Work Text:
It’s been nearly 20 year since Sirius has last been in this house but he still knows which floorboard to avoid and which steps to skip to navigate through it soundlessly. The long nights of restful sleep that he’d grown accustomed to at Remus’s are now long gone and he doesn’t want to wake Remus with his early morning agitation. He feels like a ghost wandering the dark halls, but he isn’t, he reminds himself. He fucking hates it here but there’s Harry and Remus as well, at least. There’s also a grim sort of satisfaction, Sirius thinks, in being the last one left who used to live in this house. Well, except for Kreacher.
There’s a light on in the sitting room and Sirius stiffens. He doesn’t carry his wand with him. It sits securely in the wardrobe of his bedroom under a pile of worn clothes and part of him wants to race upstairs to grab it, but he waits, blinks a few times, shakes his head a bit. He’s fucked up more than he can put into words by acting before thinking and since Azkaban, his fight-or-flight instinct is triggered by anything and usually leaning towards fight. Sirius clenches his jaw and takes some slow steps forward to peek around the doorway.
It’s only Harry. He’s sitting on the settee in front of the fire with Crookshanks sprawled out beside him, petting the cat idley. Sirius shifts just slightly, so the wood panelling creaks under his weight. Harry looks up at him slowly, already used to the everpresent groans and moans of the house. He waves at him a little awkwardly and Sirius makes an effort to stand straighter. He feels himself turning into a sort of a creeping demon the longer he stays cooped up here and he doesn’t want Harry to see him as that, as a ghost. Sirius takes a few steps into the sitting room and stands behind an old armchair, resting his forearms on the back of it.
“You alright?” His voice comes out cracked now, scratchy from years of disuse and he hates hearing it. It reminds him a touch of Remus’s, hoarse and worn from howling at the moon but where Remus’s voice sounds soft and warm, Sirius thinks he just sounds old, like something is rattling around inside of him. He clears his throat and tries to speak with more force. “It’s a bit early still, I reckoned I’d be the only one up.”
Harry hums in affirmation and nods. “Yeah, I’m good. It’s just…” he hesitates a little, as if thinking his next words out, “I’m just getting used to it here.”
Sirius laughs at that. “There’s no need to be diplomatic, this place is fucking, er, it’s hard to be in.” Harry smiles at him. “Always has been. It is nicer having people here though, makes it feel less empty.” That isn’t really true, Sirius has realized. He thought it would be. He thought, hoped, that staying at Grimmauld would be easier with more people around, specifically people that were not his family, specifically Remus and Harry. It is easier, minutely, sometimes but most of the time he feels the same bone-deep dread he used to being here. Everything has a memory here, a haunting reminder of all the bullshit he thought he was done with years ago.
“Were you at Lupin’s then? Before this?” Harry’s soft voice tears him back to the present, back to being here in this sitting room in front of a warm fire with his godson. Harry looks at him with curious eyes, the reflection of the flickering fire tinting his glasses. They haven’t had much opportunity to talk. Or maybe they have and they’ve just been too aware of the awkwardness of the situation, of two people who were supposed to be family but who hardly know each other. Sirius realizes now that he needs to respond, that’s he’s spent a touch too long within his own mind again.
“Yes, I...yeah. He’s got a little cottage out in middle-of-nowhere Wales. I was there for about three weeks before we lugged most of his stuff here.”
“He’s been staying here since then too?”
Sirius looks at Harry a little questionably then, cocks his head slightly to the side. “I...yeah, where did you think he was staying?”
“Well he doesn’t have a room here,” Harry says innocently, “so I wasn’t sure if he was just flooing in and out or something."
“Oh, he -” Sirius panics a little for a moment, at explaining to his godson that Remus does have a room here, a room he shares with Sirius, when he sees Harry fail to completely hold back a smile, lips twitching up on one side. It’s not James's shit-eating grin, but Lily’s. It’s the look she’d always give them when she figured out something they were too stupid to realize, when she knew she was being clever. He shakes his head, laughing a little, and takes a seat in the armchair next to the settee. He leans forward, resting his elbows on his knees, and reaches out to ruffle Harry’s hair. Harry ducks his head and laughs as well but Sirius can tell he looks relieved now that he’s said something. “Alright,” Sirius says, still smiling, “you figured that one out, did you?”
“I don’t think you were being particularly subtle.”
