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“You’re doing great!” Harry shouted up at the little first years he’d been coaching all summer. He wiped at the sweat beading on his brow, and sent another round of cooling charms towards the tiny figures on brooms.
“Thanks, Mr. Harry!” one of the girls, Cecilia, called back to him, turning to toss him a gummy smile.
Mr. Harry, he thought, amused. He was only nineteen, but to the eleven and twelve year olds, he must have seemed like much more of an adult than he truly was. It had barely been over a year since he’d graduated Hogwarts, but his life felt just as disorganized as it had always been. His parents had always been the free spirit type, encouraging him to wait around until he found his Passion. Which had led him to accepting an offer as a reserve seeker for the Chudley Cannons. It was a great opportunity, one that not many received so soon after graduation.
Except that the Chudley Cannons already had an extraordinary seeker, and Harry was hardly ever needed.
He didn’t mind it, really. Technically, he was employed and starting his post-Hogwarts career. Eventually, when Phillip Martins retired, he’d take over. He just had to play a bit of a waiting game until then. While Ron was completing the Auror Academy and Hermione was climbing the Ministry ranks tenaciously, while the two of them were getting engaged and planning their futures, Harry was waiting for his life to begin.
Well, and coaching a little league Quidditch team.
Ever since he and his family had moved into a magical neighborhood, Harry’d taken to spending his evenings at the local park, flying with the younger children. A few too many instances of impromptu Quidditch matches had caused the little ones and their parents to conspire against him, pressuring him into making a team. Now that he was out of school, and the Quidditch season hadn’t started yet, he finally took them up on the offer.
Although, some days Harry thought he was being used more as a babysitter than a Quidditch coach.
He sighed, lifting his wrist to check his muggle watch. Half past five, most of the kids' parents would be home by now.
“Ten minutes!” he shouted.
Indistinct grumbling reached his ears and he grinned. “Better find that snitch soon!”
They started to boo at him, and he shook his head fondly, disturbing the curls sticking to his sweaty forehead. Merlin, summer was awful.
The game passed with little more fanfare. Little Cecilia caught the snitch in the last thirty seconds, earning her a wave of excited hugs, even from the half who were playing as the opposing team. Harry liked to end their practices with an informal game, which allowed the kids to put everything they’d worked on into practice, with the added benefit of leaving them too tired to truly argue when he walked them all to their homes.
Once the last child was safely returned home, Harry turned westward towards his own home, squinting against the brilliance of the setting sun. Rather than clouds to provide shade from its onslaught, the sun was buoyed by a crimson sky of a shade that perfectly encapsulated the heat of the evening.
Harry sighed. The summer had been an insufferable one, full of dry heat waves and denoted by the longest drought they had seen since he was a year old, according to his mother. He’d perfected his cooling charms and skin protection potions after the second week, when even the muggle meteorologists couldn’t predict the next instance of rainfall or cool weather. However, as good as he was at cooling charms, they didn’t compare to the reprieve of a true breeze and natural shade.
He wished he could talk to Hermione and Ron about the abysmal summer. Hermione would launch into a scientific explanation of weather patterns and humanity’s contribution to climate change, while Ron would nudge Harry every other minute, smiling sappily as if to say See? Isn’t she amazing? And Harry would pretend to be exasperated with the both of them, but they all knew he preferred their company over most.
But it seemed as if Harry was the only one with time for small talk about the weather, these days.
Potter Cottage crested on the scarlet horizon, a small, quaint home, made of tawny colored bricks that had been carefully laid by Harry’s mother and her team of magical architects. The resulting structure was something right out of Aunt Petunia’s magazines; a picturesque brown facade filled with cream and azure furniture and detailing. Magic ensured that not a single thing was out of place, that no dust settled over the delicate dragonskin sofas. The front yard was short but properly kept, with neatly mowed grass and pristine edges. Cobblestones would dance beneath one’s feet as they approached the doorway, a cheeky detail that Harry’s mum thought would amuse guests and aggravate bad actors.
The back yard was home to a large, sprawling garden. His parents had a fondness for hedges and vines, and much of the garden had become a maze over the years. Harry, younger and smaller, had liked to play hide and seek in the garden as an excuse to get lost amongst the large, beautiful sunflowers and foxtail lilies. Every time, without fail, one of his parents had caught him, even after he’d been allowed to start using the invisibility cloak to hide.
Lost in his memories, he found himself wandering to the garden, lured by the soft scents of summer blooms. Neatly mowed grass gave way to a more wild sort, the ground becoming softer under Harry’s feet. Whereas the front yard’s cobblestones served to detract visitors, the garden’s garish decor was intended to welcome them. Across every plant and stalk were impossible lengths of red and gold streamers, making the garden look more like the Gryffindor common room than the outdoors. Streamers had been delicately draped to connect two neighboring, maze-like walls of tall stalks, affording shade to anybody walking between them.
Harry glanced around, suspecting that one of his parents was out there, still decorating the garden. His sweeping glance revealed a path of golden confetti leading through the maze and towards, he assumed, the wide open space at the center of the garden. Turning his gaze there, he laid eyes upon the white, gothic gazebo that stood proudly in the center, spinning slowly as it was wont to do when inhabited.
