Work Text:
I.
The whole of Valence is in uproar-
Well, no, that isn’t quite right. The Muggles in the city below are quite content, really, on this brilliant July day, and Sirius is painfully glad that even if his mother wants his head on a platter, his grandfather has the good sense to realise how ugly it would be for the rest of their beloved society to see him turfed out and penniless after his exoneration. It means he had the money to stop in di Spina’s in Paris to seek out a pair of sun-glasses, because his eyes are still unused to the sun after three and a half long years in Azkaban.
Valence is very beautiful. The city, yes, especially the wizarding enclave where Sirius can walk unnoticed as he will never again in Diagon Alley, but up here by the chateau, too. He can see why Juno always spoke of it so longingly, why it was so easy for her to lie with her head pillowed on his thigh and talk about her home for ages and ages, until she decided it was time for food. Something about it, the sweet breezes rustling the fields of lavender and the way the sun bounces on the rows of sunflowers, suits the image of Juno that Sirius kept tucked in deep, right alongside Harry’s toothy little grin.
Best not think about Harry for now. He knows well enough that getting custody of Harry is a lost cause, no matter Prongs’ and Lily’s wills, but he would like to at least see him. He can move among Muggles easier than most wizards, so he’s sure that he could visit at whatever boring little place it is that Lily’s sister has settled down without scandalising the entire street.
The walls of Juno’s home rise up before him, strong and sturdy but elegant, too, whitewash bright and fresh and black capstones gleaming. There are flowering trees just behind the wall, jacaranda and magnolia peeping above the capstones, and Sirius is glad that he brought neither flowers nor wine to try and win back his fair lady. She would have laughed at him.
So really, no one in Valence is in uproar except for Sirius, and if he learned anything from Azkaban, it’s how to keep a lid on things.
He clears his throat and adjusts the straps of his haversack - he’s dressed incognito-ish, Muggle-style adjacent, hiking boots and jeans and a worn-soft England jersey. It’s a Quidditch jersey, because the Muggle foot-the-ball jerseys are so ugly that he can’t quite bring himself to wear one even for the purpose of a disguise, but it passes muster enough that Muggles don’t look too closely when he’s passing through.
He has his broom, of course, because he loves his bike but he’s not sure where it is, or if Hagrid used it at all after delivering Harry to his aunt’s arms. It’s not so difficult to charm his broom into looking totally innocuous when he’s in enemy territory. Mostly he makes it look like a large umbrella, or a hockey stick in a bag, and that seems to do the trick.
He’s stalling. He admits that to himself, even if he’s busy fidgeting with where his leather jacket is hanging from the strap of his haversack, under his arm, to make sure it doesn’t look awkward when he sees Juno for the first time in over five years.
She’s going to look tremendous. She always does.
“Alright,” he mutters to himself. “What would James do? He’d knock on the door and ask her out to dinner is what he’d do. He’d have a right laugh at me for fussing and fidgeting out here, wouldn’t he?”
Another thing he learned in Azkaban is how to maintain a conversation without a partner. His grandfather had suggested, not unkindly, that he break that particular habit.
He raises his hand and knocks on the polished gates, solid black wood with heavy black iron fittings - ancient things, as old and older as any of the glory the House of Black claims.
The knock echoes, and Sirius waits. Maybe Juno spied him coming up the hill and has decided she wants nothing to do with him, and he’ll be left waiting all day. She has two sisters who live here too, with their mother, and a little brother who might be visiting - not that Sirius can talk, but the undercurrent of complicated politics within her stories of her family had always confused him just a little. He wonders what any of them would do, if they were to answer the door.
The gates creak open just a touch, just enough for a head to peep out into the gap. A woman - a Veela woman, who Sirius would guess is older than he is and so can’t be one of Juno’s sisters. She looks enough like Juno that she must be closely related, but different enough that he can assume that she is not the hallowed Duchess herself, probably.
“Anatole!” she calls back over her shoulder. “ C’est un sorcier!”
A head pops up above the gate now - a man, very young, maybe the only man Sirius has ever met who’s better looking than he is himself, with a face that very nearly mirrors Juno. Do they all look this alike? For this is Anatole, Juno’s beloved baby brother, the person she loved best in all the world - the only member of her family she introduced to Sirius during that perfect, dull summer.