Fair enough, Sirius thinks. They haven’t been making a show of anything. There’s been no kissing in the kitchen or anything like that. Just perhaps lingering touches, leaning heavily against each other while they’re sitting around the fire, Sirius following Remus around and just watching him as he works on whatever editing he does now. Sirius doesn’t regret it even if everyone has caught on. He might have before but not now, when Remus’s presence is one of the only things keeping him sane in this nightmare of a house. “I don’t know if I even know how to be subtle anymore.” Sirius sighs but he’s smiling. “And Remus just doesn’t give a shit. Probably would have used to but not now.” Sirius says that last part more to himself than to Harry. It’s one of his favorite parts about who Remus has become, how he’s so unapologetically himself now.
Harry doesn’t say anything for a bit, just nods and stares into the fire while scratching Crookshanks under the chin. Sirius lets himself get lost in his own head again, about who he and Remus used to be and how they’ve changed before Harry speaks up again. “The two of you have…” he breaks off a little and waves his hand a bit, “been together for a while?” Sirius can’t quite place the look on Harry’s face; perhaps a touch curious and wary but there seems to be a softness beneath it, an almost fond look.
“Yes, yeah we’ve..” He thinks for a moment about just how long it’s been. “Since sixth year, I think? Maybe fifth, I can’t remember when it happened anymore. It got a little fucked up around the war, it-” Sirius breaks off with a groan and slouches down into the chair. “Molly’ll have my head if she hears me saying ‘fuck’ around you.”
In the time they’ve spent together, he hasn’t heard Harry laugh much, not really but the sound of it takes him by surprise. He’s looking at him with true joy in his eyes and it’s almost painful for Sirius, that he’s so much like James. But he shakes his head and smiles slowly at him.
“I’m fifteen,” Harry says around his burst of laughter. “You think I haven’t heard that before?”
Before Sirius can tell him off mockingly for being a smartass, he hears one of the steps creak, the third from the bottom from the sound of it, and turns around to see Remus shuffling into the room. He’s fully dressed but still looks groggy, blinking blearily in the early morning light with his hair sleep-mussed and Sirius wishes he could scoop him up into his lap. He mumbles a hello at the two of them and takes a seat crosslegged on the floor in front of the burning fire. “Sirius cursed around you a lot when you were a baby.” He fixes Sirius with a warm look. “Your dad was furious, hexed him silent for two days once.” Sirius remembers that, just barely, like most of his happy memories when they were all together. They come back to him slowly when Remus retells them but more like a dream and less like something that actually happened to him.
Harry smiles softly at Remus, a little sad at the corners and pulls his knees to his chest. “My mom didn’t mind?” He never rushes in with questions about his parents. He seems to welcome whatever information or memories Remus gives him but always with a longing sort of expression on his face, like too much will overwhelm him. It makes Sirius ache to see it.
Remus chuckles a little and shakes his head. “No, she thought it would be funny, actually, if your first word was a curse word.”
“She thought it would piss her sister off, I remember that now. I was just helping her out.” Sirius ruffles Harry’s unruly hair again. “That was me and your mom, teaming up to irritate our families.” Harry looks up at him and he can see the pain in his eyes but he’s glad to see it mostly pushed away by a genuine smile. Remus meets Sirius’s eye with an approving nod and looks like he’s going to respond before he breaks off in a yawn. “What are you even doing out of bed?” He checks the clock on the mantle. “Not even 6 o’clock yet, this might as well be the middle of the night for you.”
Remus scoffs at that and unfolds his legs to let Crookshanks settle between them. “Perhaps you’re forgetting but I did teach an 8am class three days a week for nine months straight just a few years ago.”
Harry makes a slight noise of disagreement and Sirius smiles brightly at him. “Yeah but, you were late to the first day of class.” Sirius breaks out in a laugh and pulls Harry in for an oddly positioned side-hug.
“Ooh I had not heard about that one, Harry.” He looks over at Remus, shaking his head and resolutely not looking at them. He’s focusing all his attention on Crookshanks, whose loud purrs add to the comfort of the room, but Sirius sees him smiling, sees the softness in his eyes. “Doesn’t surprise me though. Remus never took a class earlier than 10 if he could help it.” Remus looks up at him, eyebrow raised like he’s disapproving but Sirius sees past it. He can tell Remus feels as warm in the moment as he does, in sharing their life with Harry like this.
The dull thud of footsteps can be heard on the floor above them now, the other occupants of the house slowly coming alive to the morning. He knows soon Harry will be called off to help set the table for breakfast, Remus will make his way through whatever Order work he has, and Sirius will do whatever busy-work Dumbledore sets out for him, but at least they have a few more minutes as the three of them. As a family.