Chapter Text
1st august, 1986, Friday, 4 days till New Moon.
Day after Harry's sixth birthday.
Keiss, north end of Sinclair's Bay, east coast of Caithness, Scotland.
Summer.
7 AM.
"When you learn to ride the bike, I will let you use the broom."
"I don't understand why I got a broom if I can't use THE BROOM."
Remus laughed from where he was sitting, the Daily Prophet covering his face from the wind, his winter robe over his sweatshirt.
"For the fifth time" Sirius yawned, probably still indignant at having risen with the sun on an unusually cloudy Friday for a summer. The man ran his hand over his beard, opened his mouth to continue talking, but seemed to think better of it and gave up.
"I want to fly on the broom!" As irritating as the boy could be, the two missing teeth in front of his mouth would not let any of the men present take him seriously.
"Well, I want a new record, are you going to give me one?"
Remus put the paper down and gave Sirius a dismayed look.
"I don't care about your record." Harry's bottom lip was almost quivering now.
"Don't you care about David Bowie's Labyrinth?"
The boy seemed to be in doubt now. And Sirius looked more awake than he did 5 minutes ago, which was great. But not that great, since he had forgotten the packet of cigarettes inside the house and the only place he could smoke was outside.
"Don't you care about Queen's Kind of Magic?!" He asked, his voice emphatic and a playful, slightly insane look on his pillow-stained face.
The six-year-old boy seemed to think for a moment, but his green eyes behind the round lenses of his glasses soon found the Nimbus 85 leaning against the entrance door of the house and his expression went rigid again.
"I want to fly! Moony!’’ Harry called.
"Harry, dear" Remus had already given up on finishing reading the news, and threw the newspaper on the woody floor of the porch while answering loudly so that they could hear him from the small road after the fence "If you manage to ride the bike till the lamppost and back three times, we'll let you ride the broom, okay?" He reached over to the small table beside him to reach for the cup of tea, trying hard not to sigh at the stinging pains in his ribs and elbows. The happiness he'd felt when they figured it out that the full moon was over a week before Harry's birthday had passed, and all he could feel were the consequences of the damage. He knew he should remain optimistic, there was no point in brooding over his sufferings, he and Sirius had learned that over the past six years. He could allow himself to feel the pain, but at some point, you just have to let it go.
Keiss had an elementary school, which was a surprise at first. On the outside, the building looked like just one of the small houses on High Street, two stories, two windows, simple plant pots made of clay scattered on the asphalt of the sidewalk. Harry had started attending school a year ago and frequently went to the small park next to it even on weekends, when they were too tired to walk to the ruins on the beach or when they just didn't want to eat sandwiches sitting on the stone wall of the harbor. Sometimes, they visited the field next to the school to teach him how to play football. Remus would teach them while Sirius would make contemptuous comments about how much better Quidditch was and how Muggles didn't use their imagination, but in the end, it was just because he didn't know how to play.
There was a church on South Street, parallel to High Street. And, like everything else in Keiss, you could see the church from the school, and the beach from the church, and the beach from anywhere in the village. There, the vastness of the sky, the grass, and the sea seemed to swallow up everything else, suffocating them with peace, freedom, and salt air.
They did not live exactly in Keiss’s downtown, but just a few minutes walking would take them there. They didn't have a car either. There was no need. They owned an old, faded blue and rusty bicycle that they used when they needed to go shopping. And now, there was the red children's bicycle, bought in Wick, a town to the south, also in Caithness County. Remus and Sirius had agreed to give Harry the broom, as long as the boy also learned to ride a bicycle. Once the two men understood that this was what Lily would like, it had been easy not to worry about the money that would spend on the present.
After a few minutes explaining the whole theory behind the practice, Harry seemed minimally ready to try it himself and Sirius removed his hand from the bicycle seat, where he was holding to balance it. The boy took half a step forward and fell to the side, falling obtusely on the asphalt.
The men waited a moment before making any moves or questions. They had learned that, depending on how they reacted, Harry tended to cry or not.
The boy rested his hands on the floor and looked at the godfather with a crease between his eyebrows as if he had understood something incredibly difficult.
"If I had fallen off the broom, it would have hurt more, wouldn't it?" Harry found out.
Sirius Black threw his head back in a laugh that reverberated through the silent properties around him.
"Come on" The man bowed, extending his hand, helping him to his feet. When Harry was already standing, Black ran his hands over his little legs, removing the dirt from the small pointed and scraped knees. Sirius saw that the glasses were slightly crooked and adjusted them, still laughing "If you pick up speed, the bike won't tip over."
"If I go faster ..." The boy thought out loud "How am I going to stop? I don't know how to stop.”
"Er ..." The man was clearly not a big bike connoisseur.
"Use the brakes, Harry." Remus replied as he approached, extending the second cup of tea to Sirius "Use the brakes and put a foot on the pavement slowly."
The boy nodded and picked up the bike from the floor. Black helped him to give momentum, accompanying him with his hand on the back of the bench to give balance. After a few steps, he released it again. Sirius went back to Remus and took the cup of tea as he said.
"Sometimes I forget that he is only six years old." He took a sip "He's so smart."
A few meters ahead, Harry fell again.
The boy stood still for a few seconds, probably wondering if any damage had been done that would be worth crying. Still lying on the floor, he looked back and smiled at the two men, then got up.
"At least, he thinks for a while before being dramatic." Remus smiled behind the cup "Unlike some."
Sirius shoved him lightly with his shoulder.
"Idiot."
They looked at the boy, who was now putting the bicycle in their direction to pedal back to the front of the house.
"I don't think I managed to say good morning to you with Harry jumping on the bed," Black commented, looking away from the boy.
"I don't think I'm going to be able to say good night too with the number of scratches that I will have to cure later." Remus replies, but leans in anyway, resting his chin on the other's shoulder, inhaling Sirius Black's scent until he feels ecstatic and whisper "Good morning."
"Good morning." As he leaned in to answer, Sirius' beard crawled along the side of his cheek, causing shivers on his back.
Some birds from the ocean sang above their heads. The green grass of the surrounding properties rustled in the wind. The sun was a bright spot in the cloud-covered sky. There were no mountains, just the immensity of fields interrupted by small lakes and the North Sea.
"Maybe we should tell Harry to start pressing the brakes now," Sirius murmured, his voice slightly concerned.
Lupin raised his head in time to see the boy speeding towards them.
“Moony! Pads! Look! Pads! At full speed!” Harry repeated the phrase his godfather had said. The wind laced his black hair back, and his toothless smile melted more than the surface of the hearts of Remus Lupin and Sirius Black.
"The brakes, Harry!"
Unfortunately, Remus had to heal scratches on more than one person that night.