“Why are you here? Are you an Englishman?” he demands sharply, in French, and even from twenty feet below him Sirius can feel the scorch of his glare - he can’t imagine that they take kindly to wand-bearing visitors generally, not after what little Juno told him of their trials during Grindelwald’s War, but he couldn’t see how else to get a proper answer out of her as to whether or not there’s any point in trying to shore up what they lost when she fled London. He wonders what she told them all about her return home, and wonders how likely it is that he’ll be burned to cinders if she spoke ill of him.
“I am,” Sirius admits, also in French. “I’m a friend of your sister, Juno - I don’t know if you remember meeting me. Could you please tell her that Sirius has come to speak with her?”
The older woman at the gate gives a great whoop of laughter, the kind of thing Sirius is used to hearing from Dromeda - gutsy and hearty, and not at all what he became used to with Juno, who was always so elegant, always a little austere. That had been part of the initial attraction, far moreso than her lovely face. Sirius had never been able to back down from a challenge, and charming a smile from Juno had been the most fun he’d had since school.
“Come in then, Sirius Black of London!” she cries, shoving the gate open with bare arms corded in tight muscle. She’s dressed all in white, and that combined with her silvery hair and the gleam of metal that shows through her silks makes her really quite the vision in the sun. Sirius is very glad indeed to have stopped at di Spina’s. “Come, my niece will be most surprised to see you.”
Sirius doesn’t hesitate - he stomps right up to the gate, the shock of that easy laughter knocking the self-conscious nerviness out of him wholesale, and bows at the waist.
“Sirius Black of London,” he says, grinning wide. “A pleasure, Madame…?”
“Plain Invidia,” she says, beckoning him in with a jangle of heavy silver bangles. “It is my sister for whom you should save your pretty manners, I think - come, come! We are soon to have lunch, and you will never have eaten at such a fine table as my sister’s.”
“Then you are Juno’s aunt,” he says, names clicking into place now - she has an uncle, too, but on her father’s side, so he won’t be here. “She always spoke so highly of you.”
“A lie, but a pretty one,” Madame Invidia says, with a smile as sharp as the short sword Sirius has just noticed on her hip. “You’ll do well here, if the girls don’t eat you alive.”
He bites his tongue on a comment about maybe not hating the idea of Juno having a nibble, but something must show on his face because Madame Invidia gives him another of those robust laughs and a firm clap on the back as reward.
Shit. Lunch. He and Grandfather have forged a tentative peace, but breaking bread with Veela royalty might just count as treaty-breaking activities in Grimmauld Place. Oh well.
“I apologise if it was presumptuous of me to come here,” he says, and mostly means it. “I understand that the rules for such things are probably different in France than they are at home-”
“Oh, I shouldn’t worry about that,” she says cheerfully. “Your being human is so unusual that everything else is just decoration - come, nearly there.”
The path is covered in fine pearl-white gravel that crunches satisfyingly underfoot, very different to the granite chip Narcissa’s idiot husband has his white peacocks pecking across, and the chateau itself is gorgeous - of course. He should not have expected any different, not of the place Juno calls home.
“We don’t use the front door when it’s just family,” Madame Invidia says, guiding him away from the massive ebony double doors that are framed all about in windows and alabaster, around another white path that cuts through the most immaculately green lawn Sirius has ever seen. It looks like the golf course the Macmillans maintain up in the wilds of the Highlands, but framed all about with more colour, flowers barely hemmed into their overful beds by more bright white kerbing. “Come along, the kitchen is just around here.”
Sirius is fairly sure he should be worried about the fact that Juno’s aunt hasn’t asked him a single question in the ten minutes or so they’ve been walking together, but instead he finds himself overwhelmed with nosiness at the sound of children playing behind the high walls of what must be the kitchen garden. None of her sisters had children, when last they spoke, but it has been five years and more.
He’s missed her. He’s missed a great many things, but mostly he’s missed her.
“The babies will assault you with questions,” Madame Invidia says, nudging him through the ornately curling gate ahead of her, grinning in a way that reminds him of James, about to get Snape in trouble. “Try to answer them appropriately.”
