Summary: Everyone fancies Harrys godparents and he’s sick of it
Warning: Reader and Sirius being shameless flirts, kissing
A/n: 0.9k words, this was fun to write, thank you for the request!
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You headed down the stairs at Grimmauld place, causally flipping off Walburga’s portrait as she threw insults at you. Walking into the kitchen you spot most of the Weasleys, Molly in the kitchen, Arthur reading the paper in his own little world along with the twins and Ginny already seated along with Harry, Hermione, and Tonks.
“Morning Dora” you wink passing by
“Hey y/n” she smiles back her hair becoming slightly brighter for half a second
As you pass by the twins lean back in their chairs earning a hit from Harry, the boy leaning over whisper shouting at them “Stop staring at her arse, that’s the third time this week” he makes a disgusted face as he shakes a bit “It’s weird”
“Not our fault she’s attractive” George defends himself
“She’s virtually my mum” Harry looks at him in disbelief
“And your mum is hot” Fred says casually before earning another hit for trying to look over again
“Can you believe them?” he grumbles towards Ginny and Hermione, only to find them both giving him a shrug “Not you to? My mum really?”
“Not just your mum” Ginny replies, Hermione going a bit red but nodding
Summary: Sirius' post-Azkaban confinement has soured his mood and it's effecting more than just him.
A/N: I don't know what this was originally supposed to be...I found the first paragraph in my notes and just kind of rolled with it to make this angsty mess of a fic.
TS Anthology Series | Harry Potter Masterlist
✰ Is it insensitive for me to say get your shit together so I can love you ✰
There was no mistaking Grimmauld Place. The soft mutterings of Walburga Black’s portrait, and endless loop of insults hurled at everyone who lived within the home. It wasn’t the sort of place you would choose to be, wasn’t nearly a contender for the type of ‘home’ you’d hoped to build someday. But it was Order headquarters and, more than that, it was Sirius’ home. At least for the time being. With Sirius on the top of every most wanted list in England, there were a far few places that he was safe, and fewer that assured the safety of anyone else in close proximity. There had even been doubts about Grimmauld Place being the sanctuary that it had unwittingly become. More so, you suspected, because Sirius didn’t want the place of his second prison to be his childhood home. There weren’t any other viable options though, so you ended up there, doing the best you could to cultivate something other than sheer loneliness inside the walls.
Sirius was somewhat inconsolible though, or he made himself out to be. He’d put on a brave front for Order meetings, reverting back to the sauve troublemaker of his past whenever the house was full of guests. If Harry was around he was jovial, somewhat parental, and doting. But alone, or at least when it was simply the pair of you (and Remus on occasion that he wanted to be a party to the misery) Sirius barely spoke.Sometimes he didn’t even get out of bed. Wracked with dark bouts of depression from his time at Azkaban, you tried both to give him space and to be understanding but he wasn’t the only victim of his agony, or Grimmuald Place.
“Checkmate in four,” Kreacher noted as his knight struck down your bishop. The rules of wizarding chess had never been kind to you and they were upholding that reputation now, as you sat at the end of the long wooden table in the kitchen with Kreacher.
The cantankerous house elf had become an odd sort of housemate for you during your time within the walls of Grimmuald Place. Neither of you much wanted to be there and neither of you were in a position to leave, those yours was more self-imposed than Kreacher’s.
Despite the clear lack of respect that Kreacher held towards Sirius, he rarely permitted himself to be in the same room as the now-owner of the house. So, it was no surprise to you that the moment Kreacher poof-ed out of the kitchen, Sirius would be stepping into the dimly lit room.
“You want to play a round chess?” You asked, turning just enough to watch him place the kettle on the stove top. He magicked the fire on the gas burner and found a clean mug in the cabinet. “I can reset the board.”
Still no answer. He went about making a tea that you remembered Remus favouring in school. Probably something of his own creation. You took a sip from your own mug, the chamomile and honey that Kreacher had made you earlier was cooling to a favourable luke warm. You had grown up with a muggle mother and didn’t care for wizarding drinks the way Sirius did. In school, when you’d first wrinkled your nose at butterbeer, Sirius had found it hilarious and teased you for it ever since.
“Or you can just go back to sulking through the house like a ghost.” You muttered, holding the ceramic mug to your lips and taking a sip.
