Chapter Text
18th July, 1991. New Forest National Park, Hampshire.
“No, not that pole, the other small one.”
“Sirius, all of these poles look the same I have no idea what you’re fucking talking about!”
“Tut, tut, language, Vance.”
“I’ll show you language when I shove this pole so far up your-”
“Okay, okay, can you two not kill each other before we’ve even got the tent up please, you have a whole week for that.”
“Yes and we’re in the middle of the woods which means nobody will ever find his body.”
“I will never understand how you two can be partners at work and have a flawless record but cannot work together long enough to put up a tent.”
“We’re allowed to use magic at work.”
“Why don’t you use magic now?”
“Because it's important to have skills without magic, Harry.”
“It’s also important that we have shelter before we get rained on,” Harry retorts and Sirius laughs as Mary huffs.
“He’s got a point, babe,” Emmeline says and they all cast their eyes up to the dark cloud that’s been looming closer ever since they started unpacking the tent.
As if on cue a crash of thunder rolls overhead and rain breaks through the canopy of trees above them and starts splashing down on their heads.
“Alright, alright,” Mary concedes, pulling her wand out of her curls, she flicks it at the pile of poles and canvas that has been half dumped on the floor as they tried to figure out how it went together. “I give in.”
The poles all spring to life, dancing around each other as they find the right partner to slot together and the canvas drags itself over the top, securing itself to the ground with metal pegs and in seconds the tent is standing in front of them fully assembled and none of them hesitate in ducking forwards inside.
“Cool,” Harry says as he casts his eyes around the inside of the tent, despite Mary’s insistence of using muggle methods, the tent is definitely not a muggle creation.
The inside stretches out, separating rooms by drapes of canvas, lit by various floating lanterns with the crackling fire pit in the middle of the main space. Sirius sees Remus smile to himself before he moves away, over to the kitchen area, filling a kettle and setting it on the stove. Sirius hasn’t been in a tent like this in years, not since they were at school and spent a week away from their parents before their seventh year.
“Find a bed, kiddo and dump your stuff,” Emmeline says, ruffling Harry’s hair as she walks past, she pulls one of the canvas doors open and tosses her tote bag on the end of a double bed and Sirius wonders idly if there’s an extension charm on that bag or if she’s packed incredibly lightly for a weeks trip.
“Any preference on bunks?” Sirius calls out to Remus as he peers around a couple of the material doors.
“Whichever,” Remus calls back, “you want tea?”
“Please.”
“Yes, please!” Emmeline shouts from her and Mary’s room.
“Mary? Harry? Tea?”
“Yes, please!”
“Yeah, thanks.”
Sirius pulls back a door and decides this room is just as good as any other and drops his rucksack down on the bed, summoning Remus’ over to sit next to his.
After a lot of debate over tent sizes, for some reason he’d been convinced to buy an eight person, fully furnished one so for the five of them, they have plenty of space for the week.
Too lazy to unpack now, Sirius leaves their things and goes to find Harry who has found one of the twin rooms and is carefully unpacking his clothes out of his travel bag and puts them away in the chest of drawers.
“All good, Prongslet?” he asks, leaning against one of the poles.
“All good,” Harry responds, shoving a large armful of his socks into the top drawer and Sirius wonders if he should have checked what Harry had packed and if it was all socks.
“You got everything you need?” he asks and Harry nods as he shoves all the drawers closed.
“I think so,” he responds, “how are we going to have a big fire if it keeps raining?”
As Harry finishes unpacking they head out of his little room and up towards the kitchen where Remus is fishing the teabag out of his last cup of tea.
“We could still have a fire,” Sirius tries, ignoring the disapproving look Remus sends him. Although they’re in the woods, away from everyone else, this is still a muggle campsite. “Or, we can have a fire in here. It won’t be quite the same but it’s still a decent fire pit.”
“And we can roast marshmallows?” Harry asks excitedly.
“Of course,” Remus says, carrying two of the mugs down towards the little sofas and hammocks and Sirius grabs the other three, following after him. They set the drinks on the coffee table and as Sirius sniffs one of the teas to see if it has sugar in, Mary and Emmeline come down to join them.
“This was definitely the right choice of tents,” Mary says, holding onto the hammock as she passes so Harry can scramble into it without flipping over and once he’s settled, she drops down onto the sofa next to Remus, her head resting against the arm on the back of the cushions and his hand moves automatically to scratch her hair.
