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Harry had never been in the old master bedroom in Grimmauld Place. His mother’s old bedroom, Sirius had called it, and while Harry liked Buckbeak well enough, anything that belonged to Sirius’s mother, he preferred to avoid.
But Sirius had been spending more and more time here over the last few days, until Harry hadn’t even seen him today and now it was nearly dinnertime. And Harry had been daydreaming about Hogwarts more and more, now that he knew he’d be returning, but that just made him all the more aware of how bad it would be to be stuck in this place all the time. The way Sirius was.
He lifted his hand and then hesitated. Sirius had been pretty moody the few times Harry had seen him lately. Not like he was upset with Harry in particular, but he certainly didn’t seem eager to spend time with anyone either. Maybe he just wanted to be alone.
I just think he’s been very lonely for a long time. Hermione’s voice echoed in his head, and so Harry made himself stop waffling and knock on the door.
There was a shuffle at the edge of his hearing and then Sirius opened the door, quicker than Harry had been expecting.
“Harry?” Sirius blinked down at him, glancing him over once as though checking that he was all in one piece. “Need something?”
“Oh, er...not really,” Harry said, surprised into honesty. He didn’t need anything, really. It was more that Sirius needed something, he was sure, even if it wasn’t anything Harry could give him—freedom, for one. No good way to say that, though, or even just to say that he wanted some time with his godfather before he left, because talking about leaving wouldn’t help either. “I just, uh…came to see if you wanted company.”
So maybe he was floundering a little. But Sirius actually softened a little, a small smile touching the edges of his mouth.
“Don’t know that I’m the best company, at the moment,” he said lowly, but even as he said it he stepped back and tilted his head, leaving Harry space to walk into the room, “but you’re welcome whenever you like.”
Harry stepped past him into the room and glanced around as Sirius closed the door behind him. It wasn’t anything surprising, really—as old and gloomy as the rest of the house, though it was large enough to put the sitting room to shame. Enlarged, it had to be, Harry thought, like the Weasleys’ tent. Someone had charmed the topmost quilt on the bed a bright, crimson red, too. Harry probably didn’t need to guess the guilty party there.
He heard a clacking noise and glanced to the left—Buckbeak was laying by the far wall, beak buried in his feathers and paying Harry no mind.
“Not the best place for him, I know that,” Sirius said, one hand resting for a moment on the back of Harry’s shoulder as he walked past towards the bed, “but confined is better than beheaded, or so I’ve been told.”
There was a book open on the nightstand, along with a bottle of something Harry didn’t recognize and a short, half-full tumbler. Sirius flicked the book closed as he watched before dropping back to the bed, folding one knee up under him as he braced his back to the pillows at the headboard and looked at Harry.
“Ready to be back at school?” he asked, and Harry hadn’t really thought he’d want to bring it up. Maybe he was floundering a little too.
“Well, they still haven’t set the booklist yet,” he replied, trying not to sound too happy about leaving, even though he was, “so I suppose no one’s ready until that’s done.”
He felt awkward just standing there by the door and so he walked over to join Sirius at the bed, sitting down closer to the foot of it when Sirius didn’t say anything about it. He thought he could smell whatever Sirius had been drinking from here, heavy and sweet like fruit.
“Are you going to be alright?” he blurted out. He hadn’t really meant to ask it, but Sirius had started it and his concern was bubbling up again at the thought of Sirius functionally alone in this house, this room, for months. “When I go to Hogwarts, I mean.”
“Course I will,” Sirius said, brow furrowed like he didn’t know what Harry was talking about. But he also looked away, frowning over at the bottle on the nightstand instead of meeting Harry’s eyes. “What’re you worried about me for?”
“You’re not happy here,” Harry said, because that was really reason enough. It felt a little blunt like that, though. “I mean, I know you have Order stuff to deal with, but can’t you just...put on a disguise and get out for a bit? I know Padfoot’s recognizable, but there’s got to be other ways. If you needed my dad’s old cloak for a bit, even—”
Sirius was already shaking his head, a bitter twist at the corner of his mouth.
