Chapter Text
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[“Bill and Fleur’s wedding, remember?”
Harry looked at him, startled; the idea that anything as normal as a wedding could still exist seemed incredible and yet wonderful.
“Yeah, we shouldn’t miss that,” he said finally.
His hand closed automatically around the fake Horcrux, but in spite of everything, in spite of the dark and twisting path he saw stretching ahead for himself, in spite of the final meeting with Voldemort he knew must come, whether in a month, in a year, or in ten, he felt his heart lift at the thought that there was still
one last golden day of peace
left to enjoy with Ron and Hermione.]
- The White Tomb, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
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1st July 1997
Dumbledore’s man through and through.
The day after Dumbledore's funeral is a...strange one. Harry can't concentrate on anything anyone says, his mind keeps wandering to Malfoy's face on the Tower, to Snape and the book that Harry had been using, to Dumbledore falling, falling, falling -
We’re with you whatever happens.
Harry has things to do, Horcruxes to find. If he can't stop thinking about all this, about the past, he'll never be able to do that. But. It's difficult. Harry clutches the Horcrux, as he nods to Ron saying something about Snape, not fully listening. The thought of Snape is intolerable at the moment, it's all...it feels like his fault.
It
is
his fault.
Like Sirius.
It's funny still, Harry thinks, that even after everything, after Snape’s betrayal, after Dumbledore's death, it's
Sirius
that Harry thinks of. Sirius who makes Harry’s eyes sting. He's not cried
properly
for him, he thinks, he's not moved on yet. He'll never move on. It's like he...still expects Sirius's ghost to come back or. Or something. Like Sirius isn't really gone.
He wants to see Sirius.
The idea comes to him in a heartbeat.
He takes out his Invisibility Cloak, and telling Ron that he would be back in sometime, he quickly walks to the seventh corridor, and walks across the large wall,
the mirror...the mirror...I need the mirror of erised...I want to look into the Mirror of Erised...I WANT TO SEE SIRIUS -
The door appears at that, slowly, sinking into view, and Harry goes inside, gritting his teeth when he sees the Vanishing Cabinet, right here, in the open. For any Death Eater to use, at any time -
He takes a deep breath, and walks further in.
He looks for the Mirror, still thinking, desperately, that he
wants to see Sirius, wants to see his godfather, wants the mirror of erised -
Nothing happens. Harry finds nothing. Nil. Nada. There's no goddamn mirror here. Harry had really thought he would find it.
Disappointed, he makes his way out, glancing to the left as he goes, before halting.
Holy shit.
Harry blinks, hard, stares at the window again. It's
night.
Already. But Harry gone inside the room at barely four. It's dark, outside, though, now.
He groans, already worried about answering Hermione’s questions as he walks. Just when he's near the Gryffindor Tower, he
sheds off the Invisibility Cloak, stuffing it into his pocket as he crosses that last bend.
Which is when, he sees the Marauders' Map.
Lying. On the floor. Just like that, three feet from the Portrait. In the open.
"What the hell," he mutters, frowning, as he goes to pick it up. Isn't Hermione supposed to have it? She isn't the type to drop things just like that. That also, important ones. Like the bloody
Marauders' Map.
Maybe it's not the Map, he thinks, doubtfully.
"I solemnly swear I'm upto no good," he whispers, and well. It
is
the Map. It opens up, and Harry's about to pocket it and go to the common room, when his eyes narrow in on his own name.
Harry Potter,
it says.
Right next to...
Sirius Black.
What the fuck?
The air in front of Harry suddenly ripples, and Harry blinks, eyes wide as they latch onto the hair and the eyes and the face and how is this possible- it's not possible - but
oh my god he's here -
"Padfoot!" Harry yells, a wide, involuntary grin splitting his face as he almost barrels into Sirius.
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Gryffindor Tower, 1976
"Kitchen Run, Jamie?" Sirius asks, sighing as James beams at Evans, again. Evans is staring at him like he's asked her for her first-born.