“If you say so,” Sirius says, taking a seat on the other sofa and Emmeline flops down next to him, making herself comfy curled into his side and Sirius lifts her legs over his lap so her knees aren’t digging into his stomach and her head rests on his shoulder. In truth, he’d had no idea what tent to buy and had just agreed to pay for whichever one her and Remus settled on.
“So,” Emmeline says, “we never did settle on an itinerary for this week.”
Sirius’ head falls back against the back of the chair and groans. This girl and her itineraries.
“Stars,” Harry says, his head popping up from over the edge of his hammock.
“Stargazing, yes,” Emmeline says, “maybe not tonight though.”
The sound of rain is still heavy on the canvas of the tent and Sirius doesn’t think they’d be able to see a single star out there now.
“Do you still wanna go on a horse ride, Harry?” Mary asks and Harry nods. He’d had a couple of lessons on the brown and white speckled horse that grazed in the field opposite Kingfisher Cottage and he’d liked it enough but it wasn’t something he wanted to do every week like Sarah did or like Mary had before she went to Hogwarts.
Harry nods though, he’d enjoyed spotting all of the wild horses as they’d driven into the New Forest and to their campsite, Sirius thinks he’ll enjoy seeing more of them whilst riding a horse and he’s happy to let Mary and Emmeline take him so he and Remus can have time to themselves. Sirius personally wouldn’t mind going horse riding and he knows that if Harry asks, Remus wouldn’t say no, but Sirius also knows he’d suffer through the next few days after, his muscles would spasm and his bones would ache making the rest of the trip less enjoyable. Mary and Emmeline knew this too and never mentioned them joining their hack.
“There's a museum and gallery,” Emmeline says and Sirius looks down at her curious tone of voice, she shifts awkwardly and Sirius grunts as her elbow digs into his ribs so she can pull a pamphlet out of her back pocket before settling against him again.
“Where did you even get that from?” he asks.
She shrugs. “The campsite office.”
“Museums don’t sound like that much fun,” Mary says, “do they have anything interesting?”
“Mmm, local fossils?” Emmeline says, “and an extensive painting gallery.”
“Muggle paintings?” Harry asks with a frown, he’d been on a school trip the year before to a local art gallery and had come home incredibly disappointed that he couldn’t talk to the subjects.
“Yup, sorry kiddo,” Emmeline says. “There’s a motor museum though.”
That perks Sirius’ interest. “With bikes?”
“And cars and buses. They also have ruins of an old abbey and a manor house garden,” she reads and he peers down at the pamphlet over her head, there looks to be an impressive range of muggle transportation and in the back of one of the pictures he can see the front wheel of what he thinks is a Harley.
“That’s a good mix,” Remus says.
“Do they have a bike like yours, Padfoot?” Harry asks.
“Nobody has a bike like mine.” Sirius winks.
“All in favour of the Beaulieu motor museum?” Emmeline asks the group and they all raise a hand.
“Alright, how about we explore around here tomorrow, the horse riding place isn’t far from here. Maybe we walk there and see what they’ve got going on and if we have to book?” Mary suggests, “we can go to Beaulieu the day after?”
“We can drive there, I don’t think it should take too long,” Emmeline says, looking at the little map on the back of the pamphlet, “I think I know where this is.”
“You drive around the New Forest often, do you?” Sirius asks and gets an elbow into his ribs.
“Hush,” she says, “it can’t be that hard.”
-oOo-
It turns out, it was that hard. Emmeline’s sense of direction had not prevailed and Sirius thinks they’ve passed the same bridge across the river at least four times. He’s glad they spent yesterday walking through the forest, meeting wild ponies and traipsing across to the little family owned stables that Mary had scouted out, it meant that Harry’s head rested against Remus’ shoulder, fast asleep. They’d had to leave camp early to get to the museum in good time and Harry, still tired from yesterday, had fallen asleep within ten minutes of the drive. It had been a successful trek to the stables, getting Harry, Mary, and Emmeline a hack across the new forest for the end of the week, giving Remus and Sirius the afternoon to themselves.
“Wait, there!”
Remus’ head snaps forwards at Mary’s shout from where his eyes had drifted out of the window and sees her pointing to a brown sign at the side of the road.
“Fucking hell, could they make it any harder to find?” Emmeline mutters as she indicates to turn right, slowing to let the oncoming cars pass before she turns off of the main road and the car rumbles over a cattle grid.
