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“He’s a beautiful child.”
Sirius looks up from his book, slowly, so slowly.
Harry is playing on the carpeted floor, between his and Walburga’s crossed feet, splitting his attention between his stuffed toys and the colorful sparks of accidental magic that jump around when he claps his hands. He never fails to giggle when it happens, and the noise soothes Sirius more than anything else ever could - more than alcohol and more than violence and more than dreams of blood where he gets to see James’ face for one, last time.
Walburga is staring at Harry intently. She, too, is holding a book, askew on her lap, and one that’s not so different from Sirius’ own. Hers is on the historical evidence of the existence of dark magic in the first tribes of the African continent, his’ is on how dark magic has been used for targeted protection in the olden ages.
Harry breaks into giggles once more as a big iridescent bubble of magic floats around the air following a sneeze of his. He tries to catch it with his hands, but fails to chase it when it flies away because he hasn’t quite figured out how to stand up on his own just yet.
One of the corners of Walburga’s mouth tilts upwards ever so slightly, in a blink-and-you-might-miss-it sort of movement. Sirius does not blink, and he does not miss it.
He hums in reply. After all, Harry is a beautiful child. Possibly the most beautiful. Sirius has not been around many newborns, babies or toddlers, but he can still say with certainty that they would have absolutely nothing on Harry.
Neville certainly doesn’t, wrinkly small thing that he is.
Walburga flicks her hand in the air and a page of her book flips on its own, without her ever having to take her eyes off of Harry. She seems much more inclined towards small acts of innocent magic now that she’s around him.
“He looks like you.”
Sirius moves his gaze towards her, but Walburga doesn’t reciprocate.
“No, he doesn’t,” He says in the tone he knows she hates - the one that’s irreverent and scornful and has gotten him in a whole lot of trouble when he was a young boy - because he needs her to look at him, then at Harry, and then realize that she’s finally lost her damned mind.
Sirius and Harry couldn’t look more different if they tried.
Where Sirius is all pearly white skin, sharp angles and stormy eyes, Harry is coated in the warm-caremel color of the sunset, with chubby cheeks and a chubby belly, and the emerald eyes of Lily Evans-Potter.
But Walburga is stubborn. “Yes, he does.” She lifts her chin up high but still refuses to look at Sirius. The other corner of her mouth starts to lift as well.
“Have you gone blind or simply senile?” Sirius snaps because he’s always been more stubborn, more brash, more rebellious, more than they ever knew what to do with, more, more and angrier-angrier-angrier.
Harry is the exact portrait of James: his smile, his hair, his skin, his nose, each and every one of his features (save for the one Lily claimed for herself) down to the very shape of his ears. The scar too.
James had gained a brand new scar on his forehead by falling, along with his broom, and hitting his head against the stands during a Quidditch game in sixth year. His’ wasn’t shaped like lightning, sure, and it was a much tinier and stubbier thing, but the placement was the same.
Middle of the forehead, leaning towards the left.
Sirius’ head is starting to spin.
Walburga seems to have become immune to his taunts in her old age, which only serves to anger Sirius more. Leave it to his Mother to start mellowing out right when she doesn’t have to be his Mother anymore.
“Stupid boy,” She sighs. “He looks like you in every single way that matters.”
Sirius’ rage comes out in the form of silence, for once in his life, and Walburga takes it as a sign to keep explaining her bullshit revolutionary theory.
“His laugh is your laugh,” She starts. “That loud, ugly bark that bothers the portraits in the walls. The way he lifts his nose when he refuses to eat something is yours, as well. You were a very fussy child.” Walburga stops, and her mouth twists in distaste. “You spat more of your food back on my dresses than you kept in your mouth. Your Father found it humorous, clearly because it wasn’t him you so fervently hated. Not back then, at least.”
Sirius wants to say that he couldn’t have hated her, back then. Not so early, not when she was still Mother and he was still Child and each other was all that they had in this old and empty house. But he cannot be sure of that, so he doesn’t reply. As far as he knows Walburga’s womb was nothing but a poisonous abyss, it might as well have taught him hatred before anything else.
It looks like Walburga was not expecting him to deny it, either, because she’s entirely nonplussed. Her mask of wax does not move. There is no pain on her face.
If Harry - once he’d learnt how to speak - ever told Sirius he hated him, Sirius’ heart would break into pieces so small they would seep into his blood and rot him from the inside.
He’s sure some of that pain would show on his face.
“He is more polite, at least he spits back on the plate rather than on you.”
“Would it kill you to use his name?” Sirius snaps – again, because neither Walburga nor him, nor Orion..., have ever been patient. "He is Harry. Harry Potter. Harry James Potter-”
Sirius is not proud of the way his voice breaks, or of the way not having Walburga’s eyes on him makes him forgive himself for it much quicker.
Harry, after hearing his name called so many times, crawls over to Sirius and uses Sirius’ leg to lift himself up.
“You keep him in your house, you feed him your food, you tore down an entire room to make him a crib, and you still refuse to say his name.”
Sirius picks up Harry, uncrosses his legs and places the boy on his lap, from where Harry immediately leans against his chest, gets comfortable, and starts drooling on his own hands.
Walburga has no other choice now. Her target has moved, and so must her gaze. She looks at Sirius for the first time in days – maybe weeks.
“No matter what you’d like to think, Harry is not a Black. He is not my son, and he is not my blood, nor yours. His blood is not pure either, even if I’m sure you’d like it to be. On top of that, I will not make him heir of the House unless he expressly wishes to be, and I certainly will not throw him out of it if he doesn’t.”