The three little girls playing in the middle of the lawn all have the same silver-blonde hair Sirius expects - they all look alike, improbably pretty little things wearing sensible dungarees and floral blouses, their hair in long plaits over their shoulders. They all go quiet for a moment when they spy Sirius, but burst into rapturous noise once they’ve realised he’s not a threat. They herd around him, burbling with questions just like Dromeda’s Dora does, and he’d smile if not for the fourth little girl.
Under the wide, spreading shade of the copper beech at the far end of the garden sits Anatole, and with him is the fourth child. She’s only just peeping over his shoulder, around his arm, but her plaits are black and her eyes are dark, and her face, aside from Juno’s long nose, is just like Regulus’.
Sirius pushes his sun-glasses up into his hair for a better look, but the illusion doesn’t disappear. He’s never seen such a lovely child, tall and sturdy, with plump, pink cheeks but a long chin like his father’s, and her eyes - well, she has the Black eyes. Heavy and hooded, a little wider than is probably attractive, and dark against the pearl of her face.
She looks, at his best guess, comparing her to Dora Tonks, about four or five. Strange, that. So very strange. If he has his numbers right, based on when Juno left him, the child can’t be more than a few months older than Harry.
“Sirius?”
Juno has gotten very thin. Perhaps motherhood has been difficult for her.
II.
His daughter - oh, how James would laugh - is called Bellona. Bellona Urania de Poitiers.
“De Poitiers- Black,” Sirius says, because he’s not going to deny that he’s been useless as a father so far, but the child won’t be able to set foot in England without being recognised for who she is. “Even if you don’t think she looks like me, she looks like us. Like my family.”
Bellona, still hiding shyly behind Anatole, clutching at his sleeve with anxious little hands, blinks up at him.
“Do I?” she asks quietly. “I do not look like anyone in my family.”
She has none of the childish lisp that Sirius noted in Dora, while he stayed with Dromeda and Ted. Dora’s too smart for her own good (precocious), nosy (inquisitive), and loud (rambunctious). Bellona mostly looks quiet and nervous, and the way she cowers at every glance from her grandmother has not gone unnoticed.
Sirius has never been the kind to cower, but he at least had a handful of exiled older cousins and aunts and uncles to turn to if he was kicked out. He can’t imagine anyone here in perfect Valence turning on the perfect Duchess.
“You look very much like my cousin Dromeda,” he says, elbows on knees to bring his face level with Bellona’s. “You’ll like her a lot, I promise. Her daughter, Dora, she’s only a few years older than you are - Dora’s a Metamorphmagus, and she’s always wearing her hair different colours. It was bright pink when I left the house on Monday!”
All four of the little ones go ooooh at the thought of Dora’s pink hair, and Bellona sits a little more forward, a little less behind her uncle. Sirius has noticed that too, of course, that it’s her uncle’s arm she’s holding onto and not her mother’s, but the hollows of Juno’s face have him worrying about her too much to be angry.
“And my grandparents?” Bellona asks, shuffling forward a little to look at him better. “Maman said that they live in London, too.”
“Your grandmother does,” Sirius allows, “but she’s very mean - my grandfather isn’t so bad, although he smokes a very smelly pipe.”
“Your grandfather! But he must be older than anyone!”
“Do not be rude, Bellona,” the Duchess chides, and while Bellona ducks her head and pouts, it’s Juno that flinches.
“She is not being rude,” Sirius says firmly, pressing his thigh against Juno’s, a firm pressure until she lifts her face again. “But if you find the tone of our conversation inappropriate, I would ask you to remember that you were not invited to join us.”
No indeed - Sirius had followed after Juno and Anatole and lovely Bellona, into a sitting room that was just as Juno had described all that time ago, and had been dismayed that both of Juno’s sisters and her mother had followed along too.
He wonders how his dear old mum will react when he tells her that she has so much in common with this queen-among-Veela. He suspects the Duchess would hate the comparison just as much as Walburga Black would, and feels something smug and a little savage settle in his gut at the thought.
