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“Dad,” Harry said, “how much longer?”
Sirius’s hands tightened briefly on the wheel. He forced himself to relax. “About half an hour.”
“Okay.” Harry gave a little sigh and went back to staring out the window.
“Why don’t you use your tablet?”
“It ran out of battery.”
“You could read one of your books?”
“They’re all boring, Dad.”
“You only packed boring books?”
“They weren’t boring when I packed them!”
Despite his mounting headache, Sirius bit back a smile. “Sorry, buddy. We’ll be at Uncle Reg’s soon, and then you can play with your cousins.”
At that moment, Sirius heard a pop and felt his car sink down a bit. It was as if the universe heard him say that to Harry and found it funny. He pulled the car over to the side of the road and sighed.
“Hey, Dad,” Harry said from the backseat.
“Yes, my Prongslet?” Sirius asked.
“This doesn’t look like Uncle Reg’s,” he answered with a snicker, and Harry inheriting James’ sense of humor was the only thing saving him from a mental breakdown right now.
“No, this very much is not Uncle Reg’s,” Sirius said with a sigh. “I’m pretty sure we have a flat.”
“Oh, that should be an easy fix then, right? We have a spare!”
Harry’s faith in Sirius far outweighed his abilities when it came to fixing cars. Still, how hard could it be?
“Right you are, Haz,” Sirius said. “We definitely have a spare. I just have to change it, back in a moment!”
He located the spare quickly - it was in the boot. So far, so good. He got it out of the car easily enough, and rolled it over to their flat. Right. So now all he had to do was take the flat off, and replace it with the spare tire.
“Dad?” Harry leaned out of the open window.
“It’s okay, Harry,” Sirius said. “I’m just…thinking.”
“Thinking about what?”
“I should probably take these off.” Sirius tapped the nuts on the side of the tire.
“How?”
“That’s a good question.”
“Do you have any tools?”
“Why would I keep tools in a car?”
“Ron’s dad does.” Harry said with a shrug.
“Oh, well, if Ron’s dad does…”
A giant dust cloud came rolling down the shoulder towards them, and Sirius leaped back as a sputtering car came to a halt mere centimeters from his back bumper. The driver’s door creaked ominously as it opened, and a shabby man popped out.
“Hullo!” he called cheerfully. “Having some trouble?”
“Just a flat,” Sirius said, bemused, as the man approached him. He was a head shorter than Sirius and barely half as broad, and Sirius had the absurd thought that it would be very easy to throw him over his shoulder–or onto a bed.
Stop it, he told himself firmly. He’d been going through a dry spell with Gilderoy lately, and it was causing him all kinds of inappropriate thoughts.
“Do you need some help?” the angel from the broken down car asked. Yeah, come fix my car and then make out with me in the backseat Sirius thought, and then immediately wondered why this was his knee-jerk reaction.
“I think I have some stuff in the boot of my car that might help, if you’d like?” Sirius finally dared to make eye contact with him, and he looked almost nervous to ask. Sirius realized was staring at his green eyes for a beat too long and the man was waiting for an answer.
“That would be amazing, thank you-”
“YEAH, it would be amazing! Since my Dad doesn’t keep any tools in the car,” Harry shouted from the backseat, apparently already fed up with him and his lack of automobile expertise. The man walked back to his car chuckling softly, which gave Sirius an opportunity to have a word with his son.
“Harry, please don’t be sassy with the nice man helping us with the car,” Sirius said, quietly, trying to be stern.
“Why not, Dad? Do you loveeeee him?” Sirius looked quickly to make sure the nameless man was fumbling in his boot still and didn’t overhear Harry, although he was unsure why he cared so much.
“Honestly, Harry, who raised you?”
“You did, Dad,” Harry deadpanned. “You raised me. You are why I’m like this.” Sirius sighed as the man made his way back to him as he still sat sadly in front of his flat tire.
“Here!” the man said, that angelic grin still firmly in place as he thrust the toolbox into Sirius’s hands.
“Er…thanks.” Sirius stared at the box blankly. “What…is this?”
“Tools,” the man said helpfully. “For fixing your tire.”
“Right.” Sirius fought with the latch for a few moments, and then finally opened the box. There were definitely tools inside. “Sirius.”
“What’s serious?”
“I am,” he said.
“Serious about what?”
“It’s his name!” Harry called from the car.
“Right, yeah, it’s my name. Sirius. Like the star.”
“Oh!” The man smiled. “I’m Remus.”
“Like the–”
“Like the myth, yeah.”