Harry groans, pressing his face further into Remus’ shoulder and he looks down as Harry wakes up, his glasses askew.
“Are we ‘ere yet?” he murmurs sleepily.
“I think so, pup,” Remus says.
“We’re never gonna let your Auntie Em navigate and drive again,” Sirius says in a low voice.
They all laugh when Emmeline mutters a quiet, “you could still be walking back, Black.”
Harry sits up properly and stretches his arms up and Remus is grateful for the interior extension charms on the mini so he doesn’t get an arm shoved in his face.
Emmeline parks the car and they all make their way up towards the main entrance of the motor museum and Remus can’t help but smile fondly as Sirius’ eyes light up at the sight of the muggle transportation. It’s divided up into decades and Remus can’t deny his interest at the sight of some of the first styles of cars. Sirius is like a kid in a sweet shop, showing Harry everything he deems interesting excitedly.
“Oooh, Arthur’s just bought one of these,” he says and Remus looks down at the sign that reads 1959 Ford Anglia 105E Deluxe.
“Is he still planning on making it fly?” Mary asks with an amused smile.
“Oh, yeah,” Remus responds, “every time he sees Sirius he’s trying to get the secrets to the bike.”
“You still won’t give it to him?” Emmaline asks.
Sirius scoffs. “Merlin, no,” he says, “that bike is a masterpiece, you can’t recreate that. Besides, he's enjoying the little project.”
“He gonna register it?” she asks and Sirius grimaces.
“I tried to tell him,” he says, “he said it’s not worth doing until all the modifications are complete. Until then, I’m turning a blind eye.”
“Smart,” Mary says, “I’d not want to get slapped with that fine.”
“He should be fine as long as he doesn’t let any muggles near it,” Emmeline says as she squints at the car, “I would have chosen a cooler car though.”
“Like a mini?” Remus teases only to get a dirty look from Mary.
“Hey there is nothing wrong with my mini.”
Remus holds up his hands defensively. “It’s great just not in the backseat,” he admits.
Mary’s eyes narrow. “There’s an extension charm,” she mutters as a family of muggles walk a little close by. “It’s quite comfortable.”
“Maybe with shorter legs,” Sirius says, dropping a kiss on her cheek before dodging out of the way of the swat she aims at his arm.
-oOo-
That night Sirius lies back against a soft blanket they’ve spread out on top of a hill near their camp without a tree or building in sight, giving them a completely unobstructed view of the clear night’s sky. Harry lays between him and Remus, his head pillowed on Remus’ arm as Remus' fingers play with Sirius’ hair. Emmeline has made herself comfy with her head resting on Remus’ stomach while Mary is tucked under Sirius’ other arm, her hair tickling the ends of his nose whenever he turns his head to the right.
“You see there? There’s a really bright star that's Mirach, it’s got two stars directly above it then one on its left and two more on its right,” Sirius says, his voice quiet in the silent night and Harry cocks his head to follow the line he’s pointing, “That’s Andromeda’s constellation. There are more stars to it, but you can’t see them from here though.”
“How many stars are a part of it?” Mary asks a little wistfully.
“Sixteen main ones,” he replies easily. He could read the stars before he could read his own name, knowing his star shone brighter than the rest. Sirius doesn’t think it matters who taught him the constellations, it’s the only thing his family ever gave him that allows him comfort. After all, no matter what was happening in the world or where he was. The stars were always there, even if all of the names of people who hurt him lie there too.
“You’re not up here are you?” Emmeline asks.
“Nope, wrong time of year.”
Emmeline hums. “I was rubbish at astronomy,” she says, then points directly above their heads, “I do know that that’s Vega. One of the brightest stars we can see, and it’s a part of Lyra.” She moves her hand down and dots out the constellation. “It’s next to the dragon.”
Sirius scoffs. “Draco,” he says, thinking briefly of the spawn of Narcissa and Malfoy. He’d never met the kid but of course Malfoy had named his son after the dragon.
“I can’t see a dragon,” Harry says, scrunching up his nose.
“See where Vega is on Lyra?” Sirius points. “Go left a little, there’s another bright star, Eltanin. That’s the dragon's head, the wonky square. Hold on, let me just…” He reaches for his wand and with a slight flick, little balls of light shoot out of the end, hovering above them inline with Draco, mapping it out clearer. “You see it goes down to its neck, then back to its body and its tail.”
