and Sirius. I’m sorry,” Harry said, rushing through his words.

Sirius's gray eyes got very wide, and he exchanged a look with James while Remus quietly excused himself from the room, muttering something about how he would bring them in some tea.

“Good,” James said eventually. “Your friends should know whats going on in your life, I don't want you to feel like you have to hide anything. And me and Sirius, well, we aren't just a temporary thing either. Your friends should know.”

Sirius unfolded his arms and looked at his Dad like he hung the moon.

“What did your friends say?” Sirius asked him, cautious.

“They’re fine,” Harry said with a shrug. “I think Hermione would have figured it out the next time she met you guys to be honest, she’s clever like that.”

“She did seem to enjoy our library,” James replied. “And I’ve often been accused of lacking subtlety, that was one of your mum’s early complaints about me to be honest.”

The corners of Sirius’s lips turned up. “Subtlety is a nasty, Slytherin habit in my books anyways.”

Harry smiled, but wondered what the two of them would think if they knew he was almost sorted in the house Sirius hated so much. But he shook the thought off, his mind too exhausted after a busy day celebrating with his family and best mates.

He hugged his Dad goodnight, and headed off to his room to wind down and get some sleep. He had a feeling that 14 just might be a good year.

Notes:

Anyone still here? Sorry about the wait, hope to have more within the next week or so. Lots of love, J.

Chapter 28

James woke up the morning after Harry’s birthday to the distinctive noise of an Owl pecking at his window. He sighed, grabbed his wand, and spelled the window open, letting the ministry-issue barn owl inside his home.

The owl flew over to him, and dropped the letter in his lap, flying away without giving him the chance to open it or reply.

“Hmm,” James muttered, turning it over. It had his name embossed on it in ministry-official writing.

“What is it?” Sirius said, his voice thick with sleep, as he stretched his arms over his head.

“Something from the ministry,” James replied, squinting as he tore the wax seal off the letter.

Sirius sat up and handed him his glasses.

“Thanks darling,” James replied, and read the letter aloud to Sirius.

“Mr. Potter,” James read, in a mocking, officious tone. “I hope you’ve been considering my offer. No need to answer in a hasty manner, but in the meantime, the Minister of Magic has been so kind as to offer two tickets in his box for the upcoming Quidditch World Cup. Your son has quite the reputation as a star player at Hogwarts already, clearly following in his Father's footsteps. Enjoy the match. Kind regards, Rufus Scrimgeour, Head Auror, Department of Magical Law Enforcement.”

Sirius snatched the letter from him and held the envelope upside down, and two tickets fell out of the envelope. Box seats. Sirius was glaring at them, and James was afraid they would catch alight, like the letters his family used to send him in their first few years at Hogwarts, until they stopped coming all together.

“Well?” James asked, staring at Sirius. His eyes were dark and he still seemed half-awake.

“Well, nothing,” Sirius replied. “Enjoy the match, I’m sure you and Harry will have a great time. And didn’t he say the Weasleys were going too?”

“Yes,” James said, searching Sirius’s face. “I can get you a ticket too if you’d like to come, and Remus too of course.”

“And sit in the Minister’s box like everything is fine, when the last time Cornelius Fudge saw me, I was in Azkaban asking him for a newspaper? I don’t think so,” Sirius grumbled.

“That’s fair,” James replied, his chest feeling tight. “But I want you to go with us, I don’t especially like the idea of being away from you for long.”

“You should get to used to it,” Sirius replied, looking back down at the letter.

“And just what is that supposed to mean?” James asked, tucking an errant lock of hair behind Sirius’s ear. Sirius let him, but didn’t meet his eyes, just shook his head.

“Use your words, Padfoot, you’re the most eloquent person I know when you try.”

Sirius rubbed at his eyes. “It’s just, you’ll be gone a lot, being an Auror again. On missions, overnight, or for days, and I should try and figure out how to get to sleep without you beside me.”

“I haven’t said yes, and I’m not doing anything until Harry’s back in school next month,” James said quietly.

“But you want to be an Auror again,” Sirius said.

“Yes,” James admitted, not at all surprised at how well Sirius knew him. “I’m not happy with the ministry, but maybe I can change it more from the inside.”

“Knowing how to the potions get stirred inside the place, I know,” Sirius muttered, one of his dad’s favourite sayings.

“I’m sorry,” James replied. “I don't have to be an Auror. I can do lots of things, we can do something else, we’re young, there’s a million things we could do.”

“You’re young,” Sirius replied, running his hands gently over his face. “Not a line on this handsome face yet.”

“You’re in your early 30s, it’s not like you’re the cryptkeeper,” James replied, kissing Sirius once on the mouth after for good measure.

“I’m still not used to looking in the mirror and seeing this,” Sirius said, gesturing down at himself.

“I could never tire at looking at you, I still like what I see," James replied, his voice soft and full of promise. “Will you still want me a decade from now? And a decade after that?”

