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Chapter Text

Sirius Black didn’t seem like a mass murderer. Probably because he wasn’t. After a year of earnestly trying to find the man and another spent growing increasingly worried that they had made a terrible mistake, Kingsley could hardly believe he was face-to-face with the infamous fugitive at last, right in the middle of his family’s very creepy ancestral home.

Sirius might not be a murderer, but number twelve, Grimmauld Place, looked exactly like the sort of place the worst sort of Dark Wizard might live. Its troll leg umbrella stand and tattered velvet curtains were creepy enough, but they were nothing compared with the stuffed elf heads mounted on the wall. Just looking at them, Kingsley couldn’t repress a shudder.

“Gruesome, isn’t it?” asked Sirius with a rueful grin. “I’m afraid my parents didn’t have great taste in household decor.”

He stood there beside the staircase wearing a threadbare dressing gown falling open to reveal tattooed skin, with long hair falling past his shoulders. He didn’t look much like the screaming man on the wanted posters, but Kingsley could see the traces of Azkaban lingering in his slumped posture and the haunted look in his eyes.

(It was always the eyes, wasn’t it? That was how you could tell, even years later, who had spent a little too much time around the dementors: hollow, sunken eyes that looked just a little bit empty, even when the face smiled or the voice laughed.)

Kingsley ignored the twisting feeling of guilt in his stomach and the creepy, glass-eyed stares of the house-elf heads on the wall. He held out his hand and offered the not-quite-stranger a polite smile.

“Hi. I’m Kingsley Shacklebolt,” he said, introducing himself.

“Yeah,” said Sirius, crossing his arms over his chest. “Dumbledore told me you were coming. Is he …?”

“On his way,” said Kingsley. He could take a hint; clearly, Sirius did not trust him enough to shake his hand. In hindsight, perhaps wearing his Auror uniform had not been the best of ideas. It usually seemed to inspire confidence and trust, but he could understand why that might not be the case for Sirius.

Lowering his arm back to his side, Kingsley glanced back over his shoulder at the long hallway, in the direction Dumbledore would presumably be coming from at any moment now.

“He stopped to do something about a screaming portrait.”

Sirius’s laugh was cold and bitter.

“My mother,” he said. “Can’t seem to get her down. Permanent sticking charm.”

Kingsley grimaced. He had encountered Walburga Black only on a few blissfully rare occasions. He hadn’t thought much of the living, breathing woman, and his brief encounter with the portrait had been far worse. Or perhaps they were no different at all, and the real Walburga had simply restrained her impulse to shout insults while out in public in the company of those she viewed as equals.

“Well, in any case,” said Kingsley. “It’s nice to meet you. I mean … to meet you again.”

After all, they hadn’t been complete strangers before; their years at Hogwarts had overlapped, and their families had friends in common despite never being particularly close. How strange it seemed that Kingsley had hardly known Sirius in their youth, and yet now felt as if he could practically write a book on the man. After two years of detective work, he had learned far more about Sirius’s life than he had ever suspected before.

“Your boss wouldn’t be too happy,” said Sirius with an ironic little smirk on his face, “if he found out you saw me face-to-face and didn’t try to arrest me.”

“Definitely not,” said Kingsley, leaning back against the wall and shrugging. He returned Sirius’s smirk with one of his own. “Lucky for you, I’m not on duty.”

“You’re taking a pretty big risk, you know,” said Sirius. “It’s more than just your career on the line if you get caught before they come to their senses and realize Voldemort’s back.”

Voldemort. Kingsley didn’t flinch, but his eyes widened slightly. He was so used to hearing people say “You-Know-Who” that the name caught him off guard. He couldn’t deny he was impressed.

“So, what brings you here?” Sirius asked. “You weren’t one of us last time. What made you decide to join now?”

You, Kingsley didn’t say, because how could you say that to someone you didn’t even know? How could he even begin to explain that digging deeper and deeper into Sirius Black’s case had brought up more and more inconsistencies, that the lack of a trial was deeply concerning and the man’s own behavior not at all what Kingsley would have expected? How was he meant to put into words the fact that long before there was any talk of Voldemort’s return, he had been all too ready to believe that the Ministry would sweep inconvenient facts under the rug to make itself look good?

Instead, he just shrugged.

“I reckon Dumbledore’s telling the truth, and I want to do what I can to help.”

“Alright,” said Sirius with a nod. “Fair enough.”

Dozens of photos of Sirius stared down at Kingsley from the walls of his cubicle. There he was in his mugshot, sometimes struggling and screaming, sometimes laughing hysterically. And there, only a few centimeters away, he stood at James and Lily's wedding, youthful and handsome, letting loose a different, much more genuine laugh.