Both of his parents, then, and likely enjoying the charmed shade of the gazebo while they worked. He shook his head, smiling fondly.
James and Lily Potter would soon be celebrating their twentieth anniversary with all of their family and friends, throwing a lavish party that practically the entire British Wizarding World would be attending. With the party only two weeks away, the past couple of days had been a frenzy of planning and decorating. Harry had known it was only a matter of time until the garden was covered in the same tinsel that James and Lily had already adorned the interior of their home with. He would usually call them obnoxious, and rightfully so, but he supposed that if any event required his mum’s aesthetic eye and his dad’s meticulous planning, it would be this one.
He turned towards the rear door, deciding to leave them be.
The back door opened into the kitchen, where a steaming bowl of stew awaited Harry. Along with at least five hundred hors d'oeuvres that his father had meticulously prepared in advance. He wasn’t certain why James insisted on cooking everything himself, but it resulted in a kitchen awash in preservation charms and an overabundance of food.
Exasperated, he busied himself with his food, lazily sweeping his eyes over the mess of the kitchen. There was a stack of letters on the counter. His eyes lingered on one, set aside, addressed to H. Potter from Les Voyageurs. He left it unopened, in favor of an already opened one, left abandoned by his parents. Curiously, he reached for it, scanned its contents before stilling on the name written in swooping, delicate cursive.
S. Black.
He swallowed his food roughly, rereading the letter’s simple message.
Dear James and Lily,
You’re in luck. Your wonderful and amazing best friend will be attending your anniversary party.
See you then,
S. Black
Sirius Black, Harry’s godfather. A man he’d only ever encountered through letters and annual holiday postcards. A man who’d been his father’s childhood best friend, but had escaped from England following the war that he, Harry’s dad, and Harry’s mum had won. Many times had James Potter recounted the tales of Sirius Black, the mischievous prankster, who had been behind some of the greatest moments of James’s youth. The two had lived together for a brief time, becoming something akin to brothers, until the man had left them all behind after Harry’s first birthday.
Harry flipped the letter over, expecting to find a small photo attached, as was Sirius’s habit. Instead, the page was barren.
“Jesus, Mary, and Joseph,” Hermione swore as they entered the garden. “When did it get this bloody hot?”
“About two months ago,” Harry responded, shoulders bumping with Ron’s as he led them towards the garden’s maze, with its spotted, but no less effective, shade. “Careful, Mione, you’re sounding an awful lot like your fiance, here.”
“The horror,” Ron said sarcastically, throwing an arm around Harry’s shoulders.
The leisurely voices of his parents’ guests reached his ears as he and his friends trampled over the confetti arrows adorning the underbrush. They walked as if through molasses, listening to conversations that progressed even more slowly. The heat tended to make wizards, who hardly ever encountered a weather phenomenon magic couldn’t conquer, extremely slow. Their already languid drawls stretched out into infinity underneath the sun’s unrelenting rays; their voices collided into a dissonant symphony that only furthered Harry’s theory that they’d descended into hell.
The maze began to thin, foxgloves giving way to a soft meadow, and the sight before them left them all in awe.
“Bloody hell,” Ron muttered, head swiveling as he took in the gaudy decorations, and the bustling collection of attendees. “You’d think the Queen herself was in attendance!”
Hermione’s nose scrunched up slightly. “Do you think the Queen would be so…tacky?”
Harry huffed. “That’s my mum and dad’s work you’re disrespecting, you know.”
“You know that your parents have always been a bit much.”
Harry rolled his eyes at her behind Ron’s head, but privately he agreed and his friends both knew it. Even he winced at the positively Gryffindor-ish explosion that had hit the garden over the past fortnight. The entire meadow was a sea of gold, from the lumos charms suspended in midair casting a warm glow over all to the neighboring plants and grass that had been charmed varying shades of yellow. It was complete with red accents: a smattering of turbulent, red confetti dancing in the sky like carmine rainfall dotting the canary yellow landscape. Floating amongst them was a muggle sign that his mum, no doubt, had caused to float throughout the sky, flashing James & Lily in an aggressive scarlet, as if any of their personally invited guests needed any reminder.
It was obscenely ostentatious. Hermione was right; even the muggle Queen wouldn’t have been this tacky. In the distance, he could see that the gazebo had been turned golden, to match the similarly colored picnic benches and appetizer tables littered across the field. Each of them was populated by his parents’ guests, making it impossible for Harry to see over the crowd as he led his friends forward.
At the sight of such a large crowd, his neck began to warm, making him tug at his collar. Beneath it, he ran a finger over the pendant that laid against his sternum, which covered him in an assortment of cooling charms specially chosen by his mother. Briefly, Harry glanced at Ron and Hermione, who each wore matching ones.
Ron caught his eyes, then leaned in impossibly closer, practically yelling in Harry’s ear to be heard over the multitudinous voices of the crowd. “Let’s get food! I’m starving.”