“Of course,” Sirius replied, running his hands through James’s mop of brown hair. “If this is allowed to turn gray, if we’re somehow that lucky, of course I will. Besides, your Father was a bit handsome, wasn’t he?”

James laughed, and shoved him gently. “Did you really think Dad was handsome?”

Sirius rolled his eyes. “I was really only ever looking at you then, but yeah, he was.”

“Okay,” James replied, but climbed on top of him, and distracted him in other ways, the Auror conversation and all other rational thoughts quickly fading to the back of his mind.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
On the day of the Quidditch World Cup, James woke up with a bad feeling.

He sat up in bed, his magic was running haywire under his skin, crawling with anxiety, as if the house wanted him awake. The wards, built by his grandparents were trying to warn him about something and he was terrified, his heart beating too-fast.

He strained his ears, hearing something coming from his son’s room, and grabbed his wand, and bolted out down the hall as fast as he could to his son, throwing the door open.

The windows were rattling and books were lifting off the shelves as Harry was trembling in bed, his forehead cold and clammy, it was a nightmare, and his magic was lashing out at a threat it couldn’t fight.

James let out a sigh of relief that it wasn’t anything more malignant, and gently shook Harry’s shoulders, as tenderly as he could, trying to help him escape whatever monster he was fighting in his head.

“Son, you’re safe, you’re at home,” James whispered. “It can’t get you here, whatever it is. Wake up, Harry,” he pleaded, watching his teenage son fight off the pains of his night terrors.

Harry blinked his green eyes open and stared at him for a moment, before turning bright red with embarrassment. “Dad?”

“Hey, it’s alright,” James said, taking a seat a next to him on the bed. “I get them. Sirius has his fair share of nightmares too, worse than me.”

Harry shook his head. “I don’t think it was just a nightmare.”

“What?”

“It was—Voldemort. He’s with Wormtail, in this big old house, and he’s just killed this old Muggle man for no reason,” Harry said, pulling his knees up to his chest.

“Oh,” James said. “Um. Well, that’s awful,” he said, so lost in how to respond. “Do you think it was happening now or earlier?”

“Now, I think,” Harry said. “It didn’t seem like a memory, not one of mine at least, and I have plenty of those, this wasn’t a regular bad dream,” he replied, clutching at his scar.

“I believe you,” James replied. “I’m sorry.”

Harry shrugged. “Who is Bertha Jorkins?”

“Batty Ravenclaw, a few years younger than us,” he replied. “Where did you hear that name?”

“In my dream,” Harry replied. “I think Voldemort killed her too.”

“Right,” James replied, now even more convinced that Harry was somehow seeing into the mind of Voldemort. Where would he have heard that name before? It wasn’t his subconscious. “I’m sorry,” he said again.

“Not your fault, Dad,” Harry said.

But it was, in a way. If he was able to take him down, if any of the Order was before Harry was born, he wouldn’t have to deal with this, Voldemort wouldn’t even be a concern, Harry’s biggest issues should be coursework and Quidditch and teenage relationship drama and not whatever this was.

“Dad?” Harry asked, looking very young.

“I’m here,” James said, giving him a weak smile. “Do you think you’ll be able to get any more sleep, or do you want to go flying to watch the sunrise instead?”

“Flying, definitely,” Harry said, some of the tension dropping out of his shoulders.

“Great, meet me downstairs in a few, change out of those sweaty nightclothes, you’ll give yourself a chill,” James told him and then realised what he just said. “And I am turning into my Mum making comments like that. But a jumper wouldn’t be a bad idea.”

Harry just laughed as James crept back to his bedroom.

Sirius was awake, his pale body illuminated by the moon. “Everything okay?”

“No,” James replied. “Harry has terrible nightmares where he’s seeing into Voldemort’s head, and Wormtail is there, helping him murder some poor Muggles.”

Sirius let out a vicious string of curses, and then looked at his face. “Seeing into his head, you said?”

“Yeah,” James said, rummaging around in his wardrobe for a clean jumper. “What are you thinking and not telling me?”

“Nothing,” Sirius said. “It just sounds familiar, like something I read in one of the books at Grimmauld Place when I was trying to distract myself from my Mum shouting at me, but I was only half paying attention and can’t remember it.”

“But it wasn’t good?” James asked.

“No,” Sirius replied. “Not if it was in my family’s library anyway. But I don’t think Voldemort would have had time to hit Harry with any sort of curses on dream sharing or anything before….well.”

“Before his own death spell somehow backfired, leaving my infant son the only known survivor of the killing curse?” James asked, his voice deadpan.

“Yes,” Sirius grimaced.

“We’ll think of something to fix it, he shouldn’t have to have these visions or whatever they are,” James said quietly.

“We will,” Sirius agreed. “Are you heading out to fly off the anxiety then?”

James nodded.

“I’ll have some tea and breakfast ready for the pair of you when you come back, you’ll need your fuel for the World Cup later.”

James smiled his thanks, not knowing just how true Sirius’s words would become.