“Dumbledore says it’s not worth the risk,” he muttered, and something flared sharp and annoyed in Harry’s chest. Sirius didn’t seem to notice his change in mood as he took the tumbler from the nightstand and drank from it. The level was noticeably lower when he put it back down, but he met Harry’s eyes and held them this time. “And you need that cloak more than I do. Good card to have up your sleeve.”
“But couldn’t you just—” Harry started, a little more heated, but Sirius stretched his leg out and poked him in the hip with his foot.
“I’ll be fine,” he said, firmly enough that Harry might have believed him even a few days before. “Not your job to worry about me, alright? And I’m sure you’ll have plenty else on your plate.”
Not when no one will tell me anything important, Harry thought uncharitably, but Sirius had told him the most out of anyone here, and he wasn’t looking to start an argument.
“I remember fifth year,” Sirius continued, a small curl at the corner of his mouth. “OWLs’ll be more than enough to keep you busy, promise.”
“Ugh, don’t remind me,” Harry groaned, dragging his feet up to sit cross-legged on the bed as Sirius seemed to relax more and more. “Hermione’s been going on about it for ages.”
Sirius huffed a laugh, like he’d expected that reaction, and lounged back a little more into the pillows behind him. “Well, it won’t be your every waking minute; you’ll have time for a few distractions. A pretty girl you’d like to ask to Hogsmede, maybe?”
Harry’s thoughts flashed to Cho—and then, of course, to Cedric, and that made things a little more complicated than he thought Sirius was aiming for.
“Er—” Harry grimaced, searching for a good answer and hoping his thoughts weren’t as obvious as they felt. Sirius smiled a little wider, crooked and mischievous.
“Pretty boy, then?” he asked, and Harry blinked, for a second confused and then a little surprised at the blunt, easy way he’d asked.
“Oh, I... no. I don’t—” Harry shifted on the bed at that thought, because who would he even—? Cedric’s face rose in his mind again, and he shoved it away. “No, there’s no one. There just hasn’t really been time.”
Something in Sirius’s expression seemed to flatten out, and Harry immediately regretted it, but it was too late to take back now.
“No, I suppose not, considering last year,” Sirius murmured, and Harry shrugged his shoulders, awkward and a little frustrated with himself. How did he keep ruining the mood?
“I wouldn’t know how to ask, anyway,” he winced, remembering the Yule Ball and offering that humiliation. “I’ve never been good at—”
He waved a hand, trying to encompass all of that, and Sirius raised an eyebrow.
“Really?” he asked, clearly doubtful, which Harry thought was probably meant to be supportive, but only made him more embarrassed. Had Sirius thought that he’d be better at it? Had his dad been good with that sort of thing? Sirius tilted his head, easing back towards teasing. “I’d have thought birds’d be lining up for a crack at you.”
“Definitely not,” Harry emphasized, because the only time they’d even come close had been those unsolicited offers to the ball, and those had just been weird. “No one’s been interested, and I’ve always had... other things going on.”
“Well, here’s your chance then, this year,” Sirius told him, straight-faced like he was delivering sage advice. “Let loose, enjoy yourself, find some nice hiding spots with a special friend and have a bit of a snog—”
“Sirius,” Harry complained, and finally Sirius broke, snorting a little.
“I’m not telling you to rob Gringotts,” he countered, laughter in his voice when Harry gave him an irritated look. “These are age-appropriate activities: a rite of passage, even.”
And no one’ll be interested if any of them have been reading the Prophet, Harry thought, but he managed to bundle that thought back down before he could dampen the mood yet again. At least Sirius was laughing.
“But what if I’m just a terrible kisser?” he asked, mostly to try and keep things light, but also a little—just a little—because he’d never actually, you know, kissed anyone. And considering how much Skeeter had focused on his love life last year—
“Well, no one starts out knowing how to do it perfectly,” Sirius reassured him, almost sympathetic, but Harry suspected he’d never had the entire school reading about him in magazines. “It’s sort of expected that you’ll cock it up a bit the first few times.”