“We should socialize!” Hermione argued back, bouncing on the balls of her feet. “Think about how many of our colleagues are here! This is such a good networking opportunity, you two. Oh, look, I see one now!”
She dragged Ron along, who in turn pulled Harry, which led to the three of them pushing as one through the bulging throng of people until they were able to speak to–
“Mr. Crouch!” Hermione exclaimed, enthusiastically shaking the man’s hand in two of hers. “It’s so good to see you! Oh, this is my fiance, Ron, and our friend, Harry.”
Ron scrambled, removing his arm from Harry’s person in order to shake Barty Crouch Sr.’s hand. The lack of Ron’s presence against his side only left Harry feeling cold, a sensation that further intensified when Crouch leveled praise onto both of his friends for their career accomplishments, but turned to him with befuddlement written all over his face.
“You haven’t joined the Auror Academy, have you, Mr. Potter?” Crouch inquired, looking to Ron for confirmation, as if Harry couldn’t answer for himself. “What is it you’re doing these days?”
Harry resisted the urge to duck his head and hide from adults like he used to. After all, he was an adult now. He squared his shoulders. “Quidditch, sir.”
He watched Crouch cycle through what must have been his mental catalogue of prolific Quidditch teams, fail to find his name on any particular roster, and turn back to Ron and Hermione without another word.
Ron shuffled closer to him, pressing their arms firmly against each other.
The conversation only devolved from there, becoming focused on Hermione’s ministry position and her and Ron’s plans for the future. As they recited information that Harry already knew, he allowed his eyes to wander and sweep over the crowd that seemed to have thinned out, once people realized there was ample seating. It made it easier for Harry to see over everyone, and survey his parents’ attendees. Off to the right, he spotted the characteristically blonde hair of the Malfoy family, offering Draco an amicable nod once they met eyes, even though they had only ever antagonized each other in school. Towards the center, clustered around the gazebo, he spotted the rest of the Weasleys, all identifiable by their red hair and thundering laughter. Stark amongst the already tall family was Hagrid, who bellowed loudly as he spoke to Mr. and Mrs. Weasley. Scattered around, Harry realized most of his other professors from Hogwarts were in attendance as well.
Squinting slightly, and readjusting his glasses, he realized he hadn’t seen his parents. He assumed they were floating all around the party, not lingering in any one place long enough for Harry to spot them. Once another scan proved fruitless, he decided to give up and find them later. That was, until he saw a woman standing beside Mrs. Weasley, looking half like Ginny and half like Molly.
His mum, of course, blending in with the Weasleys as she always had. And beside her, Harry’s father, who must have fallen victim to the twins’ schemes, because his hair was bright red. Nonetheless, he was laughing in a manner Harry had never seen before, loudly, with his head thrown back. He wrapped an arm around the man beside him, who–
The man beside him, who could only be Sirius Black.
The man’s skin was pale, noticeably so amongst everybody else’s sustaining suntans. Long, black hair fell in loose rivulets across his shoulders, laying there as if each lock was held meticulously in place. Even from a distance, Harry could make out his godfather’s impossibly red lips, pouty below an aquiline nose. He was unable to make out the man’s exact eye color, but his eyes must have been bright; deep-set between lashes so long they softened his otherwise hard features. Sirius smiled at James, slow and deliberate, and Harry got the impression that he was watching a prince who’d deigned to indulge the commonfolk.
Merlin, those postcards hadn’t done him justice, not really. Nor had his parents let him know how bloody handsome Sirius Black was.
Harry swallowed thickly, throat suddenly dry. He attempted to smile at Crouch, certain that it came across as more of a grimace, and excused himself with both a pat to Ron’s shoulder and a kiss to Hermione’s cheek. He tugged at his collar as he rushed away, having been stifled by both the conversation and the brief glimpse of his godfather.
When he reached the nearest appetizer table, he nearly crashed into it in his haste to pour himself a cool glass of his dad’s lemonade, allowing the bitter citrus to settle the heat within him.
He didn’t quite succeed; his face was still flushed.
He took a deep breath, swept a couple of hors d'oeuvres into his hands, and headed for his maze, content to hide between the hulking sunflowers until Ron and Hermione came to collect him. He sighed out a notice-me-not charm under his breath before he ducked beneath the shade of the maze.
The breath of relief got stuck in his throat when he heard the soft pattering of footsteps behind him. He turned, armed with little more than finger food, and came face-to-face with the very man he’d been meaning to avoid.
Sirius Black’s eyes glinted, his smile smug. “Evening!” he said by way of greeting.
Harry gaped wordlessly at him before turning back around to walk deeper into the maze. For good measure he casted another notice-me-not, but it had no effect–Sirius had seen him already, thus he kept pace with him easily.
“Come now, lad,” the man teased behind him. “You can’t say hello to old Padfoot?”
The condescending tone had Harry’s old temper flaring. He glared at the man over his shoulder before plopping down on the grass in the most heavily shaded part of the path. Sirius hit the ground beside him, sitting so closely that Harry could see the tiny mole on his tragus when he glanced over.