Chapter 29

"Are you sure you have everything you need, Harry? Wand, pyjamas, toothbrush? Muggle and wizarding clothes?” James asked, shrinking Harry’s rucksack so that it fit in his, and slung it across his shoulders.

“Yes, Dad,” Harry replied, rocking forward and backwards on his heels. “Can we get going? We’re going to be late!”

"If he’s forgotten anything, it’s only a night anyway,” Sirius said, a fond, exasperated looking on his face.

“Sorry for trying to be responsible, I won’t do it again,” James joked, watching Harry look at the floo impatiently.

“See that you don’t,” Sirius said softly, walking forward, and kissing him briefly. It only lasted a few moments, but his touch still made his heart-beat too fast, his whole body warm and alive with affection.

James pulled away first, very conscious that Harry was just steps away from them. “I’ll see you soon, yeah?”

“You better,” Sirius replied.

“Are you sure you don’t want to come? I’m sure I can talk your way into the box with us,” James offered again.

“I’m sure, Jamie,” Sirius said. “Now, better floo off to the Weasleys before Harry leaves without you! Have fun!”

James nodded, not wanting to tempt fate by actually saying goodbye. It was just Quidditch, he told himself again, and lit the fire in his family’s hearth, and handed Harry their freshly purchased jar of floo powder.

“The Burrow!” Harry shouted, spinning in the green flames first, before James did the same, arriving a second after him.

They were greeted by all the Weasleys. First by Molly who handed them more pastries and packed lunches, and James was eagerly met by the rest of the Weasleys, including twins who reminded him quite a bit of Fabian and Gideon, and the youngest Weasley, a young girl who looked at Harry like he hung the moon.

But they didn’t hang around The Burrow long, they had a portkey to get to. James half-wished he had just taken Harry and apparated them to the World Cup themselves, but he knew his son wanted to be with his friends, but all this magical travel was mildly exhausting.

So instead, he just followed Harry, and nearly the whole pack of Weasleys up the hill, his hand staying close to his wand. He felt exposed out in the open like this, he knew Voldemort wasn’t going to jump out behind a big old Willow tree, but tactically, an open field was the worst place to be if one was at risk of being attacked.

Ever since Harry’s nightmare, he’d been prepared for more danger. He knew from Auror training that staying this alert for this long would bring him one hell of an adrenaline crash later, but in his mind, the world was still at war.

“Everything alright, Mr. Potter?” Hermione asked, a concerned expression on her face.

“Of course,” James replied, sending back a cocksure grin that he had on good authority was charming.

Hermione flushed a little, but just nodded, an intelligent look in her brown eyes, while Harry just gazed back at him, his green eyes wide in a silent question.

James winked at him in reply. The last thing his kid needed to worry about was him.

They made it up the hill, where the Portkey was set to take them to the campsite, where they were to bunk with The Weasleys for the night after the tournament.

“That’s how you sent for me,” Harry said, gesturing to the portkey. “Are they always shoes?”

“No, they can be anything,” James replied softly, looking at Arthur Weasley. “Though…the way I sent for you may have not been legal, in the strictest sense of the word.”

One of the twins caught onto the conversation, and snickered. “Don’t worry Mr. Potter, I’m pretty sure the charms on our Dad’s old car weren’t strictly legal either, Dad’s not a snitch.”

James laughed. “Thanks, err, Fred?”

“It’s George, actually” he replied, a serious look on his face that made James think he was taking the piss.

“No it isn’t,” Harry snorted.

“Nope,” Fred replied. “You’re very good at telling us apart, I’m impressed.”

“I pay attention to things when I want to,” Harry replied, the mischief on his face making him look younger than his fourteen years. James ruffled his hair, and Harry let him for a moment before pulling away, acting his age.

“What was that for?” Harry asked.

“I felt like it,” James explained, and put his hand to his wand again when he saw two more people walking up the hill.

“Easy,” Arthur said kindly. “That’ll just be the Diggorys.”

James exhaled, and watched as an older man and a handsome, brown-haired boy a few years older than Harry approached them.

“Amos,” Arthur said amiably, shaking his hand. “And that’ll be Cedric?”

“Hello sir,” Cedric replied, shaking Arthur’s hand before turning to stare at him strangely.

“Ah yes, this’ll be James Potter, and I assume you know Harry?” Arthur said, making the introductions, James shook their hands and smiled.

“Nice to meet you,” Amos Diggory said. “I haven’t met Harry of course, but my boy here played against him last year---he’s Hufflepuff’s seeker, a great talent on the broom and in the classroom—and he flattened him! Grabbed the snitch right under his nose!”

James looked over toward Harry, who had crossed his arms across his chest. “It’s alright kid, you can’t win every game, I suppose, and you still have four more years at Hogwarts,” he told his son.

“That’s not exactly fair Dad,” Cedric said, looking between Harry and his father. “Harry would have got the snitch before me if not for the dementors!”

