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As the front door to Sirius’s townhouse shuts behind him, Harry has only a moment to question what he’s doing here—whether he made a mistake in coming, whether Sirius will even want him here—before Sirius calls out. “Harry,” he says, “is that you?”
“Yeah,” Harry calls back, setting off down the hall.
Too late to back out now.
Before he can get too far, Sirius appears in the doorway to the kitchen, a concerned furrow in his brow. “I thought you had a date tonight.”
Harry steps into the arms that open as soon as he’s in reach. Rubbing his cheek on Sirius’s shoulder, letting the comforting scent of him pool over his tongue, he says, “Me too.”
Sirius catches on quick, lets out a hurt noise. “Oh, sweetheart,” he says, stroking Harry’s hair.
“I really liked him.”
Sirius’s arms tighten around him, then abruptly relax. “I know you did.” Before Harry can even begin to think of what to say next, Sirius asks, “Have you eaten?”
“No,” Harry admits; they hadn’t gotten that far when his date walked out the door.
“C’mon then.” Sirius shepherds him into the sitting room, depositing him on the couch that Harry relaxes into by sheer force of habit. “I’ll be right out with dinner.”
“But—”
“Nope!” Sirius interrupts. “No protests. I made too much for one, and you’re doing me a favor.”
Harry sighs, but he also smiles.
Typical.
Not long after, Sirius strides back into the room, two steaming bowls held in his hands. Harry rises, reaches to take one. Sirius pulls it back out of reach. “That one’s mine,” he says quickly. “This one”—he extends the second bowl—“is yours.” At Harry’s odd look, he clears his throat, looks at the bowls instead of meeting his eyes. “You hate mushrooms when you’re this close to your heats, so I took them out for you.”
Does he really?
He’s never thought about it before. “Oh,” he says for lack of anything better. He takes the bowl, holds it close to his chest as he curls up on the couch, and feels warm in more ways than one. “You track my heats?”
“Of course I do,” Sirius says. Then he falters. “Is that strange?” When Harry doesn’t say anything— can’t say anything—he shifts in place, fidgets with his fork. It’s a rare thing to see him this nervous. “Oh, Merlin, it is. Look, Harry—”
“It’s fine,” Harry says, recovering. He means it. “Don’t—don’t apologize.”
Some of the tension drains from Sirius’s shoulders. “Right.”
“Thanks, by the way,” Harry says after a few bites. He lifts his bowl at Sirius’s questioning look. “For the food, but also”—he makes a broad, sweeping gesture—”everything else.”
Sirius smiles. “You’re welcome.”
Eventually, belly comfortably full and lingering embarrassment soothed away by stories from Sirius’s Hogwarts days, Harry confesses to the horribleness of his failed date.
“He tried to say it’s about him, not me, but he was lying,” Harry says quietly. His attempt at curling into himself, at shrinking right out of existence, is thwarted when Sirius grabs his legs, pulls them to extend over his lap. “It is me. I’m not…omega enough.”
“Harry—”
But Harry swallows thickly, powers through. “He said he wanted someone he can take care of. Someone he can protect. And I guess I—I’m…not. That.”
“Bullshit,” Sirius says, seething. “That’s bullshit, Harry.”
“But—”
“He’s wrong.”
Harry laughs—a dark, strangled sound—because it is funny, even if it mostly just hurts. “He said he wanted to provide for someone. He took me to the cheapest pub on the block, and he didn’t even pay for our drinks. He didn’t even offer.”
“What an asshole,” Sirius says, so sincere that Harry can’t help but smile, just a little. He rubs a soothing hand over Harry’s calf. Then he adds, “I could teach him a lesson for you, if you’d like.”
Harry laughs again, startled.
The problem is, he can’t tell if Sirius is joking or not. He’s found it’s usually better to assume he isn’t. “I think he’d shit his pants.”
He has to admit, even if just to himself: there’s some appeal to the idea.
“He’d deserve it.” Sirius cocks his head, waiting. “Well?”
“Um.” Harry drops his gaze to Sirius’s hand where it rests on his leg. If Sirius is out chasing after asshole alphas, he won’t be here to put his hands on Harry, which means—“Maybe next time.”
Sirius snorts, squeezing his knee. “I’ll hold you to that.”
They stay that way for a while, sitting in comfortable silence with Harry’s legs on his lap and Sirius’s hand on his knee. It’s nice. He used to dream of this. Other things too, but this here—a quiet moment, both of them healthy and well fed—there was a time he thought he’d never get it.
It makes him think. Makes him wonder. For the first time in a long time, his thoughts wander down paths long overgrown, long buried.
He says, “You protect me.”
Sirius lifts his head from the back of the couch. He frowns, and Harry knows he’s thinking of all the times he thinks he’s failed. “I certainly try.”
“You take care of me.”
“When I can.”
