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Sirius waved his wand to block out the sun. The curtains slinked shut with a soft rattle and he flopped onto his side, hoping to catch another hour or two of sleep before he had to get Mari up for the day.
The Potter household was certainly not a strict one, not remotely strict by Sirius’ standards. But come the summer holidays, Lily Potter had a firm list of rules and responsibilities for her daughter and overgrown live-in friend, both of whom had strong tendencies to lay in bed all day rather than enjoy the summer festivities. At least when the Potter matriarch was away for work.
Sure enough, a note was stuck to the inside of his bedroom door written in ink pen (Lily avoided a quill when she could) with instructions for the day.
Sighing to himself, he dropped his feet to the floor and stretched his arm as far as he could without leaving the bed. Lily enjoyed tormenting him by casting charms on her notes to keep Sirius from summoning them from the comfort of his mattress.
He read over the words and smirked at the greeting, feeling an immediate fondness for the red-headed terror, his best mate’s wife.
S.O.B.,
Rise and shine, lazy bones. A wonderful day of menial housework awaits. I won’t let you sulk yourself into oblivion if I can help it. I fully expect Marigold to partake in these lovely character-building exercises as well (yes, that is a threat).
There are sandwiches and lemonade in the ice box for lunch. Tell Marigold she can have Ginny over AFTER her chores are finished.
Keep an eye on those two, they’re nearly as bad as you and James in school.
Love Always,
Evans
P.S. James still isn’t home yet. Tell him to send an owl as soon as he returns. I’m sure it’s nothing to worry about.
The back of the note had a list of house chores. Sirius nodded to himself, glad he and Mari cleaned out the shed last week. He despised that one.
His eyes lingered on the postscript when he turned the parchment back over: I’m sure it’s nothing to worry about.
Sirius dressed himself and made his way to the loo, scratching his neck as he thought of his friend. It wasn’t unusual for James to have a late night on the job. Auror work was unpredictable, demanding, often-times dangerous. He had come home beaten and bloody with a roguish grin on his face so often Sirius forgot sometimes that a bloody, dirt-stained James was not the natural state of the man.
Regardless, James rarely worked so late that he would miss breakfast the next morning. It was the meal the four of them shared most often, one they would have shared that morning if Evans hadn’t had an early shift at the hospital.
There was something about the postscript that made him ponder. After all, Lily Potter could hardly be described as an anxious person. She always remained calm and unfazed when her husband staggered through the front door with a gaping wound, fixing him up without a word.
She made it clear from the start that she supported James’s choice of career but Sirius saw it for what it was - James would shrivel away into a purposeless blob if he was robbed of the ability to fight injustice.
Sirius envied him for it, stuck as a blob himself for the past few years without an outlet to cope. At least I have chores, he mused, sharing a sympathetic smile with his reflection in the bathroom mirror.
The war shattered many but it did not shatter James Potter. It clicked something into place for him. Sirius believed, and he knew Lily was aware of it too, that something like a fire lit under James when Harry was killed. He snapped to attention and made an eternal commitment to fight the evils of their world no matter the cost… so long as it didn’t jeopardize his family.
The fact that Lily’s tone in the note carried with it a hint of mild concern told Sirius she was more worried than usual. James should have gotten a message to them somehow. He knew how Mari would run herself spare if he were gone too long.
Her run-in with the Death Eaters several years back still haunted her daily thoughts and no one had been more proactive than her father, communicating his whereabouts with her as much as he could without breaching the confidentiality of the department.
Nothing to worry about...
Sirius finished up with the toilet and made up his mind to check on her when the sound of shattering glass echoed throughout the house. He swore and zipped up his trousers, fumbling to get into the hallway. Her room was vacant. He heard voices downstairs, one of them Mari’s and… James?
“Mari! What was that?” he shouted.
She yelled back and he caught the words, “Madman in the kitchen!”
Sirius threw himself into action and grabbed his wand, panicked thoughts crashing through his mind like a tidal wave. He barely registered his feet pounding down the stairs.