The man Kingsley met at number twelve, Grimmauld Place had laughed very differently from either of the photos. His laugh now was a harsh, bitter sound that resembled a barking dog, followed quickly by a return to gloom and misery. With his face more than a decade older and his personality so drastically altered, Sirius almost seemed like an entirely different person from the Best Man at the wedding or the screaming convict on the wanted posters.

Good, thought Kingsley. That would make his job easier.

Or, rather, it would make failing at his job without drawing suspicion easier. Wouldn't it just be lovely if he went to all the trouble to keep the Ministry away from Sirius just for them to find him standing in the middle of the street and cackling like a madman?

Kingsley didn’t seem to remember. Perhaps it had simply been a mundane detail of another day at work for him. But Sirius didn’t think he would ever forget.

The two Aurors walking down the corridor outside his cell.

The way one of them turned with a scowl, jabbing his wand in Sirius’s direction, sending a powerful stinging jinx slamming right into his chest. Doubling over in pain. Another voice speaking harshly – not to him, but to the man who had cast the spell.

“We’re here to check the security, not to harass the prisoners. Finite Incantatum.”

The feeling of relief as the pain eased away and the sound of his voice gasping out a “thank you.”

No response except a silent, barely perceptible nod, but Sirius would never forget the way Kingsley looked at him. Not quite kindly, but without revulsion or malice. As though Sirius was more than a rabid dog in a cage. As though he was still a person.

Based on that brief encounter alone, he was not at all inclined to hate the man who had been assigned to track him down, no matter how awkward it might be to meet him face-to-face. It would be easier that way. It would be easier if someone incompetent and easy to despise had been given the job, someone who had no chance of succeeding and whose attempts to capture Sirius would put him firmly in the category of “enemy.” But as time passed and Kingsley spent more time at Grimmauld Place, it quickly became apparent that he was none of those things.

He was far too intelligent, far too good at his job, and bizarrely enough, far too easy to like. In another life, they might have been close friends. But in a reality far less removed from their current one, it was all too easy to imagine the man with the kind smile and the calm voice relentlessly tracking him down, eventually catching up with him and turning him over to the dementors. If Kingsley didn’t know or didn’t believe that Sirius was innocent, that was how it would eventually play out, and Sirius was pretty sure they both knew it.

So why did Sirius like him so much?

He wasn’t sure, but as the days turned into weeks, he found himself looking forward to Kingsley’s visits and enjoying his company. That much was impossible to deny. Even a few minutes of friendly conversation, a shared meal, or a game of chess was enough to brighten up his day. Even if it quickly became apparent that he wasn’t going to be winning many games of chess against Kingsley.

“I’m not sure if I’m out of practice or if you’re just really good,” he said after one particularly crushing defeat. “Probably both. Rematch?”

Kingsley had shaken his head apologetically and replied that he had to get back to work. That was the thing about his visits. They were always short ones crammed into what little free time he had.

Of course, Kingsley was far from the only one coming and going from number twelve, Grimmauld Place that summer. The place was constantly flooded with various Order members.

He already knew Emmeline Vance, a witch in her early forties who scowled and grumbled about losing her job at The Daily Prophet before introducing him to her girlfriend of several years, a cheerful woman called Hestia Jones. Hestia, it turned out, worked as a Healer at Saint Mungo’s. It would be useful to have a Healer on their side, and Sirius tried not to think too hard about the several they had before who hadn’t survived past 1981.

Remus, struggling as always to find work and housing, had moved into one of the spare bedrooms but disappeared for weeks at a time on various missions for Dumbledore. Andromeda’s daughter, vibrant and sweet-natured in a way that made it difficult to think of her as family, put her feet up on the coffee table and insisted that she would answer only to her surname. Snape showed up to give his reports and to sneer at Sirius, mocking his supposed cowardice as if he didn’t know perfectly well he would rather be out there fighting.

Partway through the month, half the Weasley clan descended on the house. All of a sudden, it was filled with noise and movement, flooded with bickering and laughter, no longer still or silent.

Sirius honestly wasn’t sure which one he preferred. An empty house meant too much time to think, too many bad memories and nothing to do but dwell on them. Around every corner, the house was haunted by fragments of the past. Haunted by the names on the tapestry and the smell of fabric burning, by the screaming portrait and the muttering house-elf, by the locked bedroom on the top floor that remained untouched even as the house filled up with guests who could use that space. A quiet, empty house meant spending too much time trapped, alone with those memories.

But a house full of people meant … well, dealing with people. Something that had once come easily to Sirius now felt like a constant struggle. They were loud, full of energy, and often far too cheerful. Worst of all, they were free to come and go as they pleased while Sirius was stuck here, trapped in his horrible childhood home, unable to breathe fresh air or do anything very interesting. They all had lives outside these walls, and Sirius’s had ended fourteen years ago, even if his heart had kept on beating.