“Hullo, Harry,” Sirius stressed, raising a brow. “Should I take it as a bad sign that you took one look at me and ran?”
Harry grimaced. “You saw that?”
“Ah, he speaks. Yes, I did.”
He cringed, then, and offered a cracker topped with ceviche as his penance. Sirius took it with a wink that had Harry’s heart soaring. He watched the man eat, his entire body on fire as Sirius’s throat bobbed.
Merlin.
“How about this, love?” Sirius prompted, once he finished. “We pretend I didn’t just chase you through the forest like a creep, and that we don’t know each other.”
“We don’t, though,” Harry said, confused, which only made Sirius grin widely.
“See, you get it!” He cleared his throat, then his voice turned overly sweet. “Hello, random man I ran into in this lovely garden. My name is Sirius Black. How ever are you doing on this fine summer day?”
Harry rolled his eyes, understanding, now, Sirius’s little game.
“Hot,” he responded drily. The word doubled as a description of the view before him. With Sirius’s full attention on him, he could see that those eyes were bright, silver in one of those unnatural shades characteristic of only purebloods. “I’m Harry.”
Harry might have been imagining the way that Sirius’s face softened.
“What do you like to do for fun, Harry?”
Harry’s love for Quidditch bled into his expression, and he smiled freely. It was rare that he got the opportunity to speak about Quidditch as anything but his profession, his future. Somehow, his favorite pastime, the one thing that made him feel truly at peace, had gotten mixed up into the aimlessness of Harry’s life, and he’d forgotten that he’d enjoyed it.
He jumped at the opportunity to tell Sirius about it, gesticulating wildly as he explained his love for the sport, watching a small, sweet smile take place on the man’s face as he spoke. In return, Sirius talked about his academic pursuits, and the fact that he enjoyed research, which–
“You? A bookworm?” Harry questioned, doubtful. None of it aligned with the jock-like persona his dad had described to him, but he found he preferred the version of Sirius Black before him far better than the stories.
“Yes, me,” Sirius huffed, rolling his eyes. “Is that so hard to believe? I’ll have you know that I’m a man of intellect, Mr. Potter.”
“You are, are you?” Harry remembered their farce, even if Sirius had seemed to forget. “A man so intelligent he knows my surname despite us being strangers?”
Sirius’s lip curled into a satisfied smirk. “I followed you into a maze, don’t you think I deserve a surname?”
“I dunno,” Harry shrugged. “I think I ought to be scared.”
Sirius’s stare, half-lidded between those dark, long lashes of his, pinned Harry in place. He watched the man swallow roughly, his already strong cheekbones becoming more pronounced with the motion. Sirius leaned in close, engulfing Harry in the cloud of cedar and pine that accompanied him.
His lips were barely parted as he spoke, “You don’t look very scared, Mr. Potter. Why is that?”
Harry didn’t move away, even as his heart pounded so hard he thought it’d beat out of his chest. “A man of intellect should be able to figure out that much.”
Sirius smirked like the cat that caught the canary, his mouth opened to respond before he suddenly cocked his head to the side. Then, he sighed, and his face fell.
“Your parents are looking for me,” he explained, pushing himself to his feet. “It was nice to meet you, Harry.”
Harry tried to swallow down his disappointment, nodding mutely.
Sirius threw him a devilish wink, offered him a mock salute, then made his way back to the rest of the party.
Harry breathed. As well as he could, anyway.
When he returned to Ron and Hermione, they were still socializing, so all Harry could offer them was an apologetic smile as he greeted the wizards they’d been talking to, attempting to make himself as little of a nuisance as possible.
The interaction with Sirius had left him off-kilter and his energy waned as he followed his friends around the garden, engaging in the same conversations with just about every person they met. Perhaps Harry truly wasn’t meant for a more traditional career–he’d hate it if his professional standing relied on anything outside of his ability to perform. He hardly spoke to people in general, he could never network the way that Ron and Hermione needed to. But somebody like Sirius, so effortlessly charming, was much better suited for the type of environment where charisma triumphed above all.
It was odd, then, that he’d stayed away from Britain for so long.
Glancing around, he found Sirius again, now standing with Remus Lupin and an unfamiliar witch with pink hair. As if he felt him looking, Sirius caught his eyes and smiled, lifting what seemed to be a goblet of elven wine at him in toast.
Harry ducked his head, face heated.
The evening passed with little fanfare as the heat swelled, the air hanging impossibly heavy above them, pressing in on them from all sides. Many were sitting; Ron and Hermione had had their fill of networking and they had claimed their own picnic table to sit and decompress. Harry had laid his head down almost immediately, and Hermione’s cold hand came to rest on the back of his neck, both in comfort and apology, he knew.
Not that Harry’s hang ups were her fault.
He wasn’t certain when it happened, but somewhere in the midst of Harry lazily listening to his friends bicker over his head, his mum was screaming in delight, voice projected across the meadow.
“Everybody pair up!” she enthused, which made Harry realize he’d missed something.
He lifted his head, searching until he found her and his dad inside the gazebo. Around it, the ground was covered in alternating red and gold tiles, in a manner that, if it hadn’t been so tacky, would have resembled a dancefloor.