Not again. Not again.
“I’ll kill them. I’ll do it this time. I swear I will. Those mother-” He swung around the banister and skid to a stop at the entrance to the kitchen.
Before he could blink, before he could catch his breath or take in a single feature of the boy crouched by the kitchen chair, he cast a stunner. The boy looked stunned at his sudden entrance and muttered something under his breath before the spell hit him square in the chest.
“What did he say?” Sirius asked, stepping between the boy and his goddaughter.
Mari set the beater’s bat she wielded on the kitchen table, shoulders sagging. She was breathing hard, eyes fixed on the fallen figure.
“He said… I think he said, Sirius .” She looked at him. “He must have recognized you.”
She took a step toward the boy but Sirius held her back. “Don’t go near him. You should change. I’ll take care of it.”
Mari crossed her arms and raised an eyebrow. “ Take care of it. What does that mean? Are you gonna dispose of him in the garden? I don’t need to change, I’m not going anywhere. Anyway, these are my normal summer clothes.”
Sirius looked pointedly at her hippogriff slippers. She lifted her chin, daring him to comment. Sirius shook his head, knowing how futile it was to reason with a Potter who had their mind set on something.
“Fine. Whatever. Stay.”
“What are you doing?”
“Taking his wand. You don’t want him attacking us when he wakes up, do you?”
“Someone’s a bit snarky this morning.”
A black cloud rumbled in the recesses of his memory. “Pardon me for being concerned that a bloody stranger broke into our home with your parents gone.” He shut his thoughts off, refusing to let that familiar storm strike him down. Not when Mari needed him.
Not now.
“We need to interrogate him.”
“What?”
“We need to find out what he knows, who he is. Pull that chair out, I’ll restrain him.”
Mari gave him a weird look. “Why don’t we take him to the Ministry?”
Sirius soured at the suggestion. “Rather not bother them with this. It’s our house. This kid broke into our house, therefore we have the right to deal with the situation as we see fit.”
“I don’t think it works that way— ”
“Hush. Now hold this. Don’t use it.” He passed over the holly wand and levitated the boy onto the chair. “Steady him, I’ll summon the restraints.”
Seconds later, the boy was slumped against the chair, hands tied behind the wooden frame. Sirius tilted his chin, studying the adolescent features. Atop his head was a mop of dark, unkempt hair. He wore rumpled dress robes. Formal ones. Like he’d come from a fancy event. Resting between the ears of the boy’s bowed head was a pair of round-rimmed glasses. His skin was several shades darker than Mari’s, though not nearly as dark as James’.
Sirius crouched down and peered into the boy’s face, ignoring Mari’s spluttered protests. His brows were pinched, even in sleep. A slight downturn of the lips gave off the impression of someone who would not take kindly to waking up bound to a chair.
Even the air surrounding the boy had a sort of pressured static to it like he’d recently walked through a magical waterfall and the essence still lingered.
There was something about him, Sirius decided. Something not entirely foreign, not entirely unwelcome despite the nervous energy radiating between Marigold and himself.
Yet, the young man broke into the Potters’ ancestral home for some reason and Sirius would not allow any strange, lukewarm emotions to lure him to a place that could put his goddaughter at risk. Not again.
“How did he get in?” Sirius tossed the question over his shoulder.
“Haven’t the slightest. He was in here by the time I got downstairs.”
“Why didn’t you get me?” he asked, jaw clenched. “You always get one of us if something like this happens. We’ve been over this-”
“I don’t know!” She cried, arms flying up. “You sleep like the dead and I wasn’t about to let him find me first!” Her wild auburn air had fallen out of its updo.
She shouldn’t have to deal with this. I shouldn’t have slept in. She doesn’t need more of this crap to keep her up at night.
Sirius pinched the bridge of his nose, swallowing the bile rising in his throat, the mounting panic at how close they’d been to a repeat situation… he shook his head, telling himself not to dwell on it.
This isn’t the time.