“Dementors are nasty creatures,” James said, shuddering, thinking of all the years Sirius spent at Azkaban. “It’s an outrage that they were at Hogwarts at all!”

“Still, your son fell off his broom, while Cedric got the snitch,” Amos pointed out, a smug smile on his face that James wanted to punch off.

“How old are you, Cedric?” James asked, rocking back and forth on his heels.

“I’ll be 18 at the end of September,” Cedric replied.

“Okay,” James responded. “So you would have been a full-grown adult, facing a 13-year-old on the Quidditch pitch, who hears his Mother being murdered when dementors are near him. Sounds like a nice, fair match, one that would make Helga Hufflepuff proud.”

Cedric coloured. “It wasn’t fair, sir. I offered to re-do the match, but they wouldn’t let us. I ended up rooting for Gryffindor in the cup later in the year actually , your son is a great flier,” he said, to his credit.

“Thanks, don’t worry about it Cedric,” Harry said, stepping between them as a nasty expression grew on Amos’s face, though the elder Diggory was shamed out of replying.

“Maybe we can have a re-match this year?” Cedric offered.

“I’d like that,” Harry said shyly, smiling at the older boy, and James watched the way his son’s eyes lit up.

He’s too old for you, you’re just a baby, James thought, but filed those thoughts away, and just grimaced as they waited for the portkey to activate.

It took all of them to a field, full of excitement and magic, and James let himself breathe a sigh of relief for a second, trying to have fun.

Once they had settled, Harry grabbed his arm, a righteous expression on his face that reminded him so much of Lily.

“You don’t have to stand up for me, you know, I can take care of myself,” Harry whispered to him.

“Amos Diggory was being a bit of a dick, wasn’t he? I’ve never been good at letting things slide,” James whispered back.

“He was a little,” Harry agreed.

“Cedric seems alright though?” he asked, raising his eyebrows.

“I don’t know him very well,” Harry muttered.

“Okay,” James said agreeably, picking up the pace following the Weasleys as he felt the people around him staring at him. Wizards and witches were everywhere, in all sorts of magical and muggle dress, and they were staring at them like they were the reincarnation of Merlin himself.

“It’s always like this,” Harry said, answering his unspoken question.

“We are just extremely good looking, that's why they're staring,” James joked, waving to a wizard that might have been Dedalus Diggle.

Harry snorted. “Hey, I think I know that man.”

“How?”

“He bowed to me in a shop once,” Harry said, clearly embarrassed.

James’s eyes narrowed. “That’s…interesting. Things like that happen to you often?”

“Not really,” Harry said, shrugging.

“Is that true?” he asked Ron and Hermione, who were clearly trying not to eavesdrop on their conversation.

“Professor Lockhart made him getting his school books into a photo opportunity before our second year,” Hermione offered.

“He truly was an epic git,” Ron muttered.

“What did he teach?” James asked.

“Defense Against the Dark Arts, the year before Professor Lupin,” Harry explained.

“Right,” James said, watching the way Ron, Hermione and Harry looked at each other, as if they had so many secrets to share, but couldn’t decide how much they trusted him. “If you say he’s an epic git, then I believe you, Ron.”

“Thanks,” he replied, and then looked over at Arthur and Bill, who were setting up the wizarding tent.

“Need any help, lads?” James offered, walking over toward them.

“We’re fine,” Arthur said, finishing the setup with an easy flick of his wand. “You can come on in, and drop off your things!”

James nodded, and followed Ron, Hermione and Harry into the tent, watching the way Hermione and Harry’s faces lit up at how much bigger it was on the inside than outside.

“Magic is amazing,” Harry said, dropping his rucksack in the corner.

“It is, yeah,” he replied.

“I went camping once,” Hermione said quietly. “It wasn’t like this.”

“What, surrounded by thousands of witches and wizards from all over the world, some of whom who clearly haven’t seen a muggle since 1928 and dress like it?” James joked.

Hermione laughed, and James left the kids to go stand outside the tent. He cast a few basic security and anti-fire charms over it, and an alert ward to sense danger. He didn’t know how he’d be able to sleep anyway, away from Sirius and surrounded by ginger teenagers, but this would at least help a little.

“Sorry, was that Gurthartz’s alert ward?” Bill Weasley asked, watching him keenly.

James nodded. “Are you into warding?”

“I’m a cursebreaker,” Bill explained. “I’m working for Gringotts at the moment.”

“Ah, that’s amazing,” James said. “I was an auror, but thought about that for a career at one point. I’m sure you’re better at warding than me then, why don’t you add some more security charms to the tent.”

Bill turned over his wand, and shook his head. “We can’t make the tent invisible or perform a Fidelius charm on it. Blood wards could get us arrested without ministry consent. A spell to detect ill-intent would be too vague in an area this crowded, perhaps someone nearby has a problem with the twins or the fact that we’re blood traitors or hates gingers or Harry. You've made it about as safe as it can be under the circumstances. Are you expecting danger, Mr. Potter?”