The Weasley twins hid punching telescopes and fake wands all around the house, and Sirius watched them, thinking with bittersweet nostalgia of the boys he and his friends had once been. Emmeline and Hestia exchanged lingering glances and walked away from meetings hand-in-hand, just like Dorcas and Marlene used to do. The Prewett boys’ sister bossed everyone around, no matter that this wasn’t actually her house, with the same stubbornness as Fabian and Gideon insisting on taking the most dangerous missions for themselves. Remus sat there beside Sirius with a book and a cup of tea, but being around him just made it all the more painful to remember the days when they were a group of four.

So, in a way, having all these people around didn’t change the fact that he was haunted by memories. The only difference was which memories he felt floating all around him like invisible ghosts.

Kingsley didn’t much like number twelve, Grimmauld Place. Everything from the doxy-filled curtains to the screaming portrait of old Mrs. Black felt like something out of a world just adjacent to the one he had grown up in, yet a thousand times worse. He had always had a bit of a soft spot for the Black siblings he went to school with, at least until most of them grew up to be awful people, but his impression of the older generations had never been a good one. Everything about the house seemed tailor-made to emphasize their most repulsive qualities.

Worst of all was the row of mounted elf heads on the wall - except, perhaps, for the living house-elf who had spent a decade trapped in the house alone.

“It bothers you, too, doesn’t it?” asked Hermione Granger when she caught him frowning at the decrepit old creature shuffling along in his filthy loincloth, muttering under his breath.

“We can’t free him,” said Kingsley evasively. “Elf magic behaves differently. He probably wouldn’t be bound by the Secret Keeper spell, and he knows far too much about the Order.”

It was an awkward justification, erring a bit too close to “for the greater good.” But it was true nonetheless.

“That’s not what I asked,” said Hermione, perched on the edge of a chair in the dining room with a book propped up in front of her. “He’s not well. He’s been alone for too long, probably. I don’t care if he’s not human, a decade of isolation is downright cruel. And everyone says house-elves enjoy serving wizards, but it’s obvious Kreacher hates working for Sirius.”

That much was true, and Kingsley didn’t bother trying to deny it. But what he had said was also true: the Order’s priorities had to come first, and that meant the best anyone could do for the Blacks’ old house-elf was try to avoid losing their patience when he muttered insults at them.

“Blood traitor” and “Ministry stooge” were his favorite ways of describing Kingsley. For his part, Kingsely took much greater offense to the latter than the former. The portraits on the walls, though, had a very different way of seeing things. Looking down at him with disapproving eyes, many of them the same shade of gray as Sirius’s, they spoke to each other rather than to him.

“The only one of that blood traitor’s new friends who might have been permitted to set foot here in my day,” said a stuffy-looking man dressed in nineteenth century robes.

“Oh, I don’t know,” an elegant woman disagreed. “Didn’t you see him come through the other day dressed like a Muggle? And I hear he has mudblood friends.”

“Disgraceful!” the man replied. “Where’s the proper Wizarding pride these days?”

And so, with that, the portraits deemed him a blood traitor and looked down their paint-on-canvas noses at him in the same way they looked at Sirius: with disdain and profound disappointment.

One day in mid July, Sirius was sitting in the corner of the kitchen when Kingsley casually slipped into the seat beside him.

“I’ve been thinking,” he said, making no attempt at small talk.

“Yeah?” asked Sirius, raising a weary eyebrow. “About …?”

“How to keep the Ministry off your back,” said Kingsley. “I’ve got to be seen looking for you, otherwise they’ll take me off the case and replace me with someone who’s really trying to find you. But I don’t have to be looking in the right places.”

“They don’t think I’d come here?” asked Sirius.

“Would you have, if not for the Order?” asked Kingsley.

Sirius chuckled under his breath. A question for a question. Fair enough, he figured.

“No. Of course not. I went abroad, before.”

What a heavy word. Before. Before Voldemort came back. Before Sirius found himself stuck here, in the house he thought he had left behind forever. Those things didn’t quite replace the old befores and afters - before James and Lily died, before Peter betrayed them, before Azkaban - but they still marked a world changed forever.

“Yeah,” said Kingsley. “So I figure we ought to convince them you’re still abroad. That way there’s no reason to be looking for you here.”

Sirius managed a faint smile, halfway wishing he was still somewhere warm and sunny, sending letters via exotic birds, far from the icy chill of the dementors and the hollow darkness of Grimmauld Place.

“Okay. So where am I, as far as you’re concerned?”

“Where do you want to be?”

Kingsley was smiling at him, his voice light and almost playful. If the situation wasn’t what it was, Sirius would have suspected he was flirting. But that thought came from a different era, one before Azkaban, when he was still young and handsome. Back in those days, when he guessed that playful conversation was flirting, he was usually right. Now … no. It couldn’t be. He dismissed the thought and shrugged.