He stepped back and set his shoulders, eyes on the intruder. “We do need to question him,” he repeated. “Find out what he wants, why he’s here-” Deja vu overcame Sirius when the boy twitched against his restraints and groaned. His head rolled to the side, revealing a profile that looked so damn familiar... “Find out who he is.”
Sirius laid out the plan. He made it clear he would be the one asking the questions, making the appropriate threats, etc. He warned Mari should the stranger try anything or break out of his restraints that she would run straight to the floo, to her mother at St Mungo’s. There was no reason to interrupt her work before they knew what they were dealing with.
The boy’s shoulders twitched again. They watched him in silence for several minutes.
“You really think this is a good idea?”
“Of course I do, Godric knows we won’t have answers for weeks unless we do this ourselves.”
“And you’re an experienced interrogator, are you?”
“I know what I’m doing Mari, I’ve dealt with criminals before.”
“Fine. But it’s not on me when mum and dad come home to the house up in flames and a ransom note saying ‘If you want to see your daughter again, hand over your Gringotts gold.’”
Sirius couldn’t hide his flinch. Her words stirred something painful within him and she knew it. “Mari…”
“Sorry,” she sighed. “Just get on with it, then.”
Sirius nodded sharply and woke the slumped figure the best way he knew how — with a strong kick to the shin. The kid had to have broken into their house with bad intentions, Sirius wasn’t about to offer him a pumpkin pasty.
The black-haired boy jerked awake with a gasp, taking in his surroundings with an owlish blink. Sirius wasn’t surprised when he tugged on his restraints. What he had not expected, however, was the color of those eyes.
Bright. Alarming. Emerald green. The same shade as another pair. Only one other. Belonging to a woman who walked the halls of Potter Manor daily.
A flash of fury crossed the stranger’s face when their eyes met. Sirius gathered himself and crossed his arms, meeting the boy’s glare with equal ferocity.
“Care to tell me what you’re doing in our house?” he asked.
Calm. Collected. In control.
“Care to tell me why you have the face of a dead man?”
Sirius blinked, completely thrown off guard. “Wasn’t expecting that one,” he muttered to Mari.
She huffed and shoved Sirus out of the way, berating the boy with impressive vitriol. She topped off the beautiful performance by threatening to drag him to the ministry should he refuse to answer their questions. Sirius couldn’t even find it in himself to be upset that she disobeyed his ground rules.
When she stepped away, however, Sirius took up the frontline again and pointed the two wands in his hand at the boy’s chest.
Calm. Collected. In control.
The stranger analyzed him, too-green eyes searching their faces, their appearances.
Sirius let him.
The face of a dead man, he’d said. Now that was fascinating.
Why would the boy, a virtual stranger, think Sirius was dead? Unless he was an old acquaintance of Regulus’s and mistook Sirius for his brother (it wouldn’t be the first time). He couldn’t make heads or tails of it. The thought disturbed Sirus in more ways than one and he shuddered as the silence carried on.
“You said I had the face of a dead man,” he began, cutting the boy’s observations short. “What did you mean? Why would you think I’m supposed to be dead?” He adjusted his grip on the wands.
The boy’s gaze flickered, his frown deepening, “I’ll answer your questions if you answer one of mine first.” A glance to the side told Sirius he was stalling for time.
“What happened when your family found your Muggle Studies OWL results?”
“Come again?”
“I need proof that you’re Sirius Black. Answer the question and I’ll answer yours.”
Sirius wanted to laugh at the random simplicity of the question. How would O.W.L. results prove anything?
“How the hell do you know anything about me?”
“Because you’ve told me. If you are Sirius Black you should remember the conversation we had that night, it wasn’t a particularly enjoyable one. Unless your memories have been messed with- which is probably likely.” He gnawed on his lip, scrutinizing Sirius. “Even if you don’t remember me, there’s no reason for them to take those memories. I trusted the Sirius Black I knew so if you want me to trust you enough to talk, answer the question.”
This kid has a few gobstones loose, hasn’t he?