Of course.
“Make your way to the dance floor!” Lily continued, amusement evident in her voice as she confirmed Harry’s suspicions.
Harry looked to Ron, who shrugged. “I can dance with Neville,” he suggested. “You two can–”
“No,” Harry and Hermione chorused, vividly remembering Ron’s fervent jealousy in their sixth year that neither were sure he’d quite grown out of, no matter what he said.
Ron frowned. “But–”
“No.”
“I’ll stay here,” Harry said, before Ron could suggest that they dance together. “Go dance. You’re engaged!”
Hermione bit her lip. “But…”
Harry looked around, happy to settle for even Draco fucking Malfoy if it meant his friends wouldn’t feel too guilty to enjoy a single dance without him. Under the haziness of dusk, the golden lumoses above them were even more pronounced, making it difficult to discern any particular faces. Still looking away, he opened his mouth to shoo them off, but somebody beat him to it.
“I’m afraid I’ll have to interrupt your plan to sit here alone, Mr. Potter.”
Harry whipped his head back around at that posh, carefree voice. There Sirius stood, stance loose and casual as he offered Harry a hand.
The three of them stared at him in shock. Ron, for his part, was nudging Harry under the table, while a wide smile slowly spread across Hermione’s face. They were awful, the two of them, and he blatantly scowled at them both individually.
Sirius seemed amused, but he didn’t retract his hand. Instead, he bowed slightly, those curls falling to frame his face. “Would you do the honor of joining me for a dance?”
His tone was lighthearted, but he seemed genuine, having even lowered into the stance expected of a pureblood bachelor addressing a prospective suitor.
“It’d be impolite to decline,” Sirius added, smirking, falling out of the pose and into a more openly impatient one, one hand on his hip and the other held high, too high for Harry to reach without standing.
Harry wanted to hate him. Instead, he had Ron hitting his leg in tandem with the fluttering of his traitorous heart.
He stood. “Fine.”
Harry ignored his friends’ obnoxious snickering as they followed him and Sirius onto the dancefloor. Graciously, or perhaps suspiciously, Sirius brought them to a more secluded corner, out of sight of the gazebo, inside which James and Lily were going to share their own dance.
Harry settled a hand on Sirius’s shoulder while he held the other up in the formal position. He waited for Sirius to clasp his raised hand in one of his own, but instead, both of the older man’s hands settled on his hips, far lower than anything formal.
Fighting back his surprise, he gazed into Sirius’s eyes, finding the man watching him with deeply furrowed brows.
Tactlessly, Harry asked, “Why did you stay away for so long?”
Though he’d been scrambling for a distraction from the strange air settling around them, the question had been genuine. It was something that used to keep him up at night, on those rare summer evenings that he’d been dropped off at his Aunt Petunia’s house. Those nights when his parents were too busy with work, Remus was dealing with the full moon, and the one person who was supposed to be there for him in his parents’ stead had never even seen him since he was in diapers.
He’d stopped caring as much, when he met Ron and the twins on the Hogwarts express and always had somewhere to go that wasn’t that too-small cupboard, but the wound had only healed, not disappeared. The memories of that hurt remained, no matter how attracted Harry was to his godfather, and no matter how certain he was becoming that Sirius felt the same way.
Sirius blinked, the question catching him so off guard that he hadn’t realized the music started. Harry caught the second count, pushing Sirius into leading.
“You don’t beat around the bush, do you?”
“No.”
Sirius’s hands tightened as they swayed, traversing the familiar steps of the waltz. While Harry wasn’t a pureblood like his godfather, his own father was one, and he’d learned many of the customs from him.
One, two, three. One, two, three, and–
“Because I hate everything about this place,” Sirius told him, his bland tone not masking the chill behind his words. His eyes lacked their usual light, but he was no less enticing for it.
“The government,” he continued, anger coloring his words, now. “The war. The way it was handled. Nothing fucking changed–the war could have easily gone on for another twenty years, you could be fighting in it now, if we weren’t lucky.” He paused, taking a breath and allowing Harry to spin. “Nobody seems interested in fixing the systemic and–” he glanced over to where Narcissa Malfoy danced with her husband a couple of meters away “-the ideological circumstances that primed us for a war in the first place.”
His voice had picked up steam, and he visibly took a couple of breaths until the tension bled away, the wrinkle on his forehead becoming less pronounced.
“Just–fuck it all. Fuck this place.” His finality left no room for disagreement, not that Harry was eager to argue. He struggled to conceptualize the flaws within the wizarding world, but he’d listened to enough rants from his mum and Hermione to understand that there were severe flaws. He wouldn’t defend those injustices, even if he still felt kinship with the world he was raised in.
Instead, Harry stared into those blazing, silver eyes for a few moments longer, the movements of the dance ushering his body along as if he were unmoored, buffeted by the ocean’s current. His old aches, resurrected by Sirius’s appearance, warred with the flames of anger he found in Sirius’s eyes. In his own mind, he saw that miserable child whose heart remained trapped in a cupboard. Before his eyes, there was a man who’d never recovered from the war he’d fought at twenty.