“Cool.” Cool? When did he ever say “cool”? “Um…so which one do I start with?”
“Oh.” Remus’s face fell. “I, uh, thought you might know?”
“Never changed a tire in my life, mate.”
“Neither have I.” Remus looked downright dejected now, and Sirius wouldn’t stand for that. “My dad put these tools in my car, like, ten years ago. In case I ever needed them. I’ve never even used a hammer.”
Good, good. So they were both hopeless.
Remus’s face brightened suddenly. “We can call him!”
“Who?”
“My dad, he’s great at fixing things.” Remus pulled a phone out of his pocket. A flip phone, God help him. Sirius was a goner.
“Er, it might be better if we Facetimed him?”
“What’s that?”
Sirius pulled his phone out of his pocket. “What’s his number?”
Remus read it off to him, and Sirius punched in it. A few moments later, a gorgeous man’s face filled the screen. He wasn’t perfection itself, like Remus was, but he was certainly fit–strong jaw, excellent cheekbones, piercing eyes, grey in his hair and beard.
“Wow,” Sirius said. “Your dad’s fit, mate.”
“Excuse me?”
“I mean,” Sirius said quickly, “not as fit as you, of course.”
“What?”
“Remus,” the man on the screen said, “is that you? What’s going on?”
“Hi, Da,” Remus said quickly, grabbing the phone from Sirius. “Er, I’m with this…bloke, and his car’s got a flat, and I thought you could help him? He’s got my tools, so you could like…show him what to do?”
“Hello!” Sirius waved at the screen over Remus’s shoulder. He could feel himself grinning like a lunatic. “I’m Sirius.”
“Serious about what?”
“It’s his name, Da!” Remus hissed.
“And I’m Harry!” Harry shouted from the car.
“That’s…my kid,” Sirius said. “Anyway, sir, if you could give me some tips, I’d really appreciate it.”
“Some tips,” the man said. “Sure. Can you grab a wrench for me?”
Sirius looked down at the toolbox in his hands. There were a lot of tools in it. He grabbed one at random and held it up.
The man snorted. “That’s what I thought. That’s a utility knife. Remus, call your mother.”
“But Da–”
“She’s at home. She can drive to where you are and change the tire in two seconds flat.”
The man immediately disappeared from the screen. Remus sighed as he pulled out his flip phone and scrolled through and Sirius wondered what cell phone service he had that still supported his dinosaur phone. Those thoughts kept his mind from wandering to the fact that Remus wasn’t wearing a wedding ring and his parents were the first he thought to call in an emergency and not a partner.
His focus wavered as Remus walked away to have a quick conversation with apparently his mother, and Sirius got a very good look at his arse and then wondered the last time he looked this intently at Gilderoy. He once again was staring for a second too long, as Remus turned around and was smirking at him.
“She’ll be here in about ten minutes, give or take. I hope that's ok.”
“That’s perfect! Great. So great.” Sirius was becoming a puddle of a man and there was no hope left for him.
Luckily enough, he made a nice recovery and spent the quickest ten minutes of his life chatting with Remus. They discovered they were the same age, had the same taste in music, liked the same books, and Sirius loved football and Remus had at least heard of football. It seemed like only moments later that a car pulled up behind Remus’ (and a much nicer car at that), and the tiniest woman Sirius had ever seen got out of the driver’s seat.
“That’s your mum?” Sirius asked incredulously.
“Yeah, that’s Hope,” Remus said with a smile as he waved down the woman, as if she could miss the two tall men standing by the car in front of her.
“Hi, cariad! I see your new friend found himself in some trouble,” the sweet woman said. She had made her way in front of them and Sirius had to practically touch his chin to his chest to see her. She immediately crouched down and grabbed whatever tool it was, and got to work. Sirius just stared at her in awe.
“Your mum is amazing,” Sirius whispered to Remus.
“I know,” Hope answered back. “And so is my son. Are you single?”
“Mum!” Remus gasped, but Sirius smiled at that. At least until he heard a voice from the back of the car.
“He’s not, but his boyfriend is stupid,” Harry yelled out the window. “He seems to like Remus a lot better than he likes stupid Gilderoy.”
“Harry!” Sirius shouted, as Remus laughed next to him. Hope stopped what she was doing to lean in through the window.
“And who would you be, little one?” Hope asked with a sugar sweet tone she was not using with Sirius a moment ago.
“I’m Harry! Sirius is my dad. Well, he adopted me after my parents died. But his boyfriend is stupid and he should just marry Remus and you seem nice. Are you Welsh?”