Sirius couldn’t find a loophole, a trick, in the stranger’s question. It was odd that the boy claimed to know Sirius on a personal level, which he knew was completely false. Sirius wouldn’t forget a boy with eyes like that.
If the kid was there to harm him and Mari, wouldn’t he have asked about something of greater substance, something to gain an upper hand over the situation, an upper hand over Sirius? Why ask about something as insignificant as O.W.L. results? And Muggle Studies O.W.L. results at that?
It’s a security question, he thought to himself, a common practice for The Order… was the boy affiliated with The Order somehow?
He glanced at Mari, wondering how much she knew about his upbringing, how much her parents had told her. It was never his favorite topic of conversation. He also wondered how in Godric’s gaudy hat the boy knew anything about his life.
But Sirius was curious enough to find out.
“They... weren't happy," he explained, remembering his parents’ cold, furious faces.
After years of manipulating his end-of-term results to keep the knowledge of his enrollment in the class from his parents, he’d slipped up. Somehow, the packet of his results wound up in the hands of his parents during the winter holidays of his fifth year. He still suspected Regulus as the culprit.
“They saw I had passed Muggle Studies. Didn't know I had taken it until that Christmas, and, well…” The fallout had been horrible. It certainly did not help matters when he grinned like a fool at the shimmering ‘E’ on the parchment. His parents had not been so pleased.
He recalled the fall from his second-story window, the final conversation he had with Regulus before everything blew up in his face at Christmas dinner. He recalled the sprint through the cold on four padded feet.
“I went to a friend's house. My family never invited me back.”
James had reminded him, as the years went by, that from that night onward they would be brothers in every way that counted. In every way but blood.
Mari and the boy watched him, waiting for more. He didn’t indulge them.
“Satisfied?”
The boy gave him a once-over, calculating something behind his intense gaze. Sirius must have answered the question correctly when the stranger turned to Mari and told her to ask away.
Mari blinked. “That's it? You're ready to talk now?”
Sirius let her take over, thoughts dancing away toward something deeply unsettling. He couldn’t stop looking at the boy. His eyes were Lily’s. There was no denying it. Sirius had never known another person with those eyes.
Except for—
No. Stop.
It wasn’t just the irises, though. The hair — the color, the texture, the way it messed up at the back — that was all James.
If Sirius closed his eyes and imagined James Potter at Hogwarts in their seventh year, there would be very little difference between his friend and the boy sitting in front of him.
“Okay…” She side-eyed Sirius. He could practically hear her thoughts: who is this nutter? “Alright... er - why did you break into our house?”
“Didn’t break in. I woke up under your stairs.”
“You mean the cupboard?”
“Yes… that.” The boy’s eyes shuttered and he looked out the window.
He looked sad. Sad and lost.
He didn’t know how he’d gotten there, he told them. “I’m just as confused as you are,” he said. The more he explained himself, the more his shoulders slumped.
When he mentioned an escape from Death Eaters, Sirius’s hunch that the kid was not an enemy spy was confirmed.
And perhaps that confirmation was the catalyst for the dissociation Sirius experienced next.
“He’s on the rise, Pads,” James said as he stirred the cauldron.
“We’ll be alright though, won’t we? It’s not like he’s got a personal reason to come after us.”
James laughed, “You mean other than the three times we personally got in the way of his plans? I don’t think any auror is safe, mate. Nor their families.” A shadow fell upon his features.
“Pa’foo!” A small voice sounded down the hall.
Sirius grinned and crouched behind the corner, waiting for the little face to appear. James smiled fondly and went back to his stirring — a pepper-up potion for Lily, who’d been treating a ward of patients with the mumblemumps.
Sounds of tiny shuffling grew closer as Harry moved one foot at a time alongside the wall, his hands guiding his path. Side-step, slide, side-step, slide. He had only just learned to walk and liked to meander around the house this way, so long as he had a wall to keep himself upright.
Harry let out a high-pitched squeal when Sirius jumped around the corner and swept his godson into his arms.
