✨in celebration of another 100 followers, here's an edit I did a while back✨
Sirius writes a letter every few months to James, and usually just ends up burying it next to the old oak tree which is still sitting on the property holding the time capsule that is Potter Manor. He tells him about Harry, life, what things are like for him & Remus in the present.
Remus had been the one to push him to try such an idea, learn how to manage the feeling of loss that will never leave, and eventually Sirius looks forward to the letters; he isn't a spiritual man, but he always likes to think that when the dirt absorbs his words, it passes them on to the first man he ever loved.
(edit inspired by my 705k word fic series, which you can find here)
A giggle followed by shushing sounds had Sirius mentally preparing himself for whatever mess the troublesome duo had made this time. It was a shame that Remus was still out cold from yesterday’s full moon.
“Are you sure this is the right recipe?” Harry asked, no doubt with his hands on his hips—something he picked up from Remus. “It smells funny.”
“That’s the whole point, Harry,” Draco said with so much sass that it had Sirius snickering behind his hand the closer he got to the kitchen. “Poison is supposed to stink.”
Poison?
“What’s going on here?” Sirius demanded as he rounded the corner and came to a standstill at the sheer disaster that replaced what used to be a clean kitchen.
“Nothing,” they said in unison, innocent eyes blinking up at him. Yeah, that quit working on him years ago.
“That might have been believable if you didn’t have dirt on your chin, Draco. And Harry you have something slimy on an ear.”
Instead of cleaning off themselves, they cleaned each other. Sirius tried to remain strong and firm, but his heart melted when Harry gently wiped Draco’s chin.
When Draco grinned—a front tooth missing—and giggled as he wiped whatever the hell Harry managed to get on his ear, Sirius was pretty sure his heart exploded.
They were too cute.
“What is this I hear about poison?”
As expected, Harry rubbed his shoe into the floor, contrite and already apologetic. Also expected was the way Draco stomped his foot and crossed his arms.
“I’m not sorry!”
“I know you aren’t, Draco. You never are,” Sirius sighed, coming closer to the table. He blinked rapidly when he realized the ‘cauldron’ they used was actually the dog bowl.
“What’s in this?” Sirius wrinkled his nose at the smell. He probably should have asked better questions or scolded them properly like Remus would have, but where was the fun in that?
“Poop.”
“Milk.”
Sirius closed his eyes before placing his head in his hands. “I’m not even going to ask. What possessed you to want to create this monstrosity?”
When Harry opened his mouth, Draco turned to him angrily.
“No, don’t tell him! If you tell him then he won’t let us poison McMillan.”
McMillan? He couldn’t remember what their kid looked like, but as far as he knew McMillan was their classmate in Magical Care for the Youth.
“I’m not going to let you poison McMillan at all.”
Another foot stamp had him huffing a laugh as he debated on whether it would be rude to vanish their ‘potion’.
He knew better, he really did, but he still asked, “And what did McMillan do that deserves a good poisoning?”
“He made Harry cry!” Draco said, hand slamming on the table. “That’s not okay. No one gets to make him cry.”
That little snot nosed brat made Harry cry? How dare he.
“Carry on then.”
Harry and Draco barely began to cheer when a disappointed, “Sirius, really?”
Sirius turned around; hands raised as he tried to think of an excuse.
“Save it,” Remus waved a hand as he made his way to a chair and collapsed down. “I knew something was wrong when those two went quiet. It’s never a good sign.”
Two outraged, “Hey!”
“But Moony, he made Harry cry! My little baby cried!”
“I’m not a baby.”
“Sometimes parents say that,” Draco said solemnly. “My father says that every time I dress up for galas.”
“You are adorable in your dress robes,” Sirius agreed, cringing at the fact that he agreed with Lucius on anything.
“What about me?” Harry pouted. “Am I cute?”
Before they could respond, Draco nodded rapidly, hair falling into his face. “The cutest!”
Harry blushed, twirling a little at the praise. How come he never did that when Sirius praised him?
“Yes, you are both cute,” Remus said, eyes closed and head resting on the table. Sirius ran a hand down his back, rubbing out any knots that he could find. “But not cute enough to get away with poison.”
“Aww, not fair!” Harry pouted.
“If I could cite my sources on why we should be allowed to, can I then poison him?”
Remus lifted his head, brows raised and reluctantly intrigued. “What kind of sources?”
“No,” Sirius laughed, for once feeling like the adult that he pretended to be. “No poisoning him. How about we settle for a strongly worded letter to his parents?”
