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The day the marriage law passes is the day Sirius assumes he will leave England forever. Oh, he wouldn’t be rash about it. He starts idly tagging his belongings when the bill lasts a full day in the Wizengamot without being thrown out, then speeds up his process when those purple-robed idiots spend a week in deliberation. A month later, Sirius can wave his wand and have all his belongings fly into their proper sections of the trunk he has next to his bed. Even the cookware and furniture has been tagged. Sirius is nothing if not petty when he’s pissed off.
Which is why, when the Daily Prophet arrives one sunny morning in June, declaring that the Law for the Restoration of Magical Society has passed by a small margin, Sirius barely reads the article before asking, “Greece, do you think?”
Across the kitchen table, Harry looks up from the sports section. “For dinner? Good idea. We’ll get double the baklava this time. Every time, you claim you only want a bite.”
“It’s your job to stop me,” Sirius huffs, then course corrects. “I meant for our move.”
Harry is silent, studiously attentive towards the Cannon’s scores in a way that Sirius knows to be fake. He didn’t have the privilege of watching Harry grow up, but there’s something to be said for living with a man for five years.
“Because of the marriage law,” Sirius prompts. He holds up the newspaper with the headline facing Harry. “Remember? The one that will force all those between the ages of twenty and forty to either marry immediately by choice or submit to ministry matchmaking in the name of repopulating the country after Voldemort’s ruinous takeover. You’ve only complained about it for the past month.”
Harry has done more than complain. They both have. They’ve pulled their considerable political weight—Harry as the man who destroyed Voldemort for good, Sirius as the man who was with him every step of the way—and rallied the people. They’ve given interviews and staged protests. They’ve tried to get the members of the Wizengamot pulled into St. Mungo’s for treatment of the mass delusion that they’re all obviously suffering from. It’s all been for naught.
“I’ve been thinking,” Harry replies. His hand twitches, newspaper folding slightly. “What if I stayed?”
A day ago, Sirius had a plan. Now, sitting here and staring at Harry, Sirius feels as though none of his preparations have been enough. “What do you mean, what if you stayed? They’d force you to marry!”
“I don’t want to run away. I can do more good within the country than outside it. So what if the government’s gone mad. That’s what the Ministry of Magic does; it makes stupid, overbearing decisions until it’s knocked down with common sense and regard for human rights. I can’t do that from Greece, Sirius.”
Sirius rubs at his forehead, feeling a headache coming on. “They’ll force you to marry as soon as they have you in their clutches. The sooner you marry, the sooner they can say that the Boy-Who-Lived supports this law.”
Harry’s chin is high, the set of his eyes steady. “Then I’ll say it’s not true. Besides, I won’t marry for anything except love. They can throw me in Azkaban for it if they want to.”
“Greece is beautiful this time of year,” Sirius says, wistfully. He would know. He’s traveled extensively after being declared free again.
It’s this that has Harry pause again. He seems to choose his words carefully when he says, “You don’t have to stay if you don’t want to. I wouldn’t blame you. It’s horrible that they’re doing this, even if you’re outside of the affected age range.”
“Don’t remind me of my age,” Sirius grumbles, even if in this one case, he’s thankful to be over forty. No one’s holding him by the throat and dragging him to the altar.
No, that’s only happening to Harry.
Marriage has been on the minds of just about everyone in the country this past month. Is it any surprise that he’s thought about it occasionally? Himself, standing at the altar, nice set of robes, friends all rounded up to witness. In his fantasies, the stand-in for his husband is Harry, because Sirius’ fantasies make no room for propriety. Only for the beat of Sirius’ heat and the tender emotions that he hasn’t found a way to squash.
“I’ll be alright,” Harry says, cutting to the root of the problem. “It’s not Voldemort. Everything else is a big step down in difficulty.”
“This is how you get into trouble. One dark lord dead and you stop taking things seriously ever again.”
“I take you seriously,” Harry replies.
There’s something about the look in his eyes that has Sirius simultaneously want to run away and take a step closer. It’s a good thing the kitchen table is between them. That, and the ever-present reminder that this is James’ son. Sirius has no right to imagine a future with Harry, let alone see is his lips will yield to Sirius’.
“We would be in Greece now if you did.”
“Chin up, Sirius,” Harry says, and leaves for work.
When he’s gone, Sirius downs his coffee in one big gulp.
There is a small blue dot at the bottom of the mug. The tag is useless now that Harry doesn’t want to leave. It’s not as though Sirius would leave without him.