“Merlin, he takes after you, Prongs. Look at that mane!”
He grabbed Harry by the ankles and tossed him over his shoulder, to the boy’s delight. His dark hair stretched toward the floor, sticking out as though he’d touched a muggle elketric socket.
“NO! Pa’foo, nooo!” he giggled.
But the scene shifted… and the pleading turned into sobs.
Pain, greater than he had ever felt, spilled over his vision.
Flashes of those bright green eyes, wide with fear, with terror, tore through his soul.
Sirius blinked, taking steady breaths through his nose. He wasn’t back there anymore. He was in the kitchen with Mari. But his gaze caught on the boy. A boy with matching features of the child from his memories.
Sirius often wondered what Harry would have looked like had he survived that night. If someone had drawn up an image of the young man sitting in front of him Sirius wouldn’t hesitate to point to it and say: That’s him. That’s our Harry, all grown up.
Sirius drew closer, eyeing a lightning-shaped scar on his forehead — the starkest difference between the child he knew and the boy in front of him.
“What did you say your name was?” he asked softly.
The boy swallowed, answering just as softly, “I'm Harry Potter.”
Though Sirius knew in his gut the boy couldn’t possibly be anyone else, he hadn’t expected the answer to come so abruptly.
He staggered back in shock, at the words so clearly stated, at the sentence hanging between them.
How. Howhowhowhow how is this possible? He died. I saw him die.
“Marigold,” he said, voice stiff. “Go floo your mother. Tell her it’s an emergency.” It took everything in him not to fall to the floor in a heap when she hurried down the hallway.
Sirius jumped when the boy addressed him, unaware of how long he’d been staring. “Would you mind untying me?” He asked. “I’m sure we’ve established that I'm not here with evil intentions.”
Sirius couldn’t focus on the boy’s words. None of it made sense. He couldn’t wrap his mind around the meaning of it.
He nodded vaguely and flicked his wand. The bonds fell to the floor. “Sorry, I’m... a bit in shock.”
This can’t be Harry. It doesn’t make sense. Harry was killed. He was killed because of--
Sirius shook his head. “You don’t understand. The Harry we know…” he sighed and took a seat next to the boy. His eyes settled on Lily’s favorite photo of herself and James on the muggle refrigerator.
Deciding he might as well test the theory a bit further, he asked, “If you're Harry Potter, then who are those people to you?”
With only a moment’s hesitation the boy replied, “That’s Lily and James Potter, my parents.”
Damn.
“That’s what I was afraid of.”
How the hell am I going to explain this to James and Lily?
As though he had summoned her at the thought, Lily’s voice drifted toward them from the floo.
“You should probably get over here before Sirius flies off the handle,” said Mari.
Sirius thought that was ironic. Compared to the rest of the Potters, he considered himself fairly even-tempered.
As they listened to the conversation, the memories kept flooding him and Sirius could sense the familiar signs of an oncoming episode. He set his jaw and shot it all to hell, initiating his hunt for the hidden alcohol before Lily could steal it away again. He knew it was there somewhere.
The house wasn’t completely dry, try as they might to convince him otherwise. He’d often heard James sneaking a midnight drink after a long day in the field. If Sirius was forced to remain sober in the name of ‘Good Health’ then the rest of the family ought to join him.
It was the least his friend could do after the fall Sirius had taken for him back in ‘94.
He searched the pantry, stacking cans of soup and vegetables on the floor to get a better view. He knew better than to try a summoning charm. She was a clever witch, that Evans.
His back was turned when Lily and Marigold entered the kitchen… when they met face-to-face… when his dear friend Evans laid eyes on her son for the first time in sixteen years.
“I thought you said he was restrained!”
Sirius didn’t so much as look at her, determined to find the firewhiskey. “Yeah, well we decided he wasn’t much of a threat,” Sirius held the boy’s wand above his head to prove he wasn’t completely incompetent before moving to the next cabinet.
“We? There was no ‘we’ in that decision, mum. If it was up to me he would’ve been handed off to the Ministry without a second thought.”