“Yeah, but if I do it, it’ll be all over the Prophet the next morning,” Harry muttered, and maybe that was exaggerating a little—but not by much. Sirius frowned, but didn’t argue. Harry suspected he’d kept up enough with Skeeter’s articles last year to know better, and the Prophet hardly needed any encouragement to humiliate him this year. “Kind of puts a damper on things.”
“The Prophet is its own problem,” Sirius growled, and then shook his head, a little more like Padfoot than Harry thought he might have meant. The look he turned on Harry next was deeply considering. “We could always practice, if you’re that worried about getting it wrong.”
Harry realized a second later what he meant and his stomach swooped oddly in surprise, like he’d taken a shallow dive on his broom. Sirius didn’t look like he thought he’d suggested anything strange, though, just tilted his head and took another swig of his drink, waiting for Harry’s answer.
“What, with you?” Harry asked, bewildered, because that whole idea just felt odd. Sirius hummed, shrugging.
“I assume you’d have asked a friend already, if you were comfortable doing it,” he said like it should have been obvious, and Harry struggled with the thought of asking Ron or Hermione just... casually, the way Sirius seemed to be talking about.
“Is that what you did?” he asked, almost fascinated, and Sirius smiled, quiet and pleased.
“Moony and I might have helped each other out. Merlin knows we’d already seen each other in worse states, so a little fumbling wasn’t anything to blink at,” he explained, and Harry’s mind supplied images of him and Professor Lupin—
He turned his thoughts away immediately, feeling a little hot around the collar.
“No trouble if you’ve no interest,” Sirius said, his shrug oddly languid. His voice was a little deeper too, the usual crisp syllables of his words ever so slightly blurred, and Harry glanced once at the bottle, wondering. He seemed a very calm drunk, if that was the case, though. Nothing like Uncle Vernon. “Your dad only ever had eyes for the girls. And I can tell you no one was interested in practicing with Peter; he wasn’t any more appealing in his school years.”
Harry wrinkled his nose, thinking of Wormtail’s rat-like face, but Sirius was frowning over at Buckbeak now. Harry stilled at the look brewing on his face—something dark and distant, a hint of a snarl at the corner of his mouth. Thinking of Wormtail, maybe, Harry realized a moment later; he looked far more murderous than the conversation would have accounted for, otherwise.
“Dad got all his practice with other people, then?” he asked: not that he really wanted to know, but trying to drag Sirius back to happier memories and topics. But Sirius only glanced at him sidelong and hummed an agreement with a slight nod, jaw clenched and eyes wandering elsewhere, like he’d barely heard Harry’s words.
Harry wavered—he didn’t want to leave Sirius when he was so clearly unhappy, especially when Harry had caused it. He felt almost out of reach now though, mind somewhere else entirely, and Harry didn’t want to just keep talking at him either, filling the air with awkward, unwanted conversation.
He’d never been good at knowing what to say.
Except maybe... Well, there was something obvious he could try, but did Harry really want to—? It sent a weird feeling squirming through his belly, but it couldn’t be that bad, and if it worked...
“Alright,” Harry said, an odd quickening in his heartbeat even as he did. “Alright, we can practice. Show me.”
“Show—?” Sirius actually shook out of his gloom long enough to turn and blink at him, clearly surprised, and Harry’s stomach dipped at the sudden possibility that he hadn’t actually meant it at all. But then Sirius focused on him fully, something like interest brightening his eyes. “Oh, really? I hadn’t actually thought you’d want to, you know. You seemed like the shy sort.”
“Shy?” Harry demanded, almost offended, and then realized that Sirius really hadn’t meant it, and Harry had just made it weird—
Except Sirius had straightened up on the bed, stretching his back and throwing back the last of his drink. He put the glass back down on the nightstand and then, contrary to Harry’s expectations, picked up the bottle to refill the glass slightly.