“It doesn’t look much like a dragon,” Mary complains, “more like a snake.”
“Most of them don’t look like what they’re named after,” Remus says, “it’s what makes it so damn confusing.”
Sirius barks a laugh at his expense and he knows without looking that Remus is rolling his eyes at him. “Just because you weren’t top of the class at something.”
Remus tugs at the ends of Sirius’ hair. “Top of the class? I barely got an acceptable.”
“Hey, if there’s one useful thing my family taught me to do it’s know the stars,” he says, “I don’t think there’s been a Black at Hogwarts that hasn’t been top of the class in astronomy.”
“If you’d had kids, would you have carried on the tradition?” Mary asks quietly from his side and the question takes Sirius off guard, his brow furrowing as he continues to stare up at Vega. Honestly, he doesn’t know. He’d never planned on having kids after the age of about fourteen so he’d never really given it much thought, especially after he realised just how much he didn’t want to pass on the Black name.
A small part of him remembers the feeling of belonging that the family tradition had bought him. He could see his families entire past and future spread out in the sky above him, both the good and the bad. And he still hears the quiet words two scared boys would trade in the dead of night. “Look to the stars.” “We’ll see each other, together again there.”
“I don’t know,” he admits quietly, “maybe.”
In his quietest nights at Hogwarts, when he felt homesick for a place he was never welcome. Stargazing like this, put his family into perspective, he could see them all, the ones who are long gone and the ones who are yet to come. The good and the bad.
And even if he was to never have kids of his own, he knows he’d been right. It had been his family's future, Andromeda had gone on to give Dora the middle name of constellation, carrying on the tradition while upholding no other Black family value. While a hundred miles away even Narcissa - who had made such a life for herself outside of the scandals the Black name had become synonyms for - had passed the tradition on to another generation.
It was after all, impossible to truly dig up the roots in which you grew from.
“Is that Mars?” Harry asks, breaking through the reminiscent haze that had settled in Sirius’ mind. He was pointing in completely the opposite direction and they had to turn their heads to look in the direction he’s pointing.
“To the right of the moon?” Sirius checks, “yeah.”
“Is the one further down a planet too?”
“I think that's Jupiter, Mercury is normally near it this time of year just not as bright,” Sirius says.
“What about that one? It’s dimmer, but brighter than the rest?”
Sirius shifts his head closer to Harry so he can look down his arm at the star he’s pointing to and the complicated feeling of nostalgia returns.
“It’s Arcturus,” he says, “part of the Bootes constellation.”
Remus’ fingers still in his hair and he hears Emmeline shift as Mary stays unnaturally still and he feels a warmth at their silence. Letting him choose if he wants to change the subject or not.
“It’s twenty-five times bigger than our sun,” he says after a moment. And is thirty-six light years away, he doesn’t say. After all, two little boys used to spend hours combing over astrology texts, trying to find out everything about their namesakes. “It’s the third brightest star in the sky. The second brightest in the northern hemisphere.”
“Cool,” Harry says, innocently missing the edge of pain in Sirius’ voice and Remus lets his fingers resume the gentle scratch in Sirius’ hair. “Second to you!”
Sirius smiles slightly. “Yeah,” he murmurs, “always second to me.”
-oOo-
“You okay?” Sirius asks quietly, pressing a kiss against Remus’ bare shoulder, tasting the reminisce of sweat on his skin. The full moon was only three days away now and although they’d planned to have a relaxing day, with Harry, Mary and Emmeline off horse riding, they’d ended up making the most out of the empty tent.
Remus hums, tilting his head to look down at Sirius, a fond smile playing at the corners of his lips.
“We should get up,” he says and Sirius groans, refusing to let his moment of warm serenity be over, he tugs the blankets tighter around them and wraps his arm across Remus’ chest as if to stop him getting out of bed.
“Not yet,” he whines, “I’m comfy.”
Remus laughs but doesn’t push him away and instead brings his hand up to brush the mess of Sirius’ curls back from his face, letting Sirius look up at him through his lashes.
“We said we’d start to pack up before they get back, to make it easier for tomorrow,” Remus reminds him and Sirius resists the urge to roll his eyes.
“Mary is taking this muggle skills thing too seriously, we can have everything packed up in two minutes flat tomorrow,” he says and Remus smiles.