“Please call me James, I’m not much older than you, really,” he said. “And am I expecting danger? No. But you have to understand that before I…woke up, the world was at war and when I came back to myself, I had just lost my wife. And from I’ve heard, danger seems to follow around my son like a shadow.”

Bill put his hand on his shoulder. “One of my first memories is my Mum learning that her brothers died in the war, I remember how tense everyone was. I can’t imagine how you must be feeling. We'll all keep an eye out for my younger siblings and for Hermione and Harry, of course.”

James accepted the comfort. “Thanks, Bill. I’m sorry if I’m being paranoid. I’m sure we’ll have a wonderful time at the match. Who are you rooting for, then?”

“Ireland, though I’m excited to see Krum fly,” Bill said, accepting the change of subject with an easy grace. “Maybe we all get going toward our seats in a few?”

James nodded, trying to swallow down his years of fear, but he knew deep down that an area this open couldn’t be safe. Not if Voldemort wasn’t as dead as people seemed to think.

Notes:

I'm sorry that it's been so long. Hope you're still enjoying this story. Thanks to everyone who has been following this.
Lots of love,
J

Chapter 30

The seats to watch the match were incredible, minus the company.

“James Potter!” Ludo Bagman all but purred, kissing his cheek as if they were friends.

“Ludo,” he replied, trying not to grimace as the man blatantly eyed him up. “Have you met my son Harry?”

Harry shook his head, and introduced himself.

“I played for England! Beater, of course,” Ludo said. “They always said your old man could too, but he’s not so old looking, is he?”

“On account of losing years of his life to Voldemort, yes,” Harry snapped back, and James’s put a proud hand on his son’s shoulder.

“It’s a sensitive subject,” he said, taking his seats as Arthur Weasley chatted to the Minister, but a familiar head of blond hair caught his attention.

“Potter,” Lucius Malfoy’s drawling voice said.

“It’s a been a while, hasn’t it?” James said, showing deliberate disrespect by not rising from his chair.

“Indeed,” Malfoy replied, his voice as cold as he remembered from the last time they had fought against each other.

James closed his eyes for a second, the memory flashing brightly in his mind as if it were yesterday.

“Gideon and Fab are dead,” Sirius shouted, grabbing his arm and making him run faster away from the no-longer safe house.

“Fenwick too?” he asked, running as fast as he could toward the edge of the property lines, where the anti-apparition wards looked to fade and a small gravel road started.

“I didn’t see him,” Sirius said, so he could have made it out alive but he wasn’t hopeful.

James kept running before a knockback jinx took the wind out of his sails.

“Not so fast, little blood traitors,” Lucius Malfoy said, scowling at them. He looked like he came from a formal dinner and didn’t bother with his Death Eater robes.

“Is this the bit where you tell us to join and we tell you to fuck off? Because I’m well bored of this,” Sirius said, pantomiming a yawn.

Malfoy fired off a stunner at him, before Sirius easily blocked it.

“Let’s get out of here before Malfoy’s little friends show up,” James whispered.

Sirius nodded, and Malfoy his wand at Sirius, all but ignoring him. Sirius cast a Protego and he did the same, but in the space of a second, Malfoy apparated away, he must have been keyed into the wards.

“Coward,” James said, and they started running again toward safety. Just as they had nearly reached it, James heard the familiar crack of apparition and the magic of a spell rushing toward him.

He put up his wand to form a shield, but it was too late. A bone breaker hex grazed his ankles. He screamed as the delicate bones broke apart, with a sickening crunch. He collapsed to the ground and the spell repeated and he felt his shins snap. The pain was unbearable, he couldn't think, his lower body burned with pain.

“I’ll be right there, Prongs,” Sirius shouted, and James had faith, but everything, everything hurt. And he knew that if the curse repeated and got too close to his heart or brain, the broken bones would kill him. He tried to steady his magic and clutched at his wand, desperately crawling toward the road.

Sirius fired a vicious folly of curses at Lucius, matching him in strength, until one of his blood-red stunners finally took him out.

Sirius was immediately by his side, and crouched by the ground. “What’d that bastard hit you with?”

“Bone-breaker with a repeating hex,” James cried out as the magic rose up again, snapping the cartilage in his knees.

“Right,” Sirius said, and wand-out, starting chanting, draining the repeating hex of its power, grabbing the curse by its threads and ending it. When he was done, he grabbed him under his arms and lifted him up over his shoulders. “What is Lily feeding you, Prongs?”

James laughed, despite the immense amount of pain he was in. “Get me out of here, Padfoot.”

“I will, I have you,” Sirius said softly. And he did.

James shook himself out of the memory and forced a polite smile on his face.

“I believe our children know each other? Say hello, Draco,” Lucius saw, tapping his recalcitrant son with his cane.

Draco Malfoy turned around, and barely inclined his pointy little chin at them.

“Hello, Draco. I believe you play Quidditch against Harry?” James asked.

“I’m on the Slytherin team, yes,” Draco muttered, and Harry smiled, no doubt thinking of the times he had bested him.