“I am indeed! I’m Hope, it’s so nice to meet you, Harry!” Sirius was sure his face was now bright red.
“What’s the Welsh word for grandma, Hope?” Harry asked in a similarly sweet voice that Sirius rarely heard.
“It’s Nain, sweetheart.”
“Sirius! Hope is my Nain now! Are you gonna ask Remus on a date?”
“Harry James Potter-Black!” Sirius hissed, going over to the window. “Gilderoy is a perfectly nice man, and–”
“He’s a douche,” Harry said, and Sirius gaped at him.
“Where did you learn that word!”
“From Uncle Reg.”
“Who was he calling a douche in front of you?”
“Gilderoy,” Harry said, as if it was obvious.
That traitor! Regulus had said that he liked Gilderoy. Well, now that Sirius thought back on it, Regulus had said that he liked Gilderoy better than Lucius. Maybe that wasn’t much of a compliment, come to think of it.
“I am!” Remus shouted suddenly, and they all turned to look at him.
“You’re what?” Sirius asked.
“Single,” Remus said. “I mean. Not that you asked. But I am.”
“He is,” Hope confirmed. Sirius had quite forgotten about her. To his shock, she already had the spare on the car, and the flat tire was laying in the grass.
“Where did you learn to do that?” Sirius asked in disbelief. It had been, what, five minutes? The woman was a miracle worker.
“Remus’s father,” she said. “He rescued me, you know. My car broke down on the side of the road in a snowstorm. He pulled over and gave me a ride to the nearest hotel.” She patted Remus’s cheek. “My cariad was born nine months later.”
“Mum!”
“Dad, can you make a baby with Remus, too?”
Sirius thought it would be quite nice if the Earth decided to open up and swallow him right now. “One of you is enough, thank you!”
Harry pouted. “But Uncle Reggie has lots of kids!”
“Yes, because your Uncle Kingsley wouldn’t know what a condom was if it bit him in the arse,” Sirius muttered. To Hope, he said, “Thank you for all your help, I really appreciate it. If I’m late to my brother’s Christmas lunch, he will murder me.”
“Well, we can’t have that. At least not before you have a chance to take my Remus on a date.” Hope patted Sirius’s cheek. “Now, if you have any issues, give Remus a call. He knows where to find me.”
“Er,” Remus said, rubbing the back of his neck and glaring at his mother. “She’s a lot, sometimes. Sorry.”
“I actually think she’s wonderful,” Sirius said as Hope leaned over the window to say goodbye to Harry. “I believe she said something about getting your number?”
Remus turned an adorable shade of red as he silently reached out his hand to take Sirius’ phone from him, only for Sirius to immediately take it back because he realized Remus had no idea how to work a smart phone. He set it up so that Remus just had to enter his number. When he handed it back, he watched sheepishly as Remus saw what he put as his contact name.
“Angel, really?” Remus asked with a smile.
“Oh, I like that!” Hope said. Truthfully, Sirius forgot she was still there. “That sounds promising for the grandkids I would like.”
Remus quickly put his phone number in as he shushed his mom. They both waved goodbye to Sirius and Harry as Sirius got back into the car.
"Hey, Dad," Harry says, and Sirius can see his smirk in the rearview mirror. "Nain says that the Welsh word for dad is 'tad'. Can I call Remus that yet?"
Sirius laid his head down on the steering wheel.
---
Nine Months Later
“And that is the story,” Regulus concluded, “of how my big brother finally stopped dating posh gits, and settled down with my second-favorite boyfriend of his. To Sirius and Remus!”
The engagement party was small, barely a dozen guests, and everyone drank to Sirius and Remus (except for Harry, who was only allowed grape juice). Sirius stole a kiss, and Remus blushed prettily.
“Second favorite?” Hope demanded once she had swallowed her wine, already offended on her son’s behalf. “Who did you like better than my cariad?”
“I married him,” Regulus said smugly, and Kingsley wrapped an arm around his waist.
Hope and Lyall, the only two people present who didn't know that, gaped at him in horror.
“You stole your brother’s boyfriend?” Lyall asked.
“You should be thanking me,” Regulus said primly, “because then he wouldn’t be with your Remus, would he?”
“And then you wouldn’t be my Nain!” Harry said to Hope, his green eyes wide and imploring. “And Moony wouldn’t be my tad!”
“Why does he call you Moony?” Mary whispered to Remus.
“That,” Remus said, sharing a look with Sirius, “is another story entirely.”