"Take Pete, Padfoot," James replies, his eyes locked on Evans pathetically. "Cloak's with him. Map's with - er - "
"I have it," Sirius says, frowning as he looks for Peter, who's sitting on the couch with a giggling fifth year girl.
Sirius wonders irritably why Peter always gets the girls he likes.
"Oy, Wormtail," he calls, rolling his eyes as Peter turns to glare at him. "Kitchens. Now."
Sirius watches absently as Peter makes his excuses, and comes towards Sirius, small grin on his face. "What's got your wand in a knot
now?"
he asks, glancing sideways at Sirius, as they walk out of the portrait, draping the cloak over them. "It was
your
idea to have the party, anyway."
"My mind changed," Sirius says, huffing and Peter shoots him a knowing smirk, taking the Marauders' Map from Sirius's hands.
"Oh," he says, lips twitching as Sirius scowls at him. "Your mind changed?"
"That's what I just said, isn’t it - " Sirius begins, irritably, when suddenly, there's a shuffling noise from around the bend of the corridor. Sirius freezes, and if he was Padfoot, his ears would probably be perked up right now.
"Transform," Sirius says, shortly, and Peter looks at him, alarmed. "Transform right now. We can’t move fast if both of us use the cloak. Pete,
hurry!"
he adds, as the shuffling turns to distinct footsteps which are rapidly getting closer.
Peter shrinks.
The footsteps become clicks, and Sirius presses himself to the wall, Wormtail twitching on his shoulder, Invisibility Cloak covering them head to toe.
It's not Filch. Or Mcgonagall.
It's
James.
Except, of course, it's
not.
He's much shorter than James, his face is
younger,
somehow - and his eyes are a worried green, his face set in a frown as he looks around, biting his lip. He's wearing Gryffindor Robes, but Sirius is sure he's certainly
never
seen him before. His eyes zero in to somewhere near Sirius's feet.
"What the hell," he mutters, and walks right upto them. Sirius curses mentally. Wormtail turns his little head to Sirius with wide, guilty eyes, and Sirius
knows
Peter's messed something up, again.
The boy bends down and Sirius holds his breath as he picks something up -
Oh, for fuck’s sake.
Sirius glares silently at Peter, the idiot who
dropped
the goddamned Map. Peter shakes his head slightly, as if to say that the Map is atleast not open.
Of course, that hardly matters, as Sirius will know in the next two seconds -
"I solemnly swear that I am upto no good,"
the boy who really, really shouldn't know this, whispers and it's all that Sirius can do to not make a sound.
Except if he knows how to work it, then that also means that -
He sees him mouth the words
'
Sirius Black'
with a disbelieving stare. Sirius winces, exchanges a look with Peter-the-Rat, and shrugs off the Cloak.
The boy gasps a little, stumbling back and then, looks at Sirius like he's a ghost, looking pale and shocked and
hurt.
There's a pause, and then -
"
Padfoot!"
he yells, and crushes Sirius into a tight and extraordinarily confusing embrace.
There are a lot of things on Sirius's mind, as he stands there, frozen in shock - Wormtail has jumped off his shoulder, inching away to look as if he's just come from the corridor, the boy smells like something that Sirius recognizes, there's a scar on the boy's forehead, he knows how to open the Marauders' Map, he
somehow
knows that Sirius's nickname is Padfoot, but most of all -
The single word spoken by the boy - the
'Padfoot!'
that he's spoken without hesitation, sends a ripple of black across Sirius's forearm. His Soulmate - because that is, apparently who the boy is,
Sirius's Soulmate -
remains oblivious to Sirius's mind racing intensely, cataloging a million questions and everything about this boy.
Finally,
finally -
he pulls away, probably because Sirius hasn't hugged him back, probably because he was just done with it and says, in a quiet voice like he's admitting a secret, "I always kept hope, you know. Even when everyone thought you were dead."