Both hurting, both angry, both miserably failed by those around them.
The man in question only stared back, pink tongue darting out to wet his lips before his mouth twitched upwards.
“It’s my turn to ask an invasive question, yes?” he asked, smile slowly spreading. Without waiting for a response, he inquired, “Do you actually have a plan for your life?”
Harry felt his jaw tighten, anger pulsing through him so quickly he only narrowly stopped himself from marching off that dance floor entirely. But the last thing he wanted to do was cause a scene at his parents’ anniversary. Instead, he didn’t answer. The question was deserved, he supposed, but not welcome.
“Harry,” Sirius stressed, squeezing his hip briefly. “I’m not being judgmental, love. Just curious.”
Harry huffed, right into Sirius’s face, fully aware that he could probably smell everything he’d eaten and then some.
“I’m the reserve seeker for the Chudley Cannons,” he recited flatly, having repeated this information almost a hundred times, and intimately aware of the reactions it elicited. “When the current seeker retires, I’ll take over and play until I can’t anymore.”
“Sure,” Sirius conceded with a tilt of his head. “But what are you going to do until then? Just…waste away?”
“Fuck you.”
“You started this, dear.”
“Don’t call me that.”
“Aw, are you angry with me, Harry?”
The answer was no, which shocked even Harry, but he found himself enjoying the thrill he got when Sirius aggravated him almost as much as that sickly sweet, condescending tone the older man used with him. It took a very valiant effort to keep his face straight, but when Sirius waggled his eyebrows in a truly abysmal way, Harry couldn’t help but laugh, ducking his head against Sirius’s shoulder for a moment.
“It's okay to not know,” Sirius said gently, after the tense moment had passed. “But you should be honest with yourself about that. Something tells me you haven’t been.”
Harry scowled. “You don’t know me.”
“Of course I do.” Sirius’s hand left his hip, reaching up to squeeze Harry’s nose while he cooed, “You’re my little Harry. You used to love me, you know.”
Harry tried not to blush, but he didn’t bat Sirius away. “I’m not your anything.”
Sirius scoffed, his hand returning to a position a little lower and farther back than it had been before. His voice was husky when he spoke, “You’re my godson, Harry, I think that means you’ve always been mine.”
Not even Harry could have predicted that those words would send such a violent tremor through his spine, one that Sirius had surely felt.
Prove it, he wanted to say, because if Sirius had the nerve to antagonize him for his aimlessness, to call him out for being defensive, then the least he could do was commit to making Harry his.
Instead, Harry said nothing, allowing Sirius to swing him into a low dip. It was rare that he engaged in any sort of formal dancing, and even rarer that he wasn’t leading. He was finding that he didn’t hate following, that spinning and dipping by Sirius’s hands filled him with that same thrill he got from Quidditch.
He was tugged back upright, and pulled in so close that his nose brushed against the other’s. He blinked, finding the same stunned expression on Sirius’s face as they stood there, flush against each other.
Neither of them moved away. They breathed against each other, chests moving in tandem, dance forgotten. Harry felt intoxicated, paralyzed by those eyes, the silver pools drawing him in like he was meant to drown in them. They made it impossible to look away, impossible to think about anything besides Sirius, so close, so attractive, so fucking irritating, so charming and snaking his entire arm around Harry’s waist to ensure he couldn’t back away.
Harry tilted his head the slightest bit, lips parting.
Sirius, despite his brazen hold, looked just as terrified as Harry felt. It didn’t stop him from tightening his arm around Harry and leaning forward as if he were going to–
BOOM!
Thunder roared, so loud and sudden that the two jumped apart in alarm. Sirius watched him with wide eyes, pupils so large they swallowed the silver whole, while Harry attempted to catch his breath, his heart pounding for more reasons than one.
Harry opened his mouth, intending to say something–anything–when he felt it. The first frigid, heavy drop of rain that he’d felt in weeks, hitting his exposed forearm. He looked down at his arm in awe, then felt another hit the top of his head. Then his clothed shoulder. Then, it was raining in earnest, the thick drops peppering Harry’s skin, cooling its scorched surface as it drenched him in seconds.
Around him, people were shrieking in delight, shock, anger, and appreciation. He glanced up to see them dancing joyously, like madmen, even the purebloods forgoing their typical niceties to luxuriate in the rain, allowing themselves to enjoy the long awaited rainfall.
Harry grinned, giddy, and let out a loud, uncharacteristic whoop, kicking up the puddle rapidly accumulating beside him. It had the adverse effect of splashing him, finishing the job started by the rain and soaking him to the bone. It made him shiver violently, a sudden chill settling across his skin.
He wrapped his arms around himself, still grinning, still enthused, when a gentle hand found the side of his neck.
He flinched. He’d forgotten all about Sirius, their dance, and what might have been their kiss. Harry looked up at his godfather, feeling his smile bleed away as he saw the dark look in the man’s eyes.
It made him shiver again.
“Harry,” Sirius breathed, the word warbled around the droplets falling into his mouth. He licked them away, pushing his wet hair back with one hand while the other brushed along Harry’s collarbone.