“Somewhere far away from here.”

“I can do that,” said Kingsley. “How about Tibet?”

Sirius grinned.

“Yeah. That sounds good.”

If only he could really be in Tibet and not stuck here in his awful childhood home.

Chapter Text

Sirius Black was flirting with him, and Kingsley wasn’t quite sure what to make of that. There was no mistaking it, though: the prolonged eye contact from across the table; the sly half-smiles; the tone of his voice, mischievous and teasing when he spoke to Kingsley but harsh and resentful towards most everybody else.

“You’d think the Ministry would be at least a little bit competent, given how many N.E.W.T.s you need to get a job there,” he scoffed.

Kingsley cleared his throat and raised his eyebrows.

“Present company excluded, of course,” said Sirius, winking at him.

Winking at him?

And winking only at him, it would seem. Not at Mad-Eye, Tonks, or Arthur, even though they all worked for the Ministry and presumably counted as “present company” as well.

“Oh, I’m curious now,” he said, meeting Sirius’s gaze and feigning at a vague sort of amusement to mask the confusion he felt. “What makes you think I’m so much more competent than, say, John Dawlish?”

Sirius barked out a harsh laugh and shook his head.

“Now you’re just fishing for compliments,” he said, smirking at Kingsley. “Don’t compare yourself to Dawlish. He’s an idiot.”

Kingsley wasn’t sure that was true - Dawlish did, after all, earn top scores on his N.E.W.T.s - but couldn’t help feeling satisfied as he looked across the table at Sirius, who smirked at him and leaned back with a graceful, slouching posture. The conversation went on, turning back to the section of the Department of Mysteries that they suspected the Death Eaters might try to break into.

“They’ll be cautious about it,” said Moody, “and we should, too. Get caught down there without authorization, it’s six months in Azkaban. Constant vigilance!”

A worried murmur went up around the table, but Sturgis Podmore held his head high and crossed his arms defiantly.

“It’s worth it,” he said.

With a dark chuckle, Sirius turned to Kingsley, speaking in a conspiratorial tone.

“He says that now, but he’d be begging for mercy within the first hour, don’t you think?”

Kingsley frowned at him, taken aback by the question.

“Oh, come on,” said Sirius. “You’ve been there. I know you have.”

In Kingsley’s mind, a hazy memory surfaced of Sirius watching him from the opposite side of iron bars as he walked through the high security wing, more alert and perceptive than the other prisoners.

Of course Kingsley had visited Azkaban. All Aurors had to, from time to time. But it seemed strange for Sirius to bring it up like it was something special that belonged to the two of them, as if they had some kind of secret understanding because Kingsley’s work had occasionally taken him to the place Sirius had endured twelve years of horrible and undeserved punishment for a crime he never committed.

“I’m telling you, I’ve heard hardened killers and war criminals scream for their mothers,” said Sirius, turning to glare pointedly at Sturgis. “Don’t get caught. You can’t handle it.”

It was good advice, but Kingsley couldn’t quite understand the way Sirius’s gaze turned back towards him, a half-smile on his lips as if they were sharing some kind of private joke.

A few days later, Dumbledore’s patronus arrived at Kingsley’s house late in the evening, the silver light taking the form of a majestic phoenix in flight and opening its beak to summon Kingsely to an emergency meeting. He set aside his glass of wine and apparated on the spot to the street in front of number twelve, Grimmauld Place.

Inside, he found Sirius pacing back and forth across the dining room, unable to remain still and calm even as the rest of the Order took their places for the meeting.

“Hey. What’s wrong?” he asked, touching Sirius on the shoulder. “Dumbledore didn’t say.”

Sirius stopped his pacing and looked at Kingsley with genuine fear in his eyes.

“Dementors. Harry and his cousin - they were attacked, right there in the middle of a Muggle street.”

Dementors. Of all things, dementors in Little Whinging, attacking innocent teenagers. After years of trying to explain, without success, that allying themselves with the physical manifestations of evil and misery was a bad idea, Kingsley could almost feel smug. 

Almost.

The safety of Harry and his Muggle cousin, of course, took priority over any feelings of vindication.

“Are they alright?” he asked.

Sirius nodded, and Kingsley felt the tension in his body ease.

“Good.”

“Harry used the patronus charm.”

“Ah. I see.”

That explained the emergency meeting, then.

Ordinarily, it wouldn’t be a problem. Under normal circumstances, nobody at the Ministry would have a problem with someone using magic to save themselves, even underage and in front of a Muggle - one who was already aware of magic, at that! But Fudge would take even the flimsiest excuse to discredit the boy. They would have to be even more careful in their attempts to protect him. Clearly, he wasn’t safe in Little Whinging and would have to be moved as soon as possible.