“I came here to speak with Juno,” he says, a little worried by the way Juno’s head is going back down, by the way Anatole is shifting to hide Bellona behind him more. “I don’t understand your opposition to my doing so, but it’s quite clear that you don’t want me here. I suggest that you leave us to our conversation, because the sooner arrangements are made, the sooner you’ll be rid of me.”
“What arrangements are these, wizard?” the Duchess asks scornfully, with a toss of her immaculate hair. She watches him down the line of her long, proud nose, the same nose inherited by all of her children and grandchildren, and all Sirius can see is his mother’s disdain, his father’s ignorance.
“Arrangements for Bellona to spend time with me, of course,” he says, because surely none of them think he’s going to just leave her behind. Sirius has plenty of family, but likes hardly a handful of them - there’s not a chance in hell that he’s going to lose out on his own child. “But those are between Juno and I, since we’re her parents.”
Bellona gasps, pushing forward to look at him around Anatole’s guarding arm again, and much and all as she looks like Regulus, her eyes are just the same as Sirius’ own.
“I have a house in London, if you would like to see it,” he says, ignoring the way the Duchess and the youngest of her daughters puff up like pigeons. “It isn’t very big, but there’s a bedroom that I think would look very well with your name on the door.”
III.
There is a bedroom that will be Bellona’s, but Sirius forgot that he hadn’t known of her existence before he left London, so he’s really quite unprepared.
Juno and Anatole are sharing the bedroom that Remus and Peter used to always share, back in the day, and Bellona is in the second-best bedroom, the one James and Lily used to use, the one where Sirius had set up a cot for Harry, just in case they would ever get to visit.
Perhaps one day he’ll be able to think about them without wanting to vomit.
“Do you have another baby?” Bellona asks, clutching her little rucksack to her chest and looking up at him from below her fringe. “I did not know that I was a sister.”
Sirius folds down onto the floor, drawn back to the present with a stunning immediacy. He likes to look her directly in the eye when they talk, and he remembers hating the way his parents would loom over him when he was a child, remembers hating the way his mother would stand halfway up the stairs to shout down at him, when he got old enough to shout back.
He never wants to hurt Bellona the way that old bitch hurt him.
So he sits down in front of her, folding his legs so he can settle right at her feet, and offers her his hand. She’s a tall girl for her age, of course, because Juno’s as tall as Sirius is himself, and when she lets go of her rucksack to take his hand, her grip is strong.
“You’re my only baby,” he promises her, grinning helplessly when she blushes and smiles and ducks her head shyly. She does that every time he says anything nice or teases her - every time anyone but Anatole says something nice to her, as though she’s not used to hearing it. Even if Juno is as unwell as Sirius thinks, he doesn’t know how to justify the way Bellona is so much more comfortable with her uncle than her mother.
“But that is a bed for a baby,” she says, pointing to the cot, deconstructed but not put away just yet - he’d left them in the kitchen with tea and biscuits and run upstairs to dismantle Harry’s baby bed, and he hadn’t gotten any further before he’d heard Bellona’s quiet footsteps on the stairs. “Ukki’s cousin Dagmar’s granddaughter has one just like it.”
“... Ukki?”
“Maman’s papa,” she clarifies. “Ukki.”
“Oh! Alright. Well, yes, it is a bed for a baby, but not my baby. Do you know what a godparent is, Belley?”
She startles at the nickname, and Sirius would take it back if he wasn’t so certain that she was unused to such casual affection.
“I think so,” she says slowly. “I do not have any, though.”
In a kinder world, one where Sirius had known about Bellona, one where he hadn’t squandered the first five years of her little life in fucking Azkaban, she’d have at least a godfather. He wonders if it still counts, if he asks Remus after the fact - if he can get Remus to speak to him, that is.
“Not yet,” he hedges, because if it comes to it, Dromeda will probably appoint herself godmother and ignore any protests. “But I do have a god son. His name is Harry.”
“Will I meet him?”
Sirius takes a moment to hide his anger from her, and shakes his head.
“Not for a long time, I’m afraid. There are a lot of people who want to hurt Harry, and so Professor Dumbledore has hidden him-”
“ Dumbledore? I know him! Grand-mère hates him!”
Maybe there’s hope for the Duchess after all.
