Chapter Text
Sirius Black is eleven years old the first time he falls victim to that simple word. It’s uttered by none other than James Potter, a boy with messy black hair, dark skin, and brown eyes hidden behind glasses frames that are about three sizes too big for him. Besides the glasses, the boy looks perfectly put together, already wearing his robes with a golden lion pin.
“You’re a presumptuous lad, aren’t you? What if you don’t get into Gryffindor?” Sirius teases, looking out of their train compartment to see the other students rushing past to find places to sit. Sirius tugs at the sleeves of the stuffy button-up his mother had forced him into, suddenly feeling overdressed compared to all the other kids.
He’s broken out of his train of thought by an astonished gasp. “Well, I’m obviously going to get into Gryffindor! That’s where all the brave kids go! And mum says I’m the bravest kid she knows!” James puffs out his chest as he speaks, cheeks flushed with pride. Sirius finds himself wishing he could always be in the boy’s orbit. “And you’re coming with me, you hear? I don’t know any of these other blokes, and you don’t seem half-bad! Oh! And you have to sit next to me in the great hall, alright? Please?”
Sirius finds himself grinning back, the boy’s enthusiasm contagious in a way that makes Sirius want to curl up and bask in it like a dog in the sun. “Yeah, alright.”
Sirius Black is thirteen years old, and the inconsolable prat that is his best mate is tugging at the sleeve of his robes ,“C’mon Sirius, please?” James begs, pulling at Sirius’ sleeve like an impatient child, which, to be fair, he was. “That greasy git is stealing Evans away as we speak!”
“I don’t want to go over there!” Sirius hisses, pulling his hand out of James’ grasp and glaring at the boy. “My idiot brother is over there, and I’d rather lick Snivellus’ shoe than be forced to listen to his whining.”
James huffs, looking back and forth between Sirius and the corner where Evans and Snivellus are huddled together. His eyes brighten. “I’ll do your potions homework for a week! Just help me get Evans’ attention, please?”
Sirius sighs; he does hate potions.
Begrudgingly, he pulls out his wand, already thinking of what hex he’ll use this time. James whoops with delight, excitedly shaking Sirius. “You rock, mate!”
Sirius finds himself grinning in spite of himself.
Sirius Black is sixteen when his mother finally grows tired of his attitude and throws him out. He runs to his room, ignoring his brother’s calls for him, and throws everything of value into a suitcase. He hesitates for a second, his hand hovering over a picture of him and Regulus at Regulus’ 13th birthday. Kreacher had actually baked the boy a cake, chocolate with fudge that melted in your mouth. Sirius had never seen Regulus so happy before. Tears run down his cheeks as he throws in the picture of him and James, not daring to look at his brother’s smiling face, not wanting to be haunted by the memory of a boy who no longer exists.
Sirius has never run faster than he does that night, barely stopping to breathe until he stumbles upon the steps leading up to the Potter household. James is already standing in the doorway, clutching his half of the mirror in his hand. Sirius’ body goes cold when he realizes he’s left his at the manor.
James beckons him inside with the word he knows Sirius is helpless to deny.
“Let me help you. Please, Pads?”
Sirius Black is nineteen when he goes shopping for a ring with James.
After running his mouth since their first year at Hogwarts about how he would marry Evans someday, James has finally grown the balls to go through with it.
Sirius is happy for him. Lily is great. Soft and understanding but never accepting of anyone’s bullshit, always ready to tell you when you’re being a right arse. Admittedly, Sirius gets that talk a lot.
“Mate, you know I love you, and Lils, but why am I here?” Sirius finally asks after a half hour of watching James flit between rows of rings with an increasingly furrowed brow. He feels for the poor guy; finding the perfect ring for the girl of your dreams sounds like hell, but it sounds like James’ hell.
James whips around to stare at Sirius like he’s grown a second head, “You’re here because you’re my best man, you dolt. Ring shopping is part of the job description.” James keeps talking, but Sirius has stopped listening. He is going to be James’ best man? James chose him?