“Of course,” James said pleasantly enough. “And you’ll be connected to Harry in another way too—his godfather is your Mother’s cousin. Sirius is doing very well, thank you for asking Narcissa.”

Narcissa Black Malfoy turned around, not getting one ice-blonde hair out of place. “Sirius Black has not been family to us in a very long time.”

“Nice to know you have no interest in any of the Black properties or vaults then, and all those galleons just won’t spend themselves,” James said, keeping his tone even. “Enjoy the match, Malfoys!”

They turned back, ignoring him, and Harry stared at him.

“What?” James defended. “They’re awful.”

Harry laughed. “I agree. Draco’s never liked me.”

His son launched into a story about a dragon, lost points and a midnight duel, and James laughed in all the right places.

But just when he was starting to feel comfortable, he turned around, noticing Barty Crouch and a very sad looking house elf directly behind Harry.

He ignored them, his hands clutching into fists. Malfoy had only nearly killed him. What Crouch did was worse.

Crouch had locked up Sirius in Azkaban without trial. He was one of the reasons his son grew up without a godfather, or a loving home.

But as much as James wanted to hex the life out of him, here in public, surrounded by Weasleys, Malfoys and the Minister wasn’t the place to do it.

He sighed.

“What’s wrong?” Harry asked.

“You’re the best kid, you know that, yeah?” James asked, ruffling his hair instead of an answer.

Harry rolled his eyes. “You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to.”

“I’d rather not get into it here,” James said quietly. “Because it’s quite upsetting and I’ve been looking forward to taking you to a quidditch match since you got on your first broom which was a long time ago I know. But it’s still really special to me.”

“Okay Dad,” Harry said, looking at him with a skeptical expression that was all Evans, and then the teams started their introductions and James focused in on the match,

But he was just as invested in watching his son than watching the game, as crazy-talented Ireland’s Chasers and Viktor Krum were.

He put on a good front, cheering when Ireland scored, but it wouldn’t do to let himself be this calm. He was in a crowd with dangerous people to his front and back.

He was almost relieved when Krum caught the snitch and the game ended. James took his wand out, the familiar mahogany’s weight a calming presence in his hand.

Harry nodded, understanding, and his hands went to his own pocket, before his face drained of colour.

“What is it, son?” James asked.

“My wand’s gone,” Harry said, hands reaching into his pockets and finding nothing.

“Did you have it with you this morning?” he asked.

“Yes!” Harry shouted, making the Weasleys look on.

“Okay,” James said, and thought of his son’s holly wand. “Accio Harry Potter’s wand!”

He felt the familiar tug of his magic, searching for it, and turned around when the spell connected. He and Harry watched as the wand floated out of the hands of Barty Crouch’s house-elf into his own waiting fingers.

James handed his son his wand back before strolling up to Crouch, who looked equally horrified.

“Any reason I shouldn’t have you prosecuted for theft? Using a house elf to steal my underage son’s wand!” he shouted.

Cornelius Fudge looked on. “It does look very bad, Barty.”

“I didn’t ask her to!” he defended. “What do I want with the Boy-Who-Lived’s wand?”

The elf began wailing, huge, desperate sobs. “Winky didn’t mean to!” She turned to Harry, next. “Winky is so sorry!”

Harry nodded. “Er, no hard feelings Winky,” he said kindly.

“She’s no elf of mine, how dare you steal a wand from a wizard!” he shouted, before tossing his cloak at the small creature.

Winky’s sobs increased harder, and James found it hard to watch. His put a hand on his son’s shoulder.

“Leave! This scene demeans our family, you're not worth being part of our family,” Crouch shouted, and the poor elf apparated away.

“Freeing her or not, there should still be an inquiry about this, Barty,” Cornelius said, and he nodded, resigned.

One of the Weasleys—Peter or Pacey or something—had turned flame-red during the encounter, and looked as if he wanted to dye of embarrassment. He worked for Crouch, and James made a mental note to talk to him later, but not now. Not here.

“What is it with you and mad house-elves, mate?” Ron whispered to Harry and Harry tugged at his sleeves, embarrassed.

“They’re not mad, they just clearly have awful owners!” Hermione shot back and Harry looked like he wanted to disappear.

James tuned them out for a moment and breathed in deeply, trying to shake away the persistent fear he felt all day. He wanted off the platform, it was still much too crowded with untrustworthy wizards, and he inclined his head toward the exit, prodding Harry and his friends to start walking toward the stairs toward their tent.

“I can’t believe you let an elf take your wand, Potter!” Draco Malfoy shouted, but it was in extremely poor taste, and the boy shut up after an elbow to the ribs from his Father.

“Right, that’s absolutely it, I’ve had enough” James said to Harry as they walked back to the tent faster. He ignored the celebrations from the Ireland fans around them, and kept his hand on Harry’s shoulder, needing to feel the solid, real weight of his son anchoring him to the Earth. It was too loud around them, the popping of bottles of alcohol ringing loud and joyless in his ears.