“It’s not the point,” he says, repeating what Mary had said a thousand times on this trip and Sirius laughs slightly. He loves her to pieces, even if she does insist on making tea on a little camping stove, letting the water boil in its own time. “We’re supposed to be getting firewood too.”
“Pass me my wand and I’ll get a whole stackful without leaving this bed,” he says, “I won’t tell if you don’t.”
Remus hums, laying his head back against the short headboard, closing his eyes. “Five more minutes won’t hurt,” he allows and Sirius smiles against his skin
“We’re gonna have a lot more time for this soon,” he murmurs and Sirius feels a complicated mix of emotions at the thought. He can’t deny it will be nice to have more time to themselves but it's bittersweet, to see Harry old enough to go off to Hogwarts, for him to spend most of the year away from them, to not need them any more.
“We are,” Remus says and his own pinched brow makes Sirius think he’s not alone in his feelings.
“Do you reckon he’s gonna cause as much trouble as we did?” he asks, letting his cheek rest against Remus’ collarbone.
Remus laughs quietly. “God, I hope not,” he says, “or we’ve gotta be the disapproving parents and discourage it.”
“I could never,” Sirius swears.
“But no, he’s too much like Lily,” Remus decides and that makes Sirius laugh.
“Hey, Lily helped us with her fair share of pranks. We’d never have been able to finish that hair changing potion in time if it weren’t for her.”
“Yeah but she was always smart enough to not get caught,” Remus corrects.
Sirius hums in agreement. “True,” he allows, “I guess time will tell. I do wish we could give him the cloak, carry on that Potter tradition.”
“You gonna ask Dumbledore for it back again?” Remus asks, his fingers coming up to brush Sirius’ hair back off of his forehead and Sirius closes his eyes, leaning into the touch.
He’s not spoken to Dumbledore in several years now and the topic of the invisibility cloak hasn’t come up since years before that. While they had no use for the cloak, Sirius had agreed for Dumbledore to continue his studies of it as long as Harry got it back, in full working condition after he comes of Hogwarts age. Sirius wishes he’d clarified exactly when after Harry’s eleventh birthday.
“I will,” he says and lets out a heavy breath, just the thought of trying to negate his way through Dumbledore’s passive replies is exhausting, never mind seven years of him being attached to Harry. He focuses instead on Remus’ warm body underneath him and the feeling of his fingers in his hair. “That’s a problem for after we’re home.”
Eventually, they do drag themselves out of bed, pulling on their clothes and Sirius swipes Remus’ jumper off of the floor and tugs it over his own head without shame, his hands disappearing under the too long sleeves.
Sirius summons good firewood and lets it fall into a pile next to where Remus is stacking dried leaves with shredded strips of yesterday's copy of the Daily Prophet. Sirius drags a couple of chairs out of the tent, setting them together in a little ring Remus as he lights the kindling with a spark from his wand.
It’s not long before the sound of laughter draws nearer and Harry, Emmeline and Mary appear between the trees. Emmeline says something that makes Harry laugh and Mary shoves her shoulder lightly only making Emmeline laugh more as she stumbles into a twisted tree.
“Hey,” Sirius calls out as they draw nearer and Emmeline collapses into one of the camping chairs with an exhausted groan.
“Dear Merlin, my legs hurt,” she says, “nobody said it would be a workout like that. We come bearing food.”
“Uh, I think I did,” Mary says, dropping down into the seat next to her and opens the filled paperbag she’s holding and the smell of hot chips wafts over to Sirius.
Harry laughs and Sirius reaches out to ruffle his hair as he sits down in the seat next to Sirius. “Have fun, pup?”
Harry nods. “We went up and over the hills and all the wild horses came over to us while we were at the river,” he says, “and Em’s horse splashed in the water and she got all wet.”
Sirius chuckles as he sees Emmelione’s disgruntled expression. “Please tell me you got good pictures,” he says to Mary and her returned grin is all the answer he needs. She levitates two bags of chips across to him and he passes one to Remus as another smaller one, flies over to Harry.
“So what else did you see?” Remus asks, leaning back in his chair and they listen as Harry’s smile grows and he recounts their entire half day hack across the fields. Sirius watches the joy in his expression as he talks and he feels a rush of pride swell up inside of him at the boy that Harry has grown to be.
It’s not the life that any of them wished for him, it’s not even the family that they wanted him to have. But, Sirius thinks, perhaps an animagus, a werewolf and two incredibly powerful witches don’t make a half bad family.