Even that, Kingsley was beginning to think, was less concerning than the problems posed by Sirius’s reaction. He refused to sit for the meeting, instead continuing to pace like an animal caught in a trap, insisting over and over again that he needed to be there for Harry, no matter how reckless and impossible that might be. When the meeting was over and the others had gone home, Kingsley remained behind, listening to Sirius repeat his words for the thousandth time.

“He’s my godson. I should be there.”

“You can’t,” said Kingsley firmly.

He felt bad for him, of course. He couldn’t even imagine what it must be like to be stuck here, unable to go to the aid of someone he loved. But that didn’t change the facts.

“It’s too dangerous. I’m trying my best to keep you safe, but there’s very little I’ll be able to do if you get caught. You can’t afford to be reckless.”

“Harry -”

“Will have plenty of people to look out for him. I’ll be there, and Tonks, and Moody of course, and about a dozen others if we let everyone who’s volunteering come along. We’ll get him here safely. I promise.”

Which didn’t solve the problem of getting the boy’s name cleared, but that could be dealt with once he was physically safe.

Harry Potter was important, and Kingsley didn’t fully understand why. Sure, he was the Boy Who Lived, but anybody with any sense could tell that was probably more Lily and James’s doing than the one-year-old’s. Whatever had happened, Kingsley would be willing to bet it was because of the clever young woman with the green eyes.

Which didn’t do a thing to diminish the legend of the Boy Who Lived. And, it went without saying, that legend was why so many had been eager to volunteer for the mission to retrieve Harry from Privet Drive.

“As if that’s not why you volunteered, too,” said Tonks when he commented on it. “Come on, we all want to meet Harry Potter.”

“Sure. Of course. But we” - he gestured to himself and Tonks - “are Aurors. If something goes wrong, we can protect him. I’m just not sure why we’re bringing civilians along.”

Remus cleared his throat loudly and crossed his arms, glaring across the dining room table at Kingsley.

“You weren’t in the Order before,” he said. “So maybe you don’t realize. But everybody here knows how to handle themselves in a fight.”

Kingsley thought of the people he had met through the Order: Elphias Doge and Dedalus Diggle, Molly and Arthur Weasley, Mundungus Fletcher, Arabella Figg. All people who had a lot to contribute in their own ways, certainly, but …

“None of us were safe the first time,” said Remus. “Everyone had to fight sometimes. Even Mrs. Figg.”

“Isn’t she a squib?” asked Kingsley.

“Yeah. Stabbed a Death Eater with a kitchen knife, once. You’d be surprised what Muggles and Squibs can do when their lives are in danger.”

Kingsley could only stare at Remus in shock at the thought of that little old woman doing anything more than throw cat food at an attacker.

“We all know what we’re doing,” Remus said. “Dumbledore wouldn’t have let any of us join if we didn’t.”

That was probably true. Still, it didn’t make it any easier for Kingsley to set aside his Auror training and let civilians take such huge risks right alongside trained professionals.

When they set off to bring Harry from the Dursleys, Sirius watched them go, unable to disguise his resentment. Snape might sneer accusations of cowardice at him every time they met, but given the option, Sirius would never choose to stay behind while his allies all went off on a dangerous mission. He would give anything to be there for Harry.

Instead, he found himself stuck staring at the same horrible old wallpaper, avoiding the same half-destroyed tapestry, and pretending not to notice as the Weasley twins whispered about skiving snackboxes right under their mother’s nose.

At least Harry would be there soon. Harry would be safe soon. For the first time, they would be under the same roof.

Except, of course, that Sirius had never wanted it to be this roof.

The night dragged on too long. Sirius could hardly expect it to happen any more quickly; after all, Harry was still underage, and they were bringing him by broom rather than any method that might set off the Trace again. Not until he was safely inside a magical household could the adults around him use magic without the risk of getting him into even deeper trouble. Nevertheless, it was agonizing to pace through the hallways of Grimmuald Place, counting the minutes since the others left.

At last, he retreated to the drawing room, where the doxy-filled curtains shook threateningly and the familiar tapestry loomed overhead, its burned fabric telling him in no uncertain terms that he didn’t belong. As if he hadn’t already known that long before the day he left home, sixteen years old and unable to take it anymore.

Molly Weasley poked her head in to ask him a question - something about the cleaning schedule - and he simply shrugged his shoulders, totally indifferent. What did cleaning matter? He could see the need to get rid of the multitude of cursed artifacts his ancestors had left lying around, but he would hate this house just as much with freshly-mopped floors and dust-free shelves.