“It’s okay, strange things just happen around me,” Harry tried to explain, but James shook his head.

“You are going to say goodbye to your friends and the Weasleys, and we are going home,” he explained, in the best-no nonsense, Head Boy voice he had.

Harry stopped and stared at him. “Is this a punishment? For losing my wand?”

“No, it’s me trusting my bloody instincts and getting out of this cauldron of chaos,” he snapped, rummaging around the tent for his and Harry’s things. “It’s not safe here.”

“Now, James, are you sure you don’t want to stay?” Arthur Weasley protested. “The ministry has taken every precaution here to make sure things run smoothly. A rogue house-elf shouldn’t be enough to ruin your entire trip!”

“It’s not ruined at all,” James said. “I had a lovely time, Krum’s a brilliant flyer and the seats were wonderful, as was your company. But I’d like to take my son home now.”

“Do we have to?” Harry asked. “I want to stay.”

“And I want to enjoy a match with my brilliant son without Death Eaters or Ministry hacks who threw Sirius in prison without a trial, but we can’t always get what we want,” James said, his heart beating too-fast. The stag inside him was equipped to fight—to gore with its antlers to protect his family—or flee and right now, he just wanted to run.

“Okay,” Harry said, with a grimace before saying goodbye to the Weasleys and Hermione.

“I’m sorry Arthur, and thanks for your hospitality,” James said, shaking his hand before grabbing Harry and apparating them home in a furious burst of magic.

They appeared in the main living room, Sirius and Remus were playing a game of chess and they stood up, wands out at their arrival.

“Everything fine, Potters?” Remus asked, looking between the pair of them, while Sirius looked at them curiously like he was checking for any injuries or curses.

Harry shook his head. “I’m an idiot who lets a house elf steal his wand and ruin a good evening.”

“You’re not an idiot!” James protested.

“A house elf?” Sirius muttered, putting his wand back in his pocket. “Whose?”

“Barty Crouch,” James said slowly, and watched Sirius’s warm gray eyes turn cold at the name.

“Can I go to my room?” Harry asked, his head straight, but jaw tensed, as if he was expecting a blow.

“Of course you can, it’s late,” James said, and listening to his instincts again, he crossed the room, and gave Harry a tight hug.

“Good night Dad,” Harry said quietly, despite his embarrassment and anger and James sighed as he watched him walk up the stairs.

“Why the hell was Barty Crouch’s house elf stealing from Harry?” Sirius asked.

James sighed again. “I have no idea.”

“Why would he bring a house elf to a Quidditch match anyway?” Remus asked, and he shrugged.

“He’s a weird bloke,” James replied. “Speaking of, Malfoy was in the box with them.”

“Old Lucy, and my cousin as well?” Sirius asked, taking James’s hand and walking him over to the sofa.

James let himself relax, resting his head on Sirius’s chest. “Both, yeah, and their son that’s Harry’s age.”

“I can’t imagine Harry was happy to see him,” Remus commented.

“Not particularly, but at least I waited until we were in the tent in front of his friends to take him home, so Malfoy can’t make fun of him over that. Am I being over-protective? Over-reacting, maybe?” he asked.

Sirius started petting his hair and he relaxed even more, safe in the arms of his love. “I wish my Dad would have wanted to protect me from anything. I understand wanting to sleep here instead of a tent after seeing Malfoy and Crouch.”

Remus hummed his agreement. “And if Harry’s angry with you, he’ll get over it.”

“Thanks,” he said. “I might pursue action against Crouch, though. Mostly because of what he did to you.”

Sirius laughed, but it wasn’t a kind sound. “It won’t bring me those years back, Prongs.”

“I know, but fuck him for throwing you in Azkaban without a trial,” James shouted, his blood boiling again with righteous anger.

“Fuck him,” Sirius agreed.

Chapter 31

Notes:

This story isn't abandoned, I am planning on wrapping up the summer before fourth year soon!

The next morning started well enough. His little family, Sirius, Harry, and Remus were all together at the kitchen table, eating a full English breakfast.

The sun was bright in the sky, and it was warm without being muggy or humid. Ideal summer flying conditions; James daydreamed about taking Harry out on his broom and making his green eyes sparkle with joy again. His son looked much too serious, and he was clearly still upset at being taken home from the World Cup after Crouch’s house elf stole his wand. But it was fine. James would take a son that was a little cross with him over a hurt one—or worse.

He was broken out of his dark thoughts by a post owl dropping the Daily Prophet down in the middle of the table. The headline photo was of Muggles being tortured, the text spoke about chaos caused by men in Death Eater garb. James swallowed past the lump of fear in his throat, and looked over to Sirius and Remus, who both looked furious. But neither looked as shocked as Harry.

A moment later, a sickly barn owl dropped another letter down at the table.

“That’s Errol, from the Weasleys,” Harry said, his face going white with fear.