Sirius doesn’t know what to say. Finally, he settles on, "Dead?" he croaks out, and waits for him to react, waits for the boy to feel the ripple that Soulmarks make -
"But you came back!" the boy says, grinning, not a single sign of recognition on his face.
And
Oh.
He hadn't ever thought he could be the Soulmate of someone who wasn't his Soulmate
back.
It's shock he feels, but along with an odd resignation, because
of course.
This was just his luck, there was something apparently unlovable about him, something that -
"Sirius?" the boy asks, looking confused as he stares at Sirius, his eyes running up and down. It makes Sirius feel uncharacteristically conscious. "I-why do you look like- how do you- are those Hogwarts robes you're wearing- "
He breaks off.
"Oh my god," he says, mouth hanging open. "Oh my god! Oh- fucking Merlin- "
Sirius watches him as he tugs at his hair, raising a shaky finger at Sirius and back towards the hallway, Sirius's hand still wrapped around his wrist to hide the now-black word.
Padfoot.
He'd wondered so many times in the past, of how his Soulmate would already know his nickname to be
Padfoot,
of all things, but he'd never thought it was going to be this complicated.
"Fuckfuckfuck - "
Sirius really doesn't understand anything at the moment. "I - er - I
really
don’t know who you are," Sirius says, wondering if he's supposed to sound apologetic.
"Fuck, of course, you don't, not yet - !"
"Sirius?"
Both Sirius and the crazy-Soulmate-boy turn towards Peter, who's standing on the side and looking awkward. The boy blinks once, twice, his wand coming up seemingly unconsciously, before he takes a deep breath and asks, "What is the date, today?"
Sirius looks at the boy, who looks entirely solemn about his enquiry, and then, looks at Peter.
"Er - yesterday was Friday," Peter says, slowly. "So, today was - oh, it's the ninth. Ninth October."
There's a long pause. Peter stares cross-eyed at the boy's wand.
"...1975?" the boy asks, and if Sirius wasn't still wondering about his Soulmark, he would be utterly confused.
"1976," Peter corrects, incredulous.
"You're sixteen, then," the boy mutters, looking so completely
lost
that Sirius feels a twinge of sympathy. "This is complete bollocks ."
Peter shoots him another bewildered glance.
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Peter's
very
confused.
Sirius would say that's nothing new, but the point stands that Sirius also seems as confused as Peter feels, so something needs to be done.
The boy who looks like James keeps cursing. He's halfway to hyperventilating, and he's still not lowered his wand from Peter's throat. On a strange level, Peter sort of
likes
that the boy thinks of him as a threat. Nobody else does.
"How is this even fucking possible," the boy mutters, furious. "And
Dumbledore
, oh god - "
Sirius is clutching his forearm, and gaping -
Oh. Wait.
The boy had said 'Padfoot' hadn't he? Peter knows that Sirius's arm spells that.
Interesting
.
"I didn't mean to...
fuck
," the boy mumbles, and then sort of collapses against the wall, leaning on it for support and looking generally sick and tired of everything.
"Are you... alright?" Sirius asks, sounding uncharacteristically hesitant. It's also an uncharacteristically stupid question. The boy is obviously not alright.
"This is probably a dream," the boy whispers, looking at Sirius with a weird kind of awe. "Yeah. That's it. I'm dreaming that
Sirius is alive
and that he's hanging out with fucking Wormtail."
Well. Now, that's just offensive. Peter's a right pleasure to be around. He tries not to bristle, because the boy's wand is still pointed towards him.
"What's your name?" Peter asks, politely, trying to shrug off the look of pure loathing that the boy gives him.
"Harry," the boy says, as if startled into answering. He glares at Peter, right after saying his name.
Harry.
"How'd you know about us?" Sirius suddenly demands, his wand shooting sparks. Harry-whoever seems unfazed, like he's sure Sirius wouldn't hurt him. "How do you know about the Map and about our nicknames and - "
"I just - " Harry starts, looking alarmed, when there's a
thud
sound from the other of the corridor and loud footsteps -
A group appears round the bend, green robes, jeering expressions. Peter stiffens, immediately, and so does Sirius. Harry looks stunned.