Draco’s nose wrinkled. “I don’t approve.”
Sirius took a deep breath. Why couldn’t Harry have come home best friends with another child?
“I’ll keep that in mind,” he deadpanned. “Now, let’s clean this up and get ready for our monthly fun day.”
Draco and Harry gasped, rushing around the kitchen to put everything away.
“Ice cream!”
“Pizza!”
“Movie!”
They continued to shout until everything was clean and they dragged Remus to the couch. Every month on the day after the full moon, they all squeezed onto one couch and indulged on all of Remus’ favorite things in an attempt to make him feel better.
“Sirius, you’re my favorite cousin.”
“What do you want, brat?” Sirius narrowed his eyes, hating that his chest puffed out at being Draco’s favorite.
“Can we watch a scary movie?”
“No,” Remus shook his head. “The last time we did that you refused to go home for a solid week. As much as I love you, you don’t live here.”
Draco blushed, face heating up as he admitted, “That’s because Harry is my comfort pillow.”
Sirius saw the way Remus melted at that, and he was right there with him.
“Do we have anything pressing this week?” Remus asked, already giving in much to the enjoyment of Draco and Harry who were jumping up and down.
“No, and I don’t think Narcissa will mind as Lucius has business in France.”
“He doesn’t have business,” Draco argued, nose wrinkling. “Father has no job.”
Sirius snorted, ignoring the elbow in his side from Remus.
“Alright, we can watch a scary movie.”
“And I can stay for two weeks?” Draco asked, innocent eyes that were never innocent blinked up at him.
“One week.” Sirius couldn’t believe that he was negotiating with a child.
“Three weeks.”
Remus laughed, waving away Sirius’ glare as he continued to laugh.
“One and a half,” Sirius countered.
Draco made a considering noise, one finger on his chin as he thought about it. “Deal, but I get to bunk with Harry.”
Sirius rolled his eyes. “I’m not stupid enough to separate you two.”
“Come on Draco,” Harry pulled on his friend’s hand. “Let’s go get the drinks.”
The sound of excited talking, little giggles and laughter echoed back to them, and it filled Sirius with warmth.
“We’ve got good kids.”
There was a time when he would have argued that they only had one kid, but now there was nothing to it.
They had two kids, and they were pretty perfect if he did say so himself.
Sirius grinned and tried to wipe a bit of the frosting Harry had flung at him off his face. “What’s the magic word?”
“Accio!” he shrieked, though it came out sounding more like a-sio.
“Technically, he’s not wrong,” Remus said, sitting down next to them. “Accio is definitely a magic word.”
“But it’s not the magic word,” Sirius argued. “He’s got to learn-hey!”
Remus blushed from where he was handing Harry another piece of cake. “It’s his birthday,” he said sheepishly. “He should get cake.”
Merlin, wasn’t that a statement. Sirius could hardly believe that Harry was already two. It seemed like just yesterday that James had called from St. Mungo’s with Lily that he had been born, and Sirius tried not to think that it should have been them here instead.
He winced when another bit of cake hit him in the arm. “You’re supposed to eat it, Haz, not throw it,” Remus told the toddler.
so is anybody going to write the “harry starts dating cedric and when the latter meets sirius he gets the ‘i may not actually have committed the murders i was imprisoned for but do not be deluded for one second that i don’t know thirty-seven different ways to kill a man. i am harry’s godfather hello. he is my entire world’ talk” fanfic or am i just going to have to make it myself
“It’s poetic, don’t you think?” Sirius asked Remus thoughtfully. “I mean, that the full moon is landing just the day before the twelfth anniversary of their deaths?”
“Very, yes.” Remus agreed.
Sirius had been decidedly concerned, at first, when Remus proposed this utterly unhinged idea. When he told Sirius the sickly satisfying fantasy that had come to him when he realised the full extend of Peter’s betrayal and Sirius’s innocence. Of Harry’s pathetic excuse for a childhood and his neglect.
Sirius was worried that the guilt would eat Remus alive afterwards, that he was doing this somehow to punish himself for his years of survival and freedom. But, in all his life, in all of his fear and worry of hurting other people, other living beings, of wanting to make sure he was safe for everything around him, this was the exception. This was catharsis. This was healing.
Peter’s death would be the anomaly in Remus’s moral compass, and while he didn’t think Lily or James would approve, the blunt reality was that they were dead. So it didn’t matter what they might have thought. They were dead and their death had consequences. They were dead and Remus and Sirius deserved resolution.