Walburga’s eyes turn cold, and the sight is so familiar Sirius almost sighs in relief. “You left of your own volition, Sirius.”
Sirius holds Harry tighter to his chest as if to apologize for the way his voice is about to grow louder. “Would you have wanted me to stay, Mother?” he all but snarls.
“You disliked me on the best days and despised me on the worst ones. Would you have wanted me to stay?”
Walburga tightens her jaw, but she doesn’t reply. It appears that she, too, cannot defend herself from that same old accusation. Sirius finds himself wondering who started it, back then. Was it Mother or Child? Who hated whom first?
Sirius starts bouncing Harry in his arms, both because he’s too jittery to stay still and because Harry needs to take a nap to not be groggy later in the evening, but the anger makes him less gentle than he usually is. Lily would curse him on the spot if she saw, but Lily is fucking dead and Harry shows no signs of discomfort, so he’s either grown so accustomed to Sirius’ anger that he doesn’t even register it anymore, or Sirius is simply losing his mind.
He doesn’t like any of the options, but Harry needs to be held in order to fall asleep and Sirius - with all his anger and pain and regret - is all that’s left. So he holds him.
But he needs to have the last word of the argument - stubborn, stubborn, stubborn - and Walburga is quiet still, so he says, “And you can say that he looks like me all you want, but when people look at him they will see James Potter and Lily Evans.”
Sirius takes a second to collect his breath, because no matter how often he says it, James’ name hurts every single time. “...Not Sirius Black. Not Walburga Black, or any of our rotten relatives. Just James–” Again. “And Lily.”
Walburga’s face is made of stone, and a part of Sirius feels small enough to crawl at her feet and pull on the hem of her long skirt. Hide his face behind her legs. Bask in the warmth of her Motherly skin.
In the meantime, Harry has managed to fall asleep, and he’s now snoring softly with his face all smudged up against Sirius’s shirt.
Sirius is just about to stand up to head upstairs when Walburga’s voice, anger-filled – just like his own, calls him back to attention.
“You’re stubborn, Sirius, and your stupidity doesn’t allow you to see any further than your own nose.”
Sirius scoffs, but Walburga sends him the same murderous look she’s always reserved just for him. “And you insult me by implying that I am not aware of the boy’s dirty blood, but the circumstances have changed. It’s just you and I, now, Sirius.”
She rises, elegantly, from the divan where she leaves only her closed book behind. She begins to pace around the living room, and the sound of her heels clicking against the floor is so familiar Sirius thinks no time must have passed at all. James must be still alive, out there somewhere. Lily must be playing in Petunia’s room. Peter must be learning how to be a traitor and a coward on some school playground. Remus must be howling at the moon.
“Everyone else has abandoned us. Our ancient and noble House is decaying and will soon be forgotten. And do not be under the impression that, that night, I decided to open that door to you and to Harry Potter under some naive hope that you will finally accept our family values and work to rebuild what has been destroyed.” Walburga snarls, and Sirius is almost watching himself in the mirror.
Her hair is grayer, her shapes more womanly. All the rest, exactly the same.
“I know now that you live to disappoint me. I know that you have never been who I wanted you to be. But you are a Black, the last of us, and that child,” Walburga steps closer to the sleeping form of Harry and Sirius instinctively bares his teeth. It’s the protectiveness of the dog in him - dear old Padfoot - or maybe it’s just Lily.
Or all the love for James that now has nowhere else to go.
Walburga has always liked dogs; it’s one of her only redeeming qualities. She doesn’t cower.
“This child, Harry.” She says, undoubtedly just to prove that she can – because Sirius knows a lot of things and one of the ones he knows best is that Mother and Child do not accept a loss and do not back down from a challenge.
Walburga’s only other merit is that she was an incredible duelist, so much so that her father forbade her from challenging her male peers lest she completely humiliated them. She chose to challenge Sirius, then, because he was hers and she was his and no one else could tell them what to make of each other - not even grandfather Pollux.
“May not look like you, he may not have our blood, but his magic is entirely yours, Sirius.”
Sirius’ breath knocks out of his lungs. Harry is growing really heavy in his arms.
“You wouldn’t have noticed, you’re too used to the way your own magic looks and feels. But I have, because I am your Mother. Your magic and his magic are so indiscernible that even Kreacher cannot tell the difference, and I know you don’t need me to explain that Elf Magic, primitive as it may be, runs even deeper than our own. I am sure that if you asked that werewolf creature you insist on calling a friend, he would be able to confirm that they even smell the same.” Walburga declares with only the slightest hint of disgust.
“There seem to be some places that blood just cannot reach, Sirius. After all, you have taught me that.” She looks him in the eyes - their same eyes - then lowers her gaze to Harry, and Sirius swears he sees her stone face soften.
“So I am perfectly aware of who Harry Potter is, and of the inadequacy of his blood, but I also saw him using my son’s magic.” She looks pensive for a while.
“To me, to the Family and the House, that means something.”
Walburga turns to exit the room, but not before whispering something that Sirius only hears because Padfoot lives within him, and dogs truly do have outstanding hearing.
“Also, the way he looks at you is all Regulus.”
Sirius’ hands are shaking, and he’s desperate for someone else to come hold Harry and let him have one moment to himself, just one, but the Mother has left and the Child is all that remains.
Sirius is all that remains. So he holds on tight.