Part of him wanted to tell Sirius not to touch him; that, if nature itself had intervened before anything could happen between them, there might have been a bloody good reason for it.
The other part of him wanted Sirius so badly his heart clenched with it.
The man’s hand dipped down, finding his sternum, against which his pendant sat. He hooked his fingers underneath it, his entire hand unnecessarily caressing the skin there as he did so. He pulled the pendant up and over Harry’s head.
The absence of his cooling necklace made Harry’s body heat return almost immediately, and he was able to drop his arms from where they’d failed to keep him warm. He watched Sirius’s eyes dart down his body, then back up with a carefully empty expression.
Small shudders continued to dart across Harry’s spine.
“Let’s dry off,” he suggested, heart thundering in his ears. “Inside.”
“Yes,” the older man replied, rain still streaking down his beautiful face. He didn’t move, only kept staring at Harry, even as he had to keep blinking rainwater out of his eyes.
Well, Harry had nothing if not an exodus of Gryffindor courage.
He reached forward, grabbed Sirius’s hand, and side-along apparated with a pop.
As soon as they landed in Harry’s room, he hit Sirius and himself with drying spells while throwing a locking charm and silencing charm at his door. Precautions that he didn’t often need to take–then again, he’d never had a man twice his age in his bed before.
Sirius watched him, licked his lips. “No wand?” he asked in that same reverent tone that Harry’s dad always had when Harry performed magic.
“Simple charms,” Harry dismissed.
There Sirius stood in the center of his room, in now wrinkled robes and a head of hair that had fallen from grace, resembling a rat’s nest more than anything. The low, orange-toned lighting in Harry’s room washed him out horribly, swathing his skin in a green pallor that made him look more dead than alive. Sirius was almost ghastly, standing there like a pale ghost.
It didn’t make Harry want him any less.
He cocked his head, a challenging grin that usually only Quidditch brought out of him growing on his face. “Are you going to finally kiss me, old man?”
Sirius gasped in mock offense, taking a slow step closer. “Well, I never–”
Harry grabbed him by his lapels, pulling him forward into a searing kiss that was more bruising than tender, more bite than love. Quintessential Harry, to show his jagged edges to the one person he’d wanted to smooth them.
Quintessential Sirius, perhaps, to sneak his way into Harry’s good graces by sharpening them.
As if he could hear his thoughts, Sirius sighed into his mouth, clutching his waist like his hands were magnetized to Harry’s skin. Harry held his face in both of his hands, feeling his cheekbones, licking into his mouth, tasting those cherry red lips.
When he finally pulled away, dazed, he found Sirius smiling smugly.
In response, he snaked a hand down towards Sirius’s chest and pushed roughly, so hard that the man fell flat on his back on Harry’s bed.
Sirius stared up, wide-eyed. “Merlin, you’re strong.”
“I’m a professional athlete.” He ripped his shirt off, and he heard the exact moment that Sirius realized he looked like a professional athlete, too.
Harry grinned stupidly as he climbed onto the bed, straddling Sirius and pressing their hips firmly together. He watched Sirius’s eyes flutter as Harry’s arse pressed against his erection. Harry leaned down, kissing him, and swallowing the moan that had threatened to escape his godfather’s lips.
He deepened the kiss as he ground against Sirius more insistently, his tongue down the man’s throat as Sirius fought off soft whimpers, hands coming up to clench at Harry’s rear.
“Harry,” Sirius said, voice strained, when they separated. Harry shifted again, and Sirius groaned, fully this time, tilting his head back to expose his flushed neck. “Harry,” he repeated, breath filling the meager void between their lips. “How far are we taking this? Have you even done this before?”
Harry leaned back, sighing. “Not far if you don’t keep your mouth shut.”
It was meaner than he liked to be, but Sirius loved it, entire face lighting up with the force of his smile.
“Yeah? Maybe you should make me.”
Which was exactly how Harry ended up seated on his godfather’s cock, so full that his eyes were watering as he bounced up and down on Sirius’s lap.
“F-Fuck,” he panted, leaning over with two fingers deep down Sirius’s throat, feeling that tongue dart around his digits. Sirius was gagging, practically begging to speak and to say all the dirty things he thought about having his godson on top of him.
Harry wasn’t going to let him. He tightened his magic, reinforcing the ropes tying Sirius’s wrists to the bedposts, and gasped when it made Sirius buck up into him wildly, dick brushing against his prostate.
He followed Sirius’s hips back down, rolling instead of bouncing until they found a rhythm together, grinding Sirius’s fat cock inside Harry’s asshole and making the older man keen beneath him.
Merlin, if Sirius Black wasn’t beautiful. Flushed red from his ears down to his cock, muscles straining against the restraints that held him in place and kept him pliant while Harry took what he wanted. Harry had done this to him, reduced him to the whining, pathetic mess beneath him, writhing around for the impetus that would allow him to fill his godson with his cum.
“Sirius,” he moaned, his heart swelling even as the pleasure verged on too much. He grabbed his own cock with his free hand, moaning loudly at how fucking good it felt.