“Well,” Sirius says, squeezing Bellona’s fingers. “Someday, you and Harry might be as close as his dad and me were - this room was supposed to be for him and his mum and dad. That’s why there’s a baby bed in here.”
She bites her lip then, thoughtful in a sensible way that belies her age, and then gifts him with a blinding smile.
“We can share, when we are friends!” she declares, and though she squeaks in surprise when Sirius gathers her up into a hug, she doesn’t protest. Her skinny arms come up around his neck and she holds on tight.
“I think that’s a wonderful idea, sweetheart,” he says. “Absolutely wonderful.”
IV.
The problem with bringing Bellona to visit in London is that word gets out very, very quickly.
Sirius ought to have expected it, of course - there’s nothing subtle about arriving back in town with his ex, who is a Veela, her brother, also a Veela, and a little girl who’s clearly both half-Veela and half-Black in tow. Juno’s many things, tasteful, elegant, the most beautiful woman Sirius has ever seen, but subtle isn’t one of them, and Anatole seems to think that being as extroverted as possible is the best means he has of testing Sirius’ sincerity.
They’ve been in the country two days, Bellona sitting on Sirius’ knee while he works at the Prophet crossword and she offers suggestions in an array of languages that has his jaw on the floor, when a damp crack heralds none other than Kreacher.
Juno throws her coffee at him - Anatole shouts, hands suddenly full of fire - but Bellona only clutches the front of Sirius’ shirt with one hand, and he smiles in spite of himself. Whether it’s bravery or madness, she’s faced every challenge he’s put before her head on, and Kreacher’s ugly face is no different.
“Mistress says the ungrateful, shameful mistake must bring his half-breed-”
“Absolutely not,” Sirius says, tucking Bellona closer against his chest. “Go home, Kreacher, and tell Mother that I’ll be seeing Grandfather first.”
Kreacher gives him a truly poisonous glare, a noxious, wet-eyed thing, but he does leave. Sirius hadn’t really expected that.
“Is your maman very terrible?” Bellona asks quietly, and Sirius wishes so much that he could say no.
“She’s not nice,” he says, which is a kinder truth than his mother deserves, “but you won’t need to see her if you don’t want to.”
“But your grandfather? Is he very terrible too? You said that we will see him.”
“He’s not a nice man,” Sirius says, because he’s determined not to lie, “but he’s fair. Sort of. He won’t be unkind to you, I promise. And besides! My grandmother will be there too, and she’s fantastic.”
Granny Melania had welcomed him home from Azkaban with a razor, a pair of shears, and a patient tailor, and she had wheedled his grandfather into being peaceable even while his mother screamed half of London down. Most of his charm had been inherited from her and her Macmillan brazenness, and even Arcturus Black’s hardest of lines couldn’t stand against her persistent attack.
“You’ll like Granny,” he promises. “And more importantly, she’ll like you.”
V.
Granny and Grandfather retired to the country a very long time ago, before Sirius even went to Hogwarts, and their house is a hideous warren made tolerable by Granny’s good taste and an army of cozy tartan blankets.
“Oh,” Bellona says, holding tight to Sirius’ hand once he’s got his broom up over his shoulder after touching down on the driveway. “It is very ugly, is it not?”
“Horrible,” he agrees, grinning down at her. “Wait until you see my mum’s house - that’s really ugly.”
“Maybe we could make it pretty?” she suggests, shy again, looking up through her fringe again, and he crouches down to look her in the eye. “Someday?”
“I think that’s a wonderful idea,” he says. “We’ll clean the whole place out, and then you can pick whatever bedroom you’d like. Your maman says that you like to cook? There’s a huge kitchen in Grimmauld Place, and we can fix that up exactly how you’d like.”
“I do like to cook!” she says, beaming again. “Sometimes when Anatole and I visit Amand, in Rennes, Amand lets me help him when he makes his caramel cake! His caramel cake is the best cake. You will like Amand, I love Amand-”
She’s so busy telling him about Anatole’s lover, who cooks and gives her sweet apples from his orchard and who has a niece who is half-sylvan, half-witch and will someday attend Beauxbatons, that she doesn’t even notice the way they’ve started up the path to the black front door.
She falters when he knocks, the sound echoing back into the house.