Sirius gritted his teeth, losing his patience for the unraveling emotions coiled in his chest. “I wasn’t talking about you.”
He lost track of the conversation, every thought harnessed to his desire to drown out the ocean roaring between his ears. He nearly cried out with glee when the amber liquid caught the light from its place in the back of the third cupboard he searched. He knocked over a few dishes as he pulled it to freedom.
The tension in the room was thick when he turned around to find all eyes on him. Before Evans could snatch the bottle away, he winked at them and flicked off the cap, summoning a glass to show a modicum of civility; to show that he could be trusted with as dangerous a tool as a bottle of firewhiskey.
"Don't give me that look, Evans, I need this,” he said. “Didn’t hide this sucker nearly as good as you thought, eh?”
“What happened to sobriety?”
Sirius scowled. “Ask Mari what his name is, I’m sure she conveniently left that bit out of your floo call.” He took a sip, holding back a groan of pleasure at the numbness following the burn down his throat. Deciding to settle back and watch the scene unfold, he hopped onto the counter as Mari told her mother what the boy’s name was.
As expected, she didn’t take it well. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath through her nose. “What is she talking about?”
Harry looked at Sirius, wide-eyed. Sirius nodded, she’s asking you, kid.
Whatever the boy read in the gesture must have rubbed him the wrong way. He lifted his chin and confirmed his identity, asking them to let him return to ‘where he came from’ whatever that meant. Sirius didn’t have it in him to dissect the flicker in the boy’s eyes.
“You’re Harry Potter,” said Lily. The boy nodded. Lily drew closer. “When were you born?”
The boy -- Harry -- was tense, his entire body stiff. "Seventeen years ago, yesterday.”
Sirius stared. He shared a look with Mari, remembering the depressing, annual celebration they’d had the previous morning.
There were seventeen candles on that cake.
Sirius vacantly wondered how the boy had celebrated his big one-seven. He was wearing a golden watch but didn’t recognize it as belonging to anyone in the family. It was tradition, after all, for wizarding families to pass their watches down the line on every heir's seventeenth birthday.
Who gave him that watch? Who raised him? Where did he get that scar?
“Lily and James Potter are my parents. They had me during the wizarding war. We had a cat. Sirius gave me a training broom for my first birthday and I broke Aunt Petunia's vase." This was said too quickly, rushed and uncertain. But everything he said was true.
Sirius closed his eyes and took another swig, head spinning.
“What happened?”
When he looked up again Lily was tracing her thumb over the boy’s scar. And he knew, from the look on her face, that she believed it. She fully believed this boy was her son.
Dark magic, then. Some dark, unknown force brought him back to us.
It was the only explanation that fit. Maybe it had something to do with that scar.
"Long story."
“How are you here? How are you alive… and grown?”
Sirius swirled around the contents of his glass, the amber liquid reminding him of the first morning light he’d seen from his vegetable state in the Curse Damage Ward… when they told him that the boy he cherished more than anything had breathed his last breath.
It was the first morning without that dimpled grin, without that carefree laughter only the innocence of a child could provoke.
My fault. Myfaultmyfaultmyfault--
“My sentiments exactly.” Sirius raised his glass toward the pair, mouth twisted into a sardonic smirk. “Hence - the drinking.”
Mari finally shook herself out of her stupor and jumped up on the counter next to Sirius. “How do we know this guy is actually Harry Potter? For all we know, he stole that information off some old letter in the attic.”
Sirius automatically removed the bottle from his side when Mari went to reach for it. He gestured to the boy across the room. “Just look at him, Mari. The Potter features are hard to ignore.” He took another sip.
His goddaughter put up a strong case, making Sirius wonder if she was on to something as she countered his claim with theories of concealment charms, polyjuice potion, and transfiguration.
Sirius caught Lily’s eye, sharing the same thought: she could be on to something. They looked at the boy and waited for an explanation.