It was the sound of his mother’s portrait screaming again that told him the house was no longer empty. Sure enough, when he made his way into the entry hall, Tonks was putting right the troll leg umbrella stand while Molly and Remus struggled to cover up the portrait and silence it again. Sirius seized the curtain, shouting over his mother as he pulled it shut.

Finally. Blessed silence. He turned to his godson with a pained grimace.

“Hello, Harry,” he said. “I see you’ve met my mother.”

It was beyond strange to have Harry at Grimmauld Place. Sirius had never really thought before about how little Harry knew of his family. When they cleaned out the drawing room the next day, Sirius stood with him in front of the tapestry, pointing out Andromeda’s burn mark and telling him about the people he had been so relieved to leave behind.

“My parents, with their pure-blood mania,” he explained. “My idiot brother, soft enough to believe them.”

He wasn’t lying when he said he “hated the lot of them,” but there was something else there beneath the hatred, something he could barely acknowledge to himself and certainly couldn’t put into words for his godson. A pain that wouldn’t exist if he had never felt anything but hatred for his family.

That changed when Harry pointed out the branch of the tapestry tree that linked to the name surname Lestrange. Any painful nostalgia he might otherwise have felt vanished when he looked at his cousin’s name and her husband’s.

“They’re in Azkaban,” he said. Short and to the point. No need to burden Harry with memories of Bellatrix shouting from a few cells away, pledging her undying loyalty to her so-called Dark Lord.

There would have been no need to tell Harry they were related at all, if it wasn’t right there on the tapestry for all to see. She wasn’t his family. None of them were, really, except Andromeda, and Sirius found himself wishing they had never looked at the tapestry at all.

At the end of a long day of cleaning, Sirius found himself in the drawing room again, standing in front of the faded old tapestry that had proven as difficult to remove as his mother’s portrait. The burn mark that had taken the place of his own name stared back at him, and he imagined - not for the first time - what must have happened after he left that day.

Had his mother laughed with an unhinged cackle like Bellatrix as the evidence that they were related had gone up in smoke? Had her eyes burned with anger the way they did whenever he stood up to her, whenever he challenged her ideas or her authority? Had she wept for him, her heart broken as Kreacher claimed?

No, surely not. His mother didn’t have a heart.

It was easier to envision his father’s reaction. Whatever Orion Black might have been feeling inside, he would have hidden it behind a stoic, ice-cold facade. Or perhaps there had been no facade at all. Perhaps he really had been as cold and unfeeling as he liked people to believe he was.

Sirius doubted that. Remembering all the times his father had tried to teach him to suppress his emotions, he knew he must have had them, deep down.

His gaze drifted from his parents’ names to his brother’s. The death date stared back at him, and he shook his head, trying to dislodge the lump in his throat. Stupid idiot. Should’ve known better.

Footsteps approached behind him. His father’s, no doubt - his father, coming to scold him for choosing Gryffindor, for choosing James. He could hear his mother shouting at someone from the entrance hall. In his mind’s eye, he could see his brother seated on the sofa, back straight and head held high, discussing politics with Rosier and Avery as if they weren’t a bunch of teenage idiots while Andromeda sat in the corner, her quill scratching out secret love letters onto a sheet of parchment.

Wait, that wasn’t right. Andromeda was gone long before Regulus started bringing wannabe Death Eaters over to talk about politics. Sirius shook his head again, closing his eyes to block out the familiar names and dates of the tapestry. This wasn’t the seventies.

“Stupid tapestry,” he muttered under his breath, opening his eyes again to glare at the offending collection of fabric and bad memories.

“There’s a way to get rid of it if you really want to,” said Kingsley’s voice from somewhere behind him. Sirius didn’t turn, didn’t respond, just kept staring at the fraying threads.

“It’s entirely up to you,” Kingsley went on. “But just because we can’t take it down from the wall doesn’t mean we can’t cover it up.”

Sirius imagined a curtain falling like a shroud in front of the tapestry. Or perhaps a new layer of wall plastered over it, sealing it away.

“If I were you, though, I’d leave it on display,” Kingsley added.

At those words, Sirius did turn around, his brows raised in surprise.

“I didn’t think you were the sort to care about this sort of thing,” he said.

“I’m not,” said Kingsley, shaking his head and approaching so that he was standing side-by-side with Sirius, shooting the tapestry a wary look. “But I went to school with your cousins, you know?”

Sirius nodded, glancing at the Auror beside him and remembering for a moment the Ravenclaw prefect who had shown no mercy in giving the young Marauders detention.

With a thoughtful expression, Kingsley reached out to touch the burned place on the fabric where Andromeda’s name used to be.

“The whole fabric is covered in these,” he said. “What do you make of that?”

Sirius snorted. It was such an obvious answer that he almost couldn’t believe Kingsley had even bothered to ask.

“Whenever there’s somebody decent in the family, they kick them out.”