“It’s a spell,” he tells her. “It’s meant to intimidate people, but a brave girl like you won’t be worried by something so silly, will you?”
“Maman said that you were-”
She chews on a word. He can guess which one.
“Cut out of your family?”
“Ex-communicated,” he says. “I was, yes, before I went to prison - but my grandfather changed his mind. Well, Granny changed it for him.”
“You are sure that they will want us here?”
Oh, shit. He hadn’t really thought about how rubbish an experience she’s had with grandmothers - no matter how much he talks his up, she’s got to be imagining the Duchess.
“If they’re horrible, we’ll leave right away, and I’ll bring you for ice-cream.”
“Oh! Well, alright. I suppose.”
“There’ll be no need for ice-cream, young man, not if I have anything to say about it!”
Sirius startles, nudging Belle behind him without thinking. Granny Melania, with muck all up her robes and rubber boots under them, grins.
“Hello, dear,” she says. “Introduce me to your little sweetie, then.”
Granny’s hair was blonde, once upon a time, the same bright whitish blonde as Cissy’s, but it’s gone all silver now. She’s all chin and glasses, and Sirius isn’t even slightly surprised to recognise her scarf as ugly Macmillan tartan. It’s a long-running bone of contention between her and Grandfather, that she won’t give up her tartan, but she’s never been the sort to let something as simple as his disapproval stop her from doing whatever she wants.
She is, Sirius is entirely sure, the only reason that he and Dromeda and their handful of other decent relations are in any way sane.
“Good to see you, Granny,” Sirius says, submitting himself to kisses and cheek-pinches and clucking, and Belle giggles behind him - she even peeks around him to investigate Granny for herself. “If you’d let go for a minute, I’d be happy to introduce my daughter.”
“Oh, we’re so thrilled to meet you, darling,” Granny says, creaking down to one knee to look Belle in the eye. “You’re not our first great-grandchild, of course, but Dromeda’s Dora is the wildest little thing, and Cissy’s Draco is a Malfoy, so we have high hopes for you. You ought to call me Granny, then - what shall I call you?”
“My name is Bellona,” Belle says, “but you ought to call me Belle.”
VI.
Anatole and Bellona are asleep on the sofa in front of the fire when Sirius gets back from another long evening of trying to track Remus down, bundled up in thickly knitted jumpers and wrinkled trousers. There are letters scattered all over the coffee table, letters and cake crumbs, and Sirius longs with an agonising suddenness for the Gryffindor common room of years gone.
“They spent the day decorating her bedroom,” Juno says softly, pressing her hand between his shoulder blades. “And writing to my father, too.”
The father who raised Anatole. The grandfather who, Sirius thinks, has given Bellona her only experience of a safe, happy home in all of her little life. He wants to meet Juno’s father so he can thank him, because without him raising Anatole, Bellona would have been without an ally. He wants to meet Juno’s father so he can beat the living daylights out of him, because if he’d spoken to the Duchess about how she was raising their daughters, then maybe Belley wouldn’t have grown up in a home almost as unhappy as his.
The Duchess reminds him so much of his own damned mother that he’s already written her off as a dead loss. If he has his way, Belle won’t have to endure either of her grandmothers much, going forward.
“Juno-”
Her hands are warm when she cups his face in her palms. He’d forgotten just how lovely she was from up close, because they’ve kept a careful distance since their reunion. From the moment they arrived in London, Juno has held herself away from him, always keeping Belle between them. Not now. Now, her eyes are luminous in the dim light, and he can catch the soft lingering scent of her perfume.
He loved her so much. Her disappearance broke his heart, even if he was glad she finally took his advice and fled to safety - even if he now has the context for why she disappeared so suddenly, even if he now knows that she fled to protect Belle - and there was no time to recover from that heartbreak during the war, and certainly no time for it in Azkaban.
“Not now,” he says, stepping back slightly. The barest thought of Azkaban is like a bucket of ice water down his trousers, and it must show on his face by the way Juno jerks away from him. “I’m sorry, Juno, I’m not- I’m not ready. Not yet.”
“Do you hate me?” she asks, very, very quietly. “I know you saw how Maman is with Bellona. I know you’ve seen how I am with her, sometimes. Do you hate me for it, Sirius?”