He set his shoulders. “Well, if I am polyjuiced it'll wear off in about an hour which I know it’s been at least two. What sixth year do you know who can brew that potion with effects lasting longer than that?”
Lily rolled her eyes at Sirius when he gave her a look, recalling a particular incident in their sixth year involving a prank on McGonagall.
Harry went on to explain his faults with human transfiguration, if they could be believed. When he mentioned the cloak, Sirius snapped to attention. No one had an invisibility cloak like James’.
“Where’d you get the invisibility cloak?” he asked.
“From my dad.” The boy replied sharply.
Yeah, right.
Sirius took another large sip of his firewhisky, mistrust growing.
“Mum, I’m sorry but there’s no way we can trust him,” Mari carried on, reflecting his thoughts. “No spell can reawaken the dead. This - this stranger has to be some lunatic who popped too many pills-“
“You know, I've heard that one before,” the boy added helpfully. Sirius almost huffed in amusement, almost.
Mari glared at the odd young man. “It’s only a coincidence that he looks like a grown version of my dead brother.”
Sirius sucked in a breath.
Shattered light.
Blue pajamas.
Agony.
Red stains on the carpet.
Hopelessness.
A single tear.
Darkness.
Sirius set his empty glass beside him and rested his elbows on his knees, focused on controlling his breathing, to keep himself from falling into the memory.
While this grown-up version of a long-dead Harry grappled with the fact that he had a sister and that by all laws of the universe, he should not exist, Sirius faded in and out of the physical space around him.
When the boy could find it in himself to speak again, the question he asked planted Sirius back in the present.
“Did he die on Halloween, your son?"
Shocked, Sirius’s voice cracked when he answered yes.
“How do you know that?” Mari asked.
Harry’s words came out hollow. “Because on Halloween 1981 I lost my parents. James and Lily Potter were killed by Voldemort in Godric’s Hollow that night.”
Sirius felt nauseous.
Mari accused the boy of lying, convinced that his presence was some kind of scheme to disrupt their family’s peace, to reverse the journey of healing they had been on for so long. Like Harry showing up as he had was some cruel twist of the knife at the universe’s hand.
Working herself into a rage, Mari stormed out of the room, shouting about how she was going to contact her father to support her arguments. “He’ll be on my side!” She yelled from down the hall.
“He never came back?” Lily asked. "He was supposed to check in mid-morning."
“I’m sure he’s fine.”
Lily wanted to run after her daughter but Sirius held her back, reminding her how much like James she was and needed space to process her thoughts.
“So you believe me then?” the boy asked.
Sirius considered him, mind riffling through the information he’d gathered. “As mental as it sounds… I think so.”
Evans caught his gaze. His stomach lurched. He’d been avoiding direct contact with her for this very reason.
While he and James’ friendship was so deep, they were convinced since they were children that they could read each other’s thoughts, there was something about Lily Potter’s concentrated gaze that could see straight through one’s soul.
They exchanged an unspoken conversation in that split-second.
Are you alright?
Fine.
Sirius, you haven’t touched a drop of liquor for two years.
Not fine, then.
He’s here, Sirius. He’s standing right in front of us.
I know.
What do we do? What is this?
I don’t know.
She turned to Harry. “I couldn't begin to understand how this has happened but the magical world never stops surprising me… so why shouldn't I hope this is true?” She had tears in her eyes. “That you're real. And somehow, someway, the world brought my son back."
She unfolded herself from Sirius and approached Harry, reaching toward him. “I don’t understand how this has happened but I believe you are my son."
Sirius had to look away when they embraced. The ocean was back.
“I know you’re my lost darling boy.”
Sirius thought Harry must have an ocean between his ears too. He looked like he was drowning.
The moment shattered when the floo sounded in the other room.
James.
With Harry and Lily immediately forgotten, Sirius flew down the hall, eager to reach his friend before the others, to explain the mess they had found themselves in.
What a shock it must have been when our Sirius Black did not find James Potter on the other side of that threshold, but a cluster of men with their wands aimed at his chest.