“And—” Harry wants to look away. Instead, he takes a fortifying breath, holds Sirius’s steady gaze. “And if all my vaults were drained tomorrow, would—would you…”
Sirius sighs, but his expression is fond. “Always, Harry. No vault drainage required.”
Harry knots his hands together in his lap and thinks, oh.
Thinks, how long—?
“You know,” he says, and by some miracle his voice doesn’t shake, “the first time I saw you, I thought you were the handsomest man I’d ever seen.”
A bark of laughter. “What?”
“It’s true!” Harry insists, grinning. He can’t help it when Sirius sounds like that. “I—I had a picture from mum and dad’s wedding. You were laughing.”
Sirius sobers quickly. “Ah, well.”
“What?”
“It must have been such a disappointment, seeing me in person.”
Harry bites his bottom lip, then confesses, “Not really.”
Sirius stares at him, disbelieving. “You must be joking.”
“I mean it. I”—Harry shakes his head, laughs at himself—“I had, just, the biggest crush on you. For years.”
“You—what?”
“I don’t remember when it started,” he admits. But, really, he thinks that’s to be expected. “I only started to notice…after.”
After Voldemort.
When the space in his brain reserved for worrying about the imminent torture and death of himself and all his friends was freed up to worry about other things instead.
“There’s no shame in that. I’m sure having a dark lord after your head was distracting.”
“Yeah.” Distracting. Harry likes that. It makes Voldemort sound like something small, inconsequential, a footnote in his life—what he would have been if the world had only been kinder. “A bit.”
Sirius squeezes his knee again. “You never said anything.”
“No,” Harry agrees. “No, I didn’t. I thought—I didn’t want to get in your way.”
“Harry,” Sirius says, disapproving.
“I mean, not that I don’t do that now,” Harry rambles, fidgeting as his gaze slides back to his lap. “Interrupt your life, I mean. But.” He shrugs, helpless. Frustrated. “I didn’t want to be greedy.”
“You couldn’t be.”
Harry’s head shoots up. He stares.
“You must have realized. You must know,” Sirius continues. He leans in, and Harry holds his breath. “All of this—everything I have—it’s already yours.”
“I—But, what about—”
Sirius scoots closer, puts his hand on Harry’s face. It takes all the willpower Harry has not to nuzzle his wrist, where his pulse beats steady. “I mean it, Harry. Everything.”
“How long?” Harry asks, voice quiet.
A gusty sigh. “You’re so young.”
“Sirius.”
“Harry, please, just listen,” Sirius begs, and so he does, unwilling to deny him anything. “You spent so many years—years that should have been spent learning, growing, loving—you spent them fighting for your life. And then you were free. You finally had time to…to become yourself, on your own terms. What kind of alpha—what kind of man —would I be if I’d gotten in the way of that?”
“Oh,” Harry breathes.
“Tell me you understand.”
“I do,” Harry says, and it aches. A good ache, this time. Or, at least, not entirely bad. “But”—he swallows, takes a careful breath and tries not to feel small when he asks—“but you wanted to?”
“Yes.”
The confession lands heavy in his chest, knocks the breath from his lungs. It’s warm.
“I can take care of myself,” he says.
Sirius’s thumb strokes his cheek, beneath his eye. He says, “I know.”
“But. I—I like it. When you take care of me.” He leans into Sirius’s hand, breathes in the warm, familiar scent of him. It makes all the tension in him go liquid. “I want to take care of you, too.”
Sirius smiles at him. “You do, Harry,” he says. He sounds like he means it. “Every day is better with you in it. You make them better, you always have.”
Merlin.
Harry’s hands flex where they’re resting on his thighs. He has to touch him, so he does; he laces his fingers through Sirius’s, one on his face, the other in his lap. “Can I—”
“Yes,” Sirius says. “Anything.”
Harry laughs, feeling loose-limbed and happy, like something he never even knew he’d missed has clicked into place.
He never thought he could have this.
“Can I spend my next heat here?” When Sirius’s eyes go wide, he hurries to say, “Not—not together, not that way, yet, but…”
“Here?” Sirius’s hands on him tense, holding tighter. “I mean—yes. Yes, Harry. You’re always welcome here.” Then, mind obviously racing, he says, “We’ll need to prepare a room for you, make sure you’re comfortable. I can set wards down, too, that way you won’t have to worry about me—”
“Sirius,” Harry interrupts, nudging him gently in the ribs with his knee, “relax. We have time.”
“But the wards could take—”
“Don’t worry about the wards,” Harry says. “I don’t need them.”
In other words, I trust you.
By the look on his face, Sirius hears them loud and clear.
He looks at Harry like he’s a dream, like he can’t quite believe this is happening. And Harry can relate, because he feels it, too. He’s dreamt of Sirius for so long—of Sirius’s hands on him, of sharing his heats, of sharing everything—but this is real.
This is better.