There must be a mistake. Remus is far more responsible; he’d probably keep the box in a hidden chest until the wedding. Sirius can’t guarantee that the ring will be safe with him. He might go into one of his moods, the ones that fuck with him, make him see red to the point where he lashes out at everyone and everything around him. Fuck, what if he destroys the ring? This is an awful idea. He’s going to ruin the wedding of his best friend’s dreams and James is going to hate him. All this hardwork, just for Sirius to go fuck it up by acting like his mother. That wretched hag-
“Hey!” James grips his shoulders, shaking Sirius with enough force that he stumbles back a bit. “I can smell the self loathing coming off of you from a mile away.” Sirius guffaws, astonished by this whole little scene James is acting out. In public .
“You bet your arse I’m doing this whole act in public! “James shouts. Sirius wonders if the man has been practicing legilimency in his free time, the way he seems to be able to pick Sirius apart until there’s nothing left but bones.
“Oi! Will you stop ignoring me?” Oh, right, James is still talking. He seems to talk more and more every time Sirius sees him. “Now that I have your attention: Padfoot, will you be my best man? Pretty please with a cherry on top?”
Sirius rolls his eyes. “There’s not going to be a wedding if you give Lily that atrocity of a ring.”
He snorts at James’ astonished expression.
Sirius Black is twenty years old when Lily gives birth.
James tells him it was a grueling process. Their son put up quite a fight, seemingly as stubborn as his parents. Poor Lily had been doted on by the healers all day; apparently the attention got to be too much, as James cheerfully recounts how Lily threw her pillow at one of the nurses who came to check on her.
But all that anger is gone now, replaced with complete and utter awe as she stares down at her and James’ baby boy. Sirius can’t blame her in the slightest.
The baby—Harry, they had decided on Harry—has James’ coffee-colored skin tone, but his eyes are all Lily. Dark green eyes look up at Sirius as Lily asks if he wants to hold him.
He takes the boy with shaking hands, not quite believing he’s real. James and Lily have a son.
“You planning on just staring at him all day, Pads?” Remus quips, smirking at the glare Sirius sends his way.
“Oh, shut it, Moony.” Sirius pulls the boy closer to his chest, heart swelling at the way Harry immediately curls into the warmth. “I’m just giving him some time to take in his favorite uncle.”
James coughs, avoiding Lily’s gaze. She whips her head up to scold him. “You never asked him? James, you were supposed to ask weeks ago!” James shrugs sheepishly. Lily huffs and rolls her eyes before turning back to Sirius with a softer expression. “We were actually hoping you would be more than his uncle,” she says.
Sirius’ mouth falls open and for a moment he’s worried that he might drop Harry. Thankfully, Remus chooses that moment to pry the boy out of his arms, claiming that Sirius’ time is up.
Sirius opens and closes his mouth several times, throat working around words he can’t seem to get out. He eventually settles on a very pitiful utterance of “Me? You want… me? Are you sure?”
Lily smiles softly at him as James slaps him on the back. “Of course we do, mate! Honestly, who else would we have chosen?” He waves off Remus’ indignant oi! , “C'mon, Pads, you gonna make us beg? Because I’ll beg.”
James falls to his knees, putting his palms together and shaking them violently. “Will the great and powerful Sirius Black please do our son the honor of becoming his godfather? Pretty please?”
Sirius knocks James over with his foot. “Oh, sod off, Prongs.” He walks over to Remus to peek at the bundle in his arms. “Hey, Prongslet, I’m gonna help your mummy and daddy take care of you.”
Sirius Black is twenty-one years old when he gets the phone call that changes everything.
He’s greeted by Lily’s watery voice and the sound of Harry crying in the back. “He’s dead,” Lily says. “James is dead.”
The phone slips out of his grasp, and Sirius quickly joins it on the floor.
This has to be a joke, right? James has to be alive. He would never just abandon his wife and child. He would never abandon Sirius.
No, James is perfectly fine, he has to be.
Please?