They. Them. He wasn’t part of the family anymore, but he wasn’t entirely sure he counted as one of the decent ones, either. Not with the guilt over James and Lily still festering inside of him and his mind filled with overwhelming bitterness.

“A symbol of intolerance, then,” said Kingsley.

“Yeah.”

“Do you know what I think?” Kingsley asked, raising an eyebrow at him.

Sirius shrugged and shook his head.

“I look at this and I see a pattern, repeated again and again, of people rejecting their family’s legacy. Generations upon generations of prejudiced Dark Wizards, but with each and every one, there’s always somebody who chose a different path. That’s sort of incredible, actually.”

Sirius wasn’t sure quite what to say. He had never thought about it quite that way.

“So if I were you, if they were my family, I’d leave it up and not let anyone forget,” said Kingsley. “But then again, they’re not my family, and thank Merlin for that. So maybe I don’t know what I’m talking about.”

He shrugged and walked away, and Sirius watched him go in silence. Glancing back over his shoulder at the tapestry, he nodded to himself. For the moment, at least, it would stay.

The tapestry might not be going anywhere, but the same couldn’t be said for the rest of the junk his family had accumulated over the years. His grandfather’s Order of Merlin, his mother’s cursed music box, and a strange locket nobody could open all went directly into the garbage.

“Well, that takes care of the drawing room,” Sirius said after a long weak of cleaning, collapsing onto the couch and glancing across at Molly Weasley, who was still fiddling with the curtains.

“Yes, I rather think we’ve made good progress,” she said. “I’d like to tackle the top floor soon.”

“No.”

The word came out before Sirius had time to consider, brief and blunt. She turned and looked at him, clearly startled.

“Whyever not? I thought you said the whole house needed to be cleaned out.”

Sirius hesitated a moment, then shook his head. The thought of her or the children going through his old bedroom, through his brother’s old bedroom …

“I’ll take care of the top floor myself,” he said. “Just don’t let anybody up there until I say it’s alright.”

He thought for a moment she was going to argue the point, but then her eyes softened, and she nodded.

“Alright. I’ll leave that to you, then.”

He probably shouldn’t feel quite as relieved as he did. After all, he hated this house. Nothing about it held any amount of sentimental value for him. Right?

Nobody with any common sense read The Quibbler unironically, but Kingsley was rather fond of the odd little magazine. It was utter nonsense, but always good for a laugh.

Sometimes, though, he found himself astonished by the far-fetched truths that he found hidden among the nonsense. Like, for instance, today, when it was claiming that Fudge spent his free time baking goblins into pies, that illegal poaching was driving the blibbering humdinger to extinction, and that Sirius Black was in fact Stubby Boardman, the lead singer of the Hobgoblins.

It was a unique talent of Xenophilius Lovegood’s, that ability to get so very close to the truth and then completely miss the mark. Fudge and his Ministry were corrupt. Endangered magical creatures did need better protections. And, of course, Sirius was in fact innocent. But the details of what Xeno was proposing, on the other hand? Not so credible. In fact, so far-fetched as to undermine his entire message.

Kingsley chuckled under his breath and tried to imagine the man he knew standing on stage with a microphone in his hand, singing … well, whatever the Hobgoblins sang. Kingsley didn’t actually know their music, so instead he imagined Sirius amongst the Weird Sisters singing “Do the Hippogriff.”

He couldn’t quite picture it.

With a smile, he tucked the magazine away in his robes, thinking that it might make Sirius smile.

“For you,” said Arthur, sitting down beside Sirius on the couch in the drawing room and slipping a magazine into his hands. “Kingsley thought you might enjoy it.”

Sirius took the magazine and glanced down at the cover, startled to see that it was an issue of The Quibbler. He raised his eyebrows in confusion. Had he given Kingsley any reason to think he was the sort of person who took Xeno Lovegood’s mad ideas seriously?

As he scrutinized the cover of the magazine, his gaze drifted down towards the stories it advertised, and he let out a harsh laugh, smiling almost against his will.

“Since when am I a singing sensation?” he asked, plopping down in a chair and flipping through the magazine to find the full story.

By the time he was done reading, he could barely breathe from laughing. With his sides aching and tears streaming down his face, he felt better than he had in a long time. It wasn’t quite like the thrill of escaping on a Hippogriff with his long-lost godson, but pretty good nonetheless.

"Tell Kingsley I said thank you," he told Arthur.

"Tell him yourself," was the reply. "I think he's coming for dinner tonight."

Sirius grinned even wider, barely realizing he was doing so.

Chapter Text

The house was too empty. After the Hogwarts Express departed from King’s Cross, after the remaining Weasleys returned to the Burrow, after the rest of the Order went back to their ordinary lives and their high-priority missions, Sirius was left alone.