Fuck nature, he thought tenaciously. Fuck everything.
It was like Sirius was made for him; nobody had ever made him feel so good, so at peace. Never had sex felt like coming home, like having his soul bared for only one other person to see. Would anybody understand if he told them? Would anybody understand that he’d needed Sirius, that the moment he laid eyes on him, there hadn’t been a chance in the world that he’d be able to stay away from him?
“Oh, fuck,” he groaned when Sirius’s movements became frantic, and then suddenly Harry was being filled, being warmed from the inside out.
He slipped his fingers out of Sirius’s mouth, using the man’s spit to lube up his own cock, stroking faster to the sight of Sirius’s blissed out face, his kiss swollen lips.
“Yes, love,” Sirius murmured, even while panting away his orgasm. “That’s it, Harry.”
That was all it took for Harry to shout, painting his godfather’s chest white as long ropes of cum shot out of him. He released the restraints, and Sirius surged forward, holding him as he shook off his orgasm. His entire body was on fire and he was grinning so widely that his cheeks ached.
It was like flying, like Quidditch, like catching the snitch over and over again.
Reality confronted him rather abruptly, and his good mood vanished as the smile faded from his face. He kissed Sirius’s cheek, then whispered a cleaning charm against his skin, ridding them of all cum. Sirius gently lowered the two of them to lay down on the bed, and Harry collapsed into Sirius’s side, snug underneath a pale arm.
Soft lips pressed against his forehead.
They were silent for a long while. Outside, however, thunder roared with all the force of a mountain lion, angry and ferocious. This summer had felt like divine retribution, nature’s revolt against humankind. The drought was as much a punishment as penance. The rain, nature’s forgiveness, washed away everything but their sins; in its wake, an unopened letter remained on the kitchen counter, forsaken.
It hadn’t been the first of its kind. Nature’s whims were as much destruction as rebirth.
Harry steadied his breath, resting a hand on the center of Sirius’s chest, over that crudely drawn rune as vitriol hit him full force.
“France,” he said, apropos of nothing, voice so faint he hardly heard it himself.
Sirius had heard him, though, with ears so sensitive they must have been acquired by way of his animagus form. Despite the hoarseness in Sirius’s voice, courtesy of what they’d done, he said, “Continue.”
Trepidation crept into Harry’s chest, and he tried to force his words to outrun it. “I like teaching Quidditch.” Another fragmented thought.
His bed creaked faintly as Sirius shifted to look more fully at him. It hadn’t protested when his legs were clenched around the man, when Sirius was stretching his restraints to their limits, but now, in the face of Harry’s vulnerability, it faltered.
He took another breath, eyes remaining on that tattoo. Protection, he recalled, from glancing at Hermione’s Ancient Runes notes one too many times.
“I want to teach at Hogwarts,” he clarified, trying to be honest. “After I retire. But I can’t do that if I’m stuck waiting for somebody else to retire.”
Bitterness festered hotly within him, a mangy, ugly thing that refused to let up.
“I got an offer from a French team.” He curled his fingers, covering the rune with his entire hand. “It’s new. And small. But they want me to be their seeker.”
There had been a wretched part of Harry that was still waiting for things to be perfect. Now, he was waiting for Phillips to retire. Before, to let his NEWTs decide his career path. Even before, farther back, he’d waited for Sirius to save him from that dank, musty cupboard.
Always, he had simply been…waiting.
Sirius had never saved him, but still he was here now, gazing down at Harry with his red lips pulled into a soft smile, eyes crinkling until they revealed the crow’s feet indented into their corners. Here was somebody who was willing to challenge Harry’s own beliefs about himself, without forcing him into another box. Somebody who had seen his magic and hadn’t attempted to pressure him into joining the Department of Magical Law Enforcement.
Sirius’s smile grew suddenly tense.
“Well.” He took a deep breath, his entire chest swelling with it. “I was thinking that it’d be nice to be closer to home, yeah? My family has a house in Versailles that hasn’t been used in ages.” Sirius paused, shrugging delicately as if he were scared of doing so. “It’d be nice not to live alone.
Bright eyes and a smile of mischief. Incendiary words cut by a genial tone. Sirius Black was nothing like what he’d expected, nothing like the codgy version of his father that he’d envisioned. Instead, Sirius was incandescent, peering into the dark parts of Harry’s soul with a muggle flashlight and taking root in the shadows, not chasing them away.
Harry hated him. Harry wanted to fuck him again. But mostly–
“I don’t know French.”
Although Sirius had stiffened, his words retained their easygoing lustre. “I can teach you, mon coeur.”
Harry’s heart fluttered. “What does that mean?”
“We’re not that far in our lessons, yet, are we?”
Harry’s lips pulled into a smile, sappy and goofy. “Okay,” he conceded, as if he’d needed much convincing.
“Hmm?”
“Let’s go to France.”
Sirius’s entire face alighted in joy, his grin wide and boyish as he tackled Harry into the bed. Harry yelped, then laughed freely into every kiss that Sirius peppered on his lips.