This he picked up and tucked into Harry’s hands, shuffling a little gracelessly down the bed to do so, until their knees were nearly bumping. “Here. Liquid courage is a traditional part of these sorts of things, as I remember it.”
But I’m not— Harry quashed the protests of his inner voice that sounded remarkably like Hermione and sniffed at the glass in his hands. It smelled heady and warm despite the coolness in his palm, and he took a mouthful the way he’d seen Sirius do. It was almost too much—hot, like cider in the winter, and the fruit had a strong bitter undertone that Harry wasn’t sure he liked.
But Sirius was watching him, amused and almost approving, and so Harry swallowed it and it warmed him all the way down, settling into his belly in a slow burn. That was pleasant enough, and so Harry swallowed the rest of the glass and then handed it back, trying to ignore the butterflies in his stomach as Sirius stretched back to shove it next to the bottle.
Sirius turned back and then reached out, wrapping a hand around one of Harry’s wrists, pressing it back down to Harry’s knee when he twitched. “You sure? Looking a little jumpy there.”
And Harry wasn’t sure, but this was now the most attentive he’d seen Sirius in days. And it wasn’t anything serious, just...kissing. Practice kissing, even, not the real sort. Sirius wouldn’t have offered if he wasn’t okay with it, and it was probably for the best if Harry knew what he was doing before he tried it on anyone else, anyways.
“I’m fine,” he insisted. “Aren’t you going to—”
He broke off when Sirius let go of his wrist and gently grasped his jaw instead, fingers curling under and tilting his head up. He’d bent down a little too, so they were almost on a level, and Harry sucked in a breath, their close proximity suddenly leaping to the front of his mind, immediate and demanding.
“Ought to have you start it, the first time. That’s a stumbling block for a lot of people,” Sirius said, his voice a low, quiet hum, sending a puff of air across Harry’s chin. He looked amused and almost indulgent, like he could tell just how nervous Harry was. Harry narrowed his eyes and tried to loosen his shoulders, to match Sirius’s easy, unconcerned slouch. It felt like a friendly teasing, but when Sirius had already labeled him shy, it was hard not to feel a little nettled. “But if you’d rather—”
Harry didn’t let himself think about it too hard. Like diving on his broom: focus on the snitch, not the fall. He rocked up a little on the bed and pressed his lips to Sirius’.
It felt about as terribly awkward as he’d thought it would. He almost bumped their noses together and then ended up a little off center, a clumsy, dry brush more to the corner of Sirius’s mouth than anything. And now their faces were very close, and he didn’t know where to look. He felt abruptly self-conscious; he wasn’t quite sure what he was supposed to do from here, except that he was probably doing it wrong already, and why had he done this? Sirius was his godfather. This had probably been a bad idea—
But as he pulled back, blood starting to flush hot across his neck and ears, Sirius followed him, the fingers on his chin tipping his head back up and tilting it just slightly.
“Relax,” Sirius murmured, so close that his lips brushed across Harry’s as he spoke, and that tingled down Harry’s spine, an odd, bright zing. He closed that small space before Harry could respond, the way he held Harry’s head letting them fit together far more gracefully.
Soft, was Harry’s first impression, both the feel of Sirius’s lips and the very gentle pressure he was holding, though he now felt very aware of every other place they were touching, too. The hand on his face was warm and firm, keeping him in place, and they’d ended up with their legs tucked close together after all. Sirius’s mouth was relaxed, lips just slightly parted as he pressed just a little bit closer. Harry tried to copy him, loosening a little more into the kiss, and that made it almost wet as their mouths slotted together, just a little bit more slippery and warm.
Sirius’s hand slid past his jaw, fingers stroking through his hair before gripping the back of his head. He shifted back just far enough to fit their lips together a different way, closing his mouth gently around Harry’s lower lip and sucking, sending a low flutter through Harry’s belly, mixing well with the heat of the drink still burning low.