He’s never seen her cry before. He doesn’t think she’s ever seen him cry, either, but there’s a first time for everything.
VII.
Sirius was worried about introducing Belle to Dora Tonks, but of course he shouldn’t have been. Dora has all of Dromeda’s forthright confidence paired with Ted’s genuinely friendly charm, so it’s impossible to dislike her. Belle’s a shy little thing, and whenever they’ve visited Diagon Alley she clings to Sirius like the prettiest little limpet in the world, but he forgot how starved for friendship she must have been in Valence, with her perfect Veela cousins excluding her.
When he looks out Dromeda’s kitchen window, Ted and the girls are dueling with long sticks on the slimy brickwork around the pond, and as he watches, Belle spins on her heel and saves Dora from an unexpected bath.
“What noisy little animals,” Dromeda says cheerfully, pressing a mug of tea into his hand. “She’s a gorgeous girl, Sirius. Have you settled her in alright?”
“Her uncle helped her decorate her room,” he says. “I’m not sure how I’ll manage when it’s just the two of us, but… Well, she really is lovely, isn’t she?”
“Bless you,” Dromeda says, kicking him in the ankle - this is why he loves Dromeda best, because it really is as though he never went away when he’s with her. “You’re smitten. This is all extremely funny, you know.”
“Papa!” Belle calls. “Papa, look!”
Well, it seems she’s found a toy broom. He should’ve thought about how much a Veela’s daughter would enjoy flying.
“Here, Dromeda,” he says. “Do you reckon Hagrid still has my bike?”
VIII.
Belle avoids ever having to meet her grandmother because Sirius’ mother has the good manners to die in November.
Every Black and half-Black and Black-adjacent member of the wizarding community seems to come crawling out of the woodwork for the funeral, apparently sure that Sirius’ return means nothing and that there will be rich bones to pick over.
What they find instead is Granny Melania holding court in the kitchen, Grandfather holding court in the drawing room, and Sirius surrounded by a combination of children and Undesirables - Order members, as was, alongside Juno and Anatole, and also Anatole’s clearly adored partner, Amand - in the garden.
Sirius wishes he might have thrown a real party, but Granny scolded him when he suggested it. The compromise, brokered by an unusually level-headed Grandfather, was that Sirius be allowed to avoid all of their abominable family but he had to at least dress in mourning.
Belle, at least, looks very charming in her black silk and lace, and she seems happy enough sitting on the bench with Dora and the little Macmillan boy. Cissy’s boy is here somewhere as well, although he’s probably inside in the drawing room - Cissy, of course, does not think that Belle and Dora are fitting companions for her precious little princeling.
“I’m sorry we didn’t do more, Sirius,” Kingsley says, tipping his hipflask into Sirius’ coffee. It’s a waste of good scotch, because Kingsley drinks only the best scotch, and Sirius hasn’t had much taste for anything since he came home. “We should have- well. I’m sure you’re sick of hearing it, but I am sorry.”
Kingsley is the very first person to say that to him so plainly. No one else has apologised for letting him rot in Azkaban. For some reason, this is the most upsetting thing that’s happened in all these months since his return, and he can’t find the words to thank Kingsley for even this small consideration.
His distress obviously shows on his face, because Belle jumps down off the bench and throws her arms around his legs, holding on tight.
“At least you had someone to come home to,” Kingsley says, offering his handkerchief in place of his hipflask, and turning his shoulder to the rest of their friends so no one else will notice Sirius’ tears. “Your father is lucky to have you, Bellona.”
IX.
Sirius speaks French - Juno would never have looked at him twice if he didn’t - and he has a reasonable ear for languages. He has enough German and Spanish to get from port to pub, as it were, and a sprinkling of Welsh from Remus and a handful of Cornish phrases from James, because Fleamont and Euphemia spoke Cornish as often as English around the house, but he’s never met anyone quite like Belle.
Sirius is in the process of cleaning out Grimmauld Place when Juno’s father and uncle come to visit, and he’s a little ashamed that this is all he has to offer them. Juno and Anatole are helping enormously, and Granny has done them the great service of taking Kreacher away to her and Grandfather’s house, but it’s quite clear that his mother has had few enough visitors over Sirius’ time away.