Sirius’ movements stopped and he stood still there at the stove, hand hovering over the handle of the kettle. You were kind enough, or had been until five seconds prior, not to say anything about Sirius’ moods. You let him get away with his disposition but lately it was getting more and more unbearable. It was draining to watch him so jovial with everyone else and so awful with you, even if his happy moods were a farce, it felt like Grimmauld Place wasn’t the only thing he hated.
“I’m not sulking,” he finally said, resuming his movements and completing the tea. He set the kettle off the burner and placed his spoon in the sink before turning to face you, leaning against the counter as he did. “When I escaped, I hardly imagined that I’d be stuck in this purgatory, might as well tell Fudge where I am and lock me back up.”
“Suppose that makes me a dementor then?” You questioned.
“That isn’t fair-”
“Lot’s of things aren’t fair Sirius,” you replied. You were on a bit of a sour mood yourself. Dumbledore had let slip some activity in Wales that was gaining Order suspicion and he passed off the assignment to Mad-Eye even though you’d asked for it. (“I think it’s best you stay here with Sirius”) but you were sick of staying with Sirius. You were sick of the sour moods and the emptiness and the distance. It didn’t feel anything like it used to feel when the two of you were camped out in hiding in the days before Lily and James died. Maybe it was wrong of you to want to feel like that again, after so much had changed, but you couldn’t help wishing that there was something left between you and Sirius. There had been so much love before you could have drowned in it and now you were trapped in this endless draught of sorrow, wondering if all those emotions had been imagined. Were you just too young and foolish before? Had it all been in your head? What was the use of clinging onto someone who refused to let themselves love you anymore. You could do without the heartache on top of everything else.
“Good observation.” He replied, curt and with little emotion.
“I asked Dumbledore to send me on assignment,” you mentioned.
“Sick of being here?”
“Sick of feeling like this is an assignment. I waited thirteen years for you to get out of Azkaban and I swore every single day you were innocent. Lost my whole family over it...I know you went through hell there and I know this is no holiday but whenever it’s just the two of us here, feels like you can’t stand to be around me.” You admitted, toying with the bishop as you spoke to keep from fidgeting too badly.
Sirius was quiet for a long moment, holding his tea and gently blowing the steam away from the top. You knew this wasn’t exactly the conversation Sirius wanted to have first thing in the morning (though it was closing in on noonish the last time you looked). It wasn’t the conversation you had been planning on having with him either. You wanted to talk to him about the way you were feeling and maybe unpack the way he was feeling but you didn’t want to ambush him.
“I hate this house,” he finally said, “I don’t have a single good memory here.”
“I know-”
“You have no idea,” Sirius said, cutting you off.
Out of the kitchen, in the hallway, the door opened and Remus’ voice echoed through the downstairs in greeting. You looked away from the kitchen door as Sirius stood up straighter, abandoning his cup of tea to say hello to his oldest friend. While he was gone you stood and gathered up the chess set, cleaning away the remnants of the morning.
Remus didn’t venture further into the house, letting you know from the quiet sounds of their chatter and his refusal to stay longer that this was simply an update for the sake of Order business. It wouldn’t do well to be coming and going from Grimmuald Place in broad daylight so whatever the business was, there was some haste to it but nothing so frantic that you were both summoned. In fact, you stayed in the kitchen until the front door opened and closed once more, allowing Remus and Sirius their privacy.
On the occasion that Sirius was in a particularly foul mood, you found yourself tempted to remind him that Remus too, had believed he was guilty. Everyone you knew in fact, friends as well as family, believed whole-heartedly the lie that Sirius had murdered his dearest friends for Voldemort. It was you alone that insisted on his innocence. And it was you alone who weathered his awful temperament.
“What did Remus want?” You asked, stepping out of the kitchen finally and meeting Sirius in the hallway. You offered him the cup of tea that he’d left behind, the ceramic still warm.
“Change of plans for tonight, everyone’s meeting here. There’s been activity in London.” He replied, rattling off the message Remus had come to deliver as easily as he might provide you a grocery list.
“Alright,” you nodded, “any word on the sort of activity Dumbledore is seeing in London that’s so troubling?”
He shook his head, “just said there’s been activity in London.”
You were just beginning to reply when the thought occured to you that everything always felt so contrived between the two of you. It was the same thought that had been nagging at you lately, especially this morning. Your conversations felt wooden, like you were each reading your lines off boards, moving the conversation along but saying nothing to each other. You didn’t know if it was your reluctance to really, truly address the elephant in the room or his avoidance of any topic at all but you knew that you couldn’t sit through another Order meeting watching him laugh and chat and wishing that he would speak to you with even half that charm.