Don’t just sit here. Harry reached out a hand and then wavered as he tried to figure out where to touch. Sirius caught him by the wrist without pause, drawing Harry’s hand to the top of his shoulder, warm and solid under his robes.
It felt a bit like an invitation, and Harry let himself lean a little more into his godfather’s space, his other hand falling to Sirius’s knee before he could talk himself out of it. Sirius didn’t even seem to notice, and so Harry tried to copy what he was doing, sucking and releasing with uncertain movements. He wasn’t sure if he was doing it right, but Sirius only nudged him back once when he went a little too hard and their teeth clicked together, barely separating them before nudging back in, and so Harry figured he had it well enough.
He hadn’t really thought much about snogging before, but he could sort of see why people would want to do it now. It left him feeling warm all over, his lips heated and wet and a gentle sort of squirm in his belly. It was difficult to think about anything else at the moment, like they’d closed themselves off together in this small, quiet space and locked out the outside world.
He’d sort of fallen into it, the easy press and slide of their lips, far more focused on the warm hum of his blood than his thoughts, when Sirius’s hand tightened in his hair, holding him in place as his godfather drew back. He closed his teeth around Harry’s lip as he did, a slight, careful nip and scrape as he drew back, almost too much with how sensitive Harry’s mouth already felt.
“Breathe,” Sirius told him, voice low and a little gravelly, and Harry hadn’t stopped entirely, but he still pulled in a deeper breath as instructed, feeling almost lightheaded.
Sirius was watching him, their faces still far closer than Harry was used to, eyes hooded and warm. Harry tried not to squirm under the attention, but it felt very different than the sort he usually got. “Quick learner, aren’t you? But if you don’t like something, just tell me, all right?”
Harry blinked and nodded, because it had been a little weird starting out, sure, but it had all felt nice enough.
Sirius leaned in again before he could ask what else there was, kissing him a little more forcefully this time, hand fisting in Harry’s hair just hard enough that he felt it, a constant tug at the back of his head. He’d have thought that would have distracted him, but it only seemed to amplify everything, the twist in his belly growing stronger, sparks of something zipping down his spine.
He remembered his own hands then, frozen with his focus elsewhere, and tried to shift them a little. Sirius hummed when Harry slid a hand up his neck, arching a little when Harry’s fingers tangled in the hair at his nape, and so Harry kept it there, petting a little despite the motion making him think of Padfoot. He nearly slid his hand up Sirius’s thigh to get closer and then stopped himself just in time, realizing how that might seem.
He almost jumped when Sirius’s lips parted fully, tongue brushing out across his lip in a slow, careful drag; Harry shivered, not sure if he wanted to try it himself or pull away just to breathe, and then Sirius did again, a light flick and press at the crease of his lips, like a suggestion.
Harry realized what he wanted a second later and wavered just slightly—but he could stop if he didn’t like it, Sirius had said.
So he opened his mouth as Sirius retreated a little, reaching out uncertainly with his own tongue to lick in turn, feeling a little ridiculous as he tried to figure out the best way to do it. By the low noise Sirius made, though, he was doing all right, and then Sirius tilted his head a little more and they were kissing open-mouthed, Sirius’s tongue slipping in and tapping almost playfully against his own, the slick slide and the heated press of his mouth all Harry could feel for a moment.
He jumped when Sirius’s other hand landed on his leg—higher than Harry had dared to go, halfway up with his fingers curled down over the sensitive skin of his inner thigh, stroking just slightly. Harry gasped in a breath as that touch sparked through his gut and then lower.
He was starting to get hard, he realized with distant alarm, the tension gathering in his belly persistent now that he’d recognized it, and what if Sirius noticed—?
Sirius seemed preoccupied enough, though, tongue dipping more and more into Harry’s mouth, exploring him with light touches and then deep, pressing strokes that made Harry want to pant for breath, like the heat of their mouths was spilling out over his skin.
Then it turned coaxing, leading touches drawing Harry’s tongue to move, and Harry took the hint, licking tentatively into Sirius’s mouth, trying to copy what he’d felt, the short, teasing darts.