“Read it to us please son,” James said, keeping his voice calm. Harry’s fingers were steady, and he swooped the letter up like it was a snitch, holding it close to his face as he started to read.

“Dear Harry and James, I hope this gets to you before the Prophet does,”—Sirus snorted—and Harry shot him a look before carrying on.

“We are all fine, but our tent caught some fire damage from the criminals who decided to use the World Cup as an event to bait and terrorize some poor unsuspecting muggles. Hermione, Ron and Ginny are a little shaken up, as are we, it feels too much like before, especially for poor Molly, she’s reminded so much of what happened to her brothers. But, let me repeat, we are all fine, and hopefully the Aurors can catch who did this, though I’m sure it’s some of the old gang who paid off the ministry to walk away last time. Best wishes, Arthur Weasley.”

“I’m glad your friends are okay,” James said after a moment, pushing back the fear that the war was starting all over again.

Harry’s green eyes looked wild. “What happened to Mrs. Weasley’s brothers?”

Remus answered. “Gideon and Fabian Prewett were brilliant wizards, a bit like the Weasley twins in that they liked a laugh. They got murdered in their beds by death eaters.”

Harry nodded, and turned to look at James. “We could have helped—at the World Cup. If we stayed!”

“Maybe,” James allowed. “Or maybe, us being who are, we would have painted an even bigger target on our backs and would have got hurt instead.”

“What kind of Gryffindors are we if we run away?” Harry asked.

“Smart ones,” Sirius cut in, and then raised his eyebrows to the shocked look on both Harry and James’s faces. “My biggest regret in life is telling your parents to switch secret keepers, the second biggest is that I ran after Peter trying to get revenge instead of just taking care of you and coming up with a plan for that rat later.”

“Oh,” Harry said, the wind coming out of his sails. “It’s not your fault, Sirius,” his kind, brave boy said after a moment.

“It is, a little, but I appreciate that,” Sirius replied.

“You’ve paid enough for your sins, Padfoot,” Remus said quietly, and James nodded. Merlin knew he had. James looked back to his son.

“Harry, my number one priority is you and keeping you safe. Sometimes, that’ll mean us fighting our way out of tough spots and sometimes it means spotting danger and deciding to walk in the other direction.”

“But my friends were in danger!” Harry shouted in response, like he wasn’t use to the idea of his life having value.

“So were you Haz, and I want to protect you, now that I can again,” James said, reaching over to ruffle Harry’s hair, but his son shied away, still not totally used to his casual displays of love.

Harry caught Sirius’s eyes and he nodded.

“I think your Dad’s right,” Sirius said.

“You would think that,” Harry muttered, not quite placated.

“Because I love him? Sure, but I’m his best mate first, and I’ll happily tell him when he’s wrong. He’s not now. Let him be your Dad, Harry,” Sirius said, his voice so strong, and James felt so grateful to him.

Harry’s eyes narrowed, and he opened his mouth, but James cut him off.

“Would it make you feel better to see your friends?” James said quickly. “I can floo the Weasleys, see if Ron and Hermione can pop over for lunch or tea this afternoon?”

“I’d like that, thanks,” Harry said shyly, smiling at his father again, before finally returning to his breakfast, which James charmed hot for him again.

Later that afternoon, as James watched Harry’s friends tumble out of the floo and hug him and head up to Harry’s room, whispering secrets, James couldn’t help the sense of foreboding that came over him. Something about them seemed unlike schoolchildren, but like little soldiers instead. And his son had just turned 14. 14!!

“Brooding won’t make it better,” Sirius said, poking him in the side. “You’re handling this well, this whole parenting lark.”

“I’m not brooding about my parenting, I think even if I wasn’t trying my best, Harry would be so happy for any little scraps of affection that he’d love me anyway,” James said. “It’s just the three of them, those kids with their secrets and the way they’re acting like they alone have to solve the world’s problems. It scares me.”

“Hermione and Harry did save my soul, you know,” Sirius said. “And what Harry told us about the basilisk in his second year, it does sound like they’ve had to be growns up much too soon or people would die. The world has been on his shoulders in a way. He’s not just being a dramatic teenager.”

“He’s not bloody Atlas,” James replied, leaning into Sirius’s outstretched arms. “He’s my boy.”

“He’s the boy-who-lived too,” Sirius said, pitching his voice quiet. “I think it’s brilliant that you’re here to protect him, and I am too, but I think you’re a dreamer if you think he won’t stop being a target to Voldemort and his disgusting little lackeys just because you’re here now to drag him away from spellfire and tricky situations.”

“Ugh,” James replied. “Boy-who-lived. He’s Harry. I just want him to be Harry.”

“I know,” Sirius said, and kissed him gently. “And Harry loves you for that. Now, do you want to go bring some tea and biscuits up to Harry’s room and spy on his conversation with his friends or do you want to go flying? Ideal conditions for it.”

“Flying,” James said. “They don’t need me lurking around like some sort of eavesdropping snake. Let’s go.”

Series this work belongs to:

• Part 1 of Black Bargain Verse