To be entirely honest, neither does Sirius want to leave. He’s happy here, having spent the last five years after the war building a life that was put on hold at age twenty-one. He has friends, acquaintances, employment. He has a rotation of restaurants for takeout. In another country, he would have to spend months finding the perfect mix for his palate.
Sirius spends a long moment thinking about what the food will be like at Harry’s wedding. He imagines it will be terrible, as will his husband or wife. Absolutely horrid. Everyone will leave with food poisoning.
Then, he goes to work.
He apparates outside the shop instead of inside it, not wanting to trip over a customer or interrupt George’s brewing. They’ve kept the name, mostly out of respect but also because Black and Weasley’s Wizard Wheezes just doesn’t leap off the tongue. But there’s a stylized grim-like black dog in the logo now, tongue waving out.
There’s no Wheezes shop in Greece. That’s another point against the move, not that Harry needs any more ammunition.
Sirius waves to a busy Verity, then finds George in the potions room.
“Harry’s had a head injury. It’s the only thing that makes sense,” Sirius tells him. He walks over to George’s cauldron, takes a big sniff of it. “We’re out of Sneezing Powder already?”
“I’m trying a different spin on the recipe. You were saying about Harry?”
“He wants to stay in the country.”
“I told you that he’s too stubborn to really leave, no matter what he said before. Hermione and Ron are, too. They’re getting married this weekend so that they won’t be roped into the matchmaking process, but they’re still out at the protests and stalking Wizengamot members.”
“What about you? This will affect you, too.”
George shrugs. “It’s not like I have anyone anyway. And as Mum says, I’m not getting any younger. Could be nice to go and see who’s around. We’re all in the same boat with the law. It’s a conversation starter if nothing else.” George flicks a beetle into the cauldron, then looks up. “You could marry him if you weren’t being slow about it.”
“He’s my godson,” Sirius says, weakly.
George nods. “Yeah, it’s weird. His parents should have thought twice about appointing a hot godfather.”
“I’ll take the compliment, but we’re not marrying.”
“Sometimes I see where the rest of the houses are coming from when they say we Gryffs are stubborn to a fault.”
Sirius pointedly ignores him, picking up the next batch of greens to dice and throw into the cauldron. He knows the recipe by heart, which leaves him far too much time to think about George’s words.
It could be a chaste marriage. They could marry for the sake of the law. They would only kiss once before the ministry official.
It’s the devil talking, of course, and Sirius isn’t listening, but.
Wouldn’t it be a godfatherly act to protect Harry from this law? To get down on one knee and tell Harry that everything would be alright because Sirius would make it so?
Sirius is too biased to know what the right choice is anymore.
George is even worse. “Marry him already. I’m sick of all the pining.”
There are perfectly sensible reasons not to do such a thing. And yet all that’s stopping him is the judgment of two old friends, and that excuse is paper-thin. James and Lily aren’t here to shame him into loving Harry more platonically. They can’t arrive to object to the marriage. As the last of the marauders, Sirius should speak for them, should tell himself off for the insolence.
And yet, here he is.
Sirius waits a few days, just to know for sure that the ministry won’t go back on the law, and gets that Greek takeout.
He won’t do this publicly, so it’s in private that Sirius places a ring into Harry’s hand. It’s a family ring, several generations back. Sirius has always liked the look of it.
He doesn’t get down on one knee. It feels like too much, too soon, too serious. But he does say, “If you want it, it’s yours.”
“I told you I’d only marry for love,” Harry says. Sirius has a moment to think it a rejection, until Harry adds, “So you have to love me, Sirius.”
“I love you.”
“The right way,” Harry prompts. There’s a promise to his words, a steadiness to his gaze. Harry wouldn’t ask something of Sirius if Harry wasn’t ready to do the same.
It’s easier than Sirius expects it to be to say, “I love you, Harry. Marry me.”
“I thought you’d never ask,” Harry says, slipping on the ring. “I’ve wanted you to, for a long time.”
“I’ve wanted this, too,” Sirius admits.
The rest of their conversation gets lost in the kiss.
*
It turns out that Harry is right. Within a year, the law is repealed, the minister steps down, and there are rumblings of doing away with the Wizengamot, or at least with the broad power they can claim over the magical populace.
“I still say Greece would have been a good choice,” Sirius says, head resting on his pillow, eyes closed.
Sprawled out to him, Harry makes a sleepy noise. “We can go there for our honeymoon.”
“So now you’ll leave the country.” He says it without heat.
“Mm. Just for this. You.”
Sirius thinks of warm sea air, bustling cities, hearty food. And of Harry, standing beside him. “I’ll hold you to it.”