“I want to finish our conversation from earlier.” You said, before you could really think better of it.
“We weren’t having a conversation,” Sirius took a half step back, “I walked into the kitchen and you attacked me about my attitude toward being kept prisoner in my childhood home.”
“Then let me say this before you retreat back into your room for the rest of the day,” you reached for the banister, as if blocking his path up the stairs would stop him from getting to his room, “I know this place is hell and I’m not asking you to be happy about being here or to suddenly stop being angry that the last fifteen years happened at all. All I’m asking, is that you treat me with even a hint of respect. I have loved you for years and years, practically two decades worth of my life has been devoted to being in love with you Sirius. But I can’t keep letting you hurt me because you’re hurting.”
“Is that it?”
“No, when we see Dumbledore tonight, I’m insisting that I take the post in Wales.” You replied, releasing the banister and stepping to the side.
Without a reply, Sirius headed up the stairs to his room and you stood in the hallway, listening to the soft murmur of Walburga Black’s hateful voice. You could feel the pressure in your head settling, a wave of tears threatening to take hold of you.
It was fifth year, you remembered the exact moment like it’d happened just the day before.
Fifteen and back to school and you’d been owling your friends all summer about who you thought might couple up that year. The gossip was like a whirlwind, it swept you up and had you analyzing every interaction you saw on the train platform, waiting for the Hogwarts Express. And somewhere in the haze of it all, Sirius Black asked you to sit beside him on the ride back to school. His friends were snickering behind him as if they’d put him up to it (and probably they had seeing as you were a Hufflepuff and still awkward enough to be under the impression that you were nothing too special).
His affection for you didn’t last long, a few trips to Hogsmeade and suddenly you were simply friends. You continued on harboring a magnificent crush but it wasn’t until you graduated that he showed any romantic interest again.
“...and you’re working at St. Mungo’s?” He’d asked, keeping you after an Order meeting, both of you lingering outside the Leaky Cauldron on the muggle side. “Lily mentioned you were a healer.”
Sirius kept his hand gently on the crook of your elbow, his thumb brushing along the soft skin on the inside of your arm. He’d grabbed for you as you were leaving and now he seemed intent on keeping you there as long as you would let him.
“I am,” you replied, taking a step closer when the door to the Leaky Cauldron opened and omitted two patrons out onto the London streets. Their presence, whether because of the discussion at the Order meeting earlier in the evening or because of the general constant threat Order members seemed to carry, made him tense up. You looked briefly over your shoulder but the two were already headed down the street, arm in arm. “Would you like to go somewhere quieter? My flat’s just up this way,” you offered, gesturing to some spot beyond him.
You weren’t terribly surprised that Sirius agreed to accompany you back to your flat, it was Sirius Black after all. You knew him well enough from seven years of school together and this last year of working with the Order had proved that he had changed little from his school days. He was just as charming but you weren’t nearly so naive. Which was probably why you were so surprised to find that this wasn’t just some one night of blowing off steam sort of thing for him.
“I used to wonder...what it might have been like if Pettigrew hadn’t defected that night...if James and Lily lived.” You chanced mentioning once the meeting was over and Sirius had retired to the library. You had packed your things up and promised to send Dumbledore an owl in the morning once you had made it to Wales safely. Now it was just a matter of saying goodbye.
“None of this would be happening.” Sirius replied, looking down into the tumbler of whiskey in his hand, “Harry would have his parents.”
“I know that,” you replied, “I meant more selfishly...for us, rather. Would we have lasted? Do you think?”
“Why?”
You shrugged, “I’d just like to know if I’m holding on for nostalgia’s sake or if there’s something here and I'm not delusional. If I leave would you wish that I stayed?” You gave him a good, long while to answer but he remained motionless in the wing-back chair, staring into his drink as if it held the secrets of the universe. Finally, you stepped back out of the room and turned away from the library, taking the hall to the front door.
In the morning, you wouldn’t be surprised to find an owl already waiting at the small flat in Cardiff, a handwritten note from Sirius to let you know that you’d forgotten your favorite mug in the cupboard but that he would keep it for you until you returned.
“It wouldn’t matter to Cassian, though, if Rhys’s son inherited his world-shaking power, or barely a drop. It wouldn’t matter to Rhys, either. To any of them. That boy was already loved.