“What a shithole,” he says, and Belle, wearing a flowery apron with her hair in a big messy bun on top of her head, sighs.
“You know that Maman will scold you for using that word in front of me,” she singsongs, taking his hand in both of hers so she can swing back and forth, balancing on her heels. “She shouted at Anatole for saying merde yesterday, you know!”
“Belle!” Juno shouts up from downstairs. “Bellona, chouette, Ukki and Aleksi are here!”
She throws herself out the door with a shriek, and if Sirius didn’t know better he’d think she takes the stairs in a single leap, landing safely in her grandfather’s embrace.
Juno’s father is almost as handsome as Anatole. Tall and stately, with a bearing similar to Kingsley’s, he should be intimidating.
“Look, Papa!” Belle calls, waving him down the stairs. “Papa, come meet Ukki!”
And then she turns to her grandfather and chatters at him in excited Finnish, as easily as she switches between English and French. Sirius was determined to hate Juno’s father at least a little, but it’s hard to hate anyone who so obviously delights in Belle, or who can bring such an easy, comfortable smile to Juno’s perfect face.
“She speaks a half dozen languages just as fluently,” the other man says - he is slightly smaller, not quite so dignified, but he has the same smile as Juno and Anatole and Bellona. They all favour this side of the family, the Duchess’ nose aside. “Our remarkable girl, eh?”
“Quite,” he says. “Sirius Black.”
“Aleksi Gadolin,” Juno’s uncle says. “And my brother will introduce himself once he remembers again that there are people other than Bellona in the world, won’t you, brother?”
Juno’s father looks a little sheepish, but refrains from putting Bellona down. He does hold out his hand, though, and Sirius is granted a handshake he feels right through to his shoulder.
“Balder,” he says. “I am very glad to meet you, Sirius. Without you, we might not have our very greatest gift.”
“Oh, Ukki!” Belle groans, shoving at him until he puts her down, so she can skip across to greet Aleksi. “Papa, Aleksi, make him stop!”
“Why should he stop telling the truth, krippu?” Aleksi demands, smothering her face in kisses until she starts giggling. “There, that’s better - now, did someone tell me that young Amand is here?”
“He made caramel cake, Aleksi,” Belle says, in hallowed tones - deservedly hallowed tones, because there’s something miraculous in that damned cake of Amand’s. “Shall we go to the kitchen, Papa? We can finish upstairs later, I promise!”
“Of course, sweetheart,” he says, snagging her back from Aleksi. “I’ve got all sorts of ideas for upstairs. Shall we ask your grandfather and your granduncle if they’d like to help while they’re here?”
Sirius can pull Balder Gadolin aside for a chat about his damned wife (or whatever they are to each other, all he keeps hearing is Veela don’t marry ) later. For now, it’s much more important that Belley feels she can welcome them into her home.
X.
“Sirius! A visitor for you!”
He Apparates downstairs in a panic, because he’s seen off most of the family and Dromeda’s clan aren’t due until tomorrow morning, so he can’t imagine who might be calling at this hour on Christmas bloody Eve with good intentions. He’ll have to cut them off at the pass, before they can do anything dangerous. Juno’s entire family are here, Duchess and all, but even if it was just him and Belle and the brand new wireless playing in the front room, he’d be panicking. He’d probably be panicking more if it were just him and Belle, honestly.
Except it isn’t some malcontent here to purge Grimmauld Place. It’s Remus. He looks shabby and exhausted, but he’s kneeling down in front of Juno - no, in front of Belle, with a wrapped present in his hands.
It’s a toy broom, the bastard.
“Hello, Bellona,” he says, casting a loaded glance Sirius’ way - yes, there’ll be a fight as soon as Belley’s in bed, but at least Remus is finally here , to have the damned fight. “My name is Remus. I’m your godfather, so I thought I’d best come and say happy Christmas.”
Belle is silent for a moment - unlike her now, even with the way she’s retreated into her shell since her grandmother’s arrival - before launching herself at Remus, skinny arms tight around his skinny neck.
The look he turns on Sirius is less loaded and more frantic, and Sirius can’t help but laugh. Perhaps the fight won’t be so bad after all, thanks to Belle.