It was almost overwhelming—the twine of Sirius’s tongue with his, hot and slick and very near forceful, his hand tight in Harry’s hair to press him in close. His fingers were flexing there too, tightening and releasing with little sparks of not-quite-pain that tingled down Harry’s spine every time he did it. His other hand was starting to slide over Harry’s leg, a slight petting up and down, sliding more and more to his inner thigh, and Harry could barely keep track of it all.
He was just trying to breathe, to keep up where he could, burning hotter and hotter from the inside out, half-certain that he should ask Sirius to stop, because this was too much, and just as certain that he didn’t want to stop.
Sirius slid up out of his slouch, rising up on his knees without pulling his mouth away, the hand on Harry’s leg shifting to his shoulder. Harry tilted his head back to keep the kiss, letting Sirius take over and slide back inside, leaning back at the pressure to his shoulders, not sure where this was going, but willing to find out—
There was a crash somewhere outside, almost familiar, and then the very familiar tones of Sirius’s mother shrieking in the hall. Harry jerked back and Sirius flinched, both of them twisting to stare at the door.
Nothing to do with them, he realized a second later, but his heart was still beating a little too fast. It hadn’t felt like such a big deal when he’d suggested it, Harry realized, but the thought of someone walking in on them like that—especially Mrs. Weasley, or even Hermione—now sent a spike of pure dread through his gut. Practice or not, he had the very distinct feeling that they wouldn’t approve.
Sirius seemed to feel the same, dropping back down to sit on the bed. His lips were reddened, Harry saw, his hair a little mussed and his breathing a little harsher. He looked alive, though, eyes bright and glittering as he met Harry’s gaze and smiled like they were sharing a secret, and Harry bit back the sudden, strange urge to kiss him again just to see what he’d do.
“Must be Tonks,” Sirius said, clearing his throat and tugging his robes as though to straighten them. “Suppose it’s about time for dinner, then.”
“Yeah,” Harry agreed, his own voice rougher than he’d expected, and he swallowed before adding, “That was, uh—”
“You did well for a first time,” Sirius told him easily, apparently feeling none of Harry’s uncertainty. There was only a hint of teasing in his voice now, and Harry licked his lips, his heart finally starting to calm down.
“We weren’t done,” he pointed out tentatively, and Sirius paused, fixing him with a look that made him flush, intent with just enough heat that Harry thought they might start up again. He relaxed back out of it in the next second, though, sliding off the bed to stand and stretch, shaking out his long, wild hair.
“Probably best to stop for now. Shouldn’t make things too complicated right off the bat,” Sirius said, though he then turned back and added, almost lazily, “but you know where to find me, if you want to try it again later.”
Harry stomach swooped again at that—a very clear standing invitation, and somehow his first instinct was to think of the best time to make it happen.
And there was probably something wrong here, something he hadn’t managed to articulate, he knew that much, for all that Sirius seemed to find it all normal. But Sirius was animated and talking, and Harry had liked it well enough, more than well enough. Sirius wouldn’t use it against him, and if it made both of them happy—
He broke out of his thoughts as Sirius stepped closer, arm wrapping around Harry’s shoulders and tugging him off the bed before pulling him in close. And Harry wasn’t usually much one for hugs, but it felt nice, this closeness, he decided. Warm in his chest like a thick blanket.
He felt the soft press of Sirius’s lips to his cheekbone before his godfather drew back, staring down at him with an expression that made Harry’s breath catch in his chest, something deep and soft that Harry couldn’t quite name. He rose up on his tiptoes, managing to press a kiss to Sirius’s jaw as he stepped back, and Sirius huffed, smiling a little.
“Come on,” he said, planting a hand between Harry’s shoulderblades and ferrying him towards the door. “Best get to the table before Molly comes hunting for us.”
And that was sensible enough, because she would come looking, but Harry took that promised later and folded it into the back of his mind.
They still had a few more days, after all.