"Well, well," Mulciber announces, with a wide grin, too loudly for an empty corridor in the middle of the goddamn night, still in his Quidditch robes from the evening match that they lost.
"Look
at what we have here."
Snape and Avery step out from the bend right after him, and finally,
finally
, Harry lowers his wand, looking at the Slytherins with an unreadable expression.
"A pleasant evening to you too, Mulciber," Sirius says, sneering. "I must say, I did miss you quite a lot in the last four hours that we've been apart. If I had my Beater's Bat, I'd even give you another hit ."
Peter glances at Harry, who's still staring at the three Slytherins like he can't believe they exist, his gaze racing from one to the next.
Mulciber snarls and advances, but Avery grabs hold of his sleeve and pulls him back. "So, Black's being a little bitch again. What's new?"
"Yeah, you'd know a lot about bitches, wouldn't you?" Sirius says, twirling his wand, and Peter can tell that Sirius is quite glad that the Slytherins have come, if only for the distraction. "What with
your
mother."
Peter can safely say that Sirius's Mother is also a heinous bitch. Sirius can also say that, but he'd say 'Walburga' instead of 'mother.'
"You filthy little - " Avery screams, and then, spells are flying, first of course, from Snape's wand, right to Sirius.
Sirius is ready, but he doesn't need to be, because
Harry
is there first, going straight for Snape.
It's surprising, how much he looks like James in that moment, except worse - he looks like he's
out for blood.
Like he's going to seriously kill Snape.
Sirius looks shocked, but he takes Mulciber, and Peter gets Avery, as usual.
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Sirius likes his soulmate already.
With the kind of passion that the boy seems to hate Snivellus with, who wouldn't?
"
Expelliarmus!"
Sirius hears, and he knows that Snape's been disarmed.
Mulciber is bleeding from his cheek.
"Petrificus Totalus!" Sirius yells, sharply twisting his wand, and Mulciber goes down. He runs to help Peter, who seems like he's holding his own, what with Avery's face covered in boils.
The boy
-
Harry, his name is Harry
- is still with Snape, glaring at him with so much force, that Sirius is sort of concerned. Harry digs his wand into Snape's throat, and he's saying something but Sirius is too far to hear.
(Sirius would pop open a champagne and dance on Snape’s grave if he died, but this doesn't seem like the moment.)
"Stupefy!" Peter says, triumphantly, and Avery falls down, his jinxed boils bursting nastily on the floor.
"Nice one, Pete," Sirius says, walking to where Snivellus is standing with Harry.
Harry, his one-sided Soulmate who wants to kill Snape. Harry.
"I don't know what you're playing at, Potter, but - " Snape is saying as Sirius strides over.
Makes sense,
he thinks. Harry
does
look creepily like James.
"I'm not
playing
at anything, Snape, so Merlin help me - " Harry begins, angrily, his wand leaving behind a red burn mark.
Sirius silently feels glee.
"Hey," Sirius says, putting a hesitant hand on Harry’s shoulder, who flinches a little, but his expression doesn't change. "We need to go. Filch will be here, soon, what with the noise we're making."
Sirius turns his wand to Snape, who would be looking confused if not for the rage spelled out on his face.
"Stupefy,"
Sirius says, almost pleasantly, and Snape looks angry even as he falls to the ground.
"Yeah," Harry nods weakly, exhaling and swallowing, face white. "Yeah, yeah, you're right. I just couldn't, I was just, I got a little - "
"We're going to the Kitchens," Sirius says, more gentle than he's probably ever been with anyone. It's doesn't even require a conscious effort on his part. He just feels like he ought to protect this boy. "Come with us. Eat a little, and then we can figure this out."
We.
Sirius just said
we.
He doesn't know why.
"Yeah," Harry nods, and slumps against Sirius, so completely
trusting,
that it blows Sirius's mind a little. Like they're friends. Like they're family.
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