Not indefinitely - the place was still Order headquarters - but for sometimes days on end. It was just him, Kreacher, and his mother’s portrait - neither of whom made great company.

They were joined, of course, by the ghostly memories that filled the house, haunting Sirius more and more every moment that he spent alone there.

The drawing room sofa, where his mother used to take tea with Aunt Druella and the cousins.

His father’s study, where he had locked himself away most of the time, concerned with politics and managing the family fortune.

The upstairs door guarded by a handwritten note in neat little letters, which had never managed to keep Sirius out while his brother was alive.

The fireplace he had escaped through at sixteen years old with nothing but a handful of floo powder, unable to tolerate one more moment in this house.

Well, look where that had gotten him: right back where he started from, stuck behind these too-familiar walls with the memories of the people he had tried to leave behind.

Of the people who came and went, some were more welcome than others. Bill was pretty cool, and he was always happy to see Tonks. Remus was harder to be around; too much history, too much hurt on both sides. They were a part of each other’s past in a way that neither one wanted to let go of, but at the same time, spending time together was a painful reminder of everything they had lost.

Sturgis Podmore’s absence was felt more than his presence ever had been. He wouldn’t be the same after Azkaban, and Sirius had hardly known the man, but he worried for him all the same.

Molly Weasley was always ready with an argument or a thinly veiled insult, seeming to forget sometimes whose house she was a guest in. He shrugged his shoulders when she rearranged the furniture and discarded the heirlooms, generally indifferent to the fate of his family’s material possessions. But he had trouble keeping his temper in check when she began to boss him around, telling him off for his restlessness and impatience, remarking on his absence from Harry’s life as if he had chosen to be framed for murder just to get out of raising his godson.

Worst of all, of course, was Snape, forever sneering and shooting glares in Sirius’s direction. If Sirius could prohibit him from setting foot on the premises, he would.

Kingsley stopped by two or three times a week to see him, and Sirius found himself looking forward to those visits more and more, especially when they found themselves alone together. In a room full of people, Kingsley would be perfectly friendly to Sirius, albeit in a distant sort of way. But when nobody else was around, it turned out they had quite a lot to talk about.

And not just to do with how to keep the Ministry off his back. Their discussions often began there, but by the time their plates were empty and the sky outside was dark, they had moved on to their favorite music, their cherished memories from their Hogwarts years, or any number of other topics that had nothing to do with the Order.

It had been a long time, Sirius realized, since he’d had someone to talk to like that. True, sometimes Kingsley looked at him with obvious pity in his eyes, but more often he just treated him like a person, like a friend.

“What was your favorite thing about Hogwarts?” Kingsley asked him one day as they sat in the dining room with a chess board between them.

Sirius hesitated. The real answer - “getting away from my parents” - was sure to bring out more pity, and he was enjoying this moment too much for that.

“My friends,” he said instead.

“Yeah. Same.”

Sirius tried to remember who Kingsley had been friends with and came up with nothing. Would it be rude to ask?

“Edgar Bones,” Kingsley said quietly. “Gideon Prewett, Ted Tonks, Frank Longbottom, Duncan MacDougal. None of us are very close anymore, even the ones who are still around. But I had a lot of good friends at school.”

Even the ones who are still around… Sirius knew that feeling all too well. He moved one of his rooks forward to take Kingsley’s only remaining bishop, smirking as he collected the piece from the board.

“How come you weren’t in the Order the first time?” he asked. “With friends like that …”

Kingsley shrugged and maneuvered one of his knights close to Sirius’s king along a path the latter hadn’t thought to consider.

“Check,” he said smugly. Then, turning his attention back to Sirius’s question, he frowned slightly. “The Ministry was doing something, the first time. Maybe they didn’t always get it right, but it made more sense, back then, to stick with just being an Auror and do everything through the official channels. This time around, just being an Auror would mean doing nothing useful at all. Or worse - it would mean being complicit in a great deal of corruption.”

It would be so easy, Sirius realized, for him to do just that. To stand aside and let things play out. He hadn’t been in the Order before, he wasn’t Muggle-born, and if he was caught, his career was over. He didn’t have any personal reason to join the fight, except perhaps the loss of some of his friends during the first war. And yet here he was anyway.

“For what it’s worth, I’m glad you decided to join us,” said Sirius.

“Yeah,” said Kingsley, meeting Sirius’s eye and smiling at him. “I’m glad I did, too.”

Kingsley didn’t say what he was thinking. He couldn’t. How did you even put a sentiment like that into words?

I’m glad I’ve gotten the chance to know you?

I’m glad we’re on the same side?

I’m really, really glad you turned out to be innocent, because I like you far too much to send you to Azkaban?

Those were things that would be painfully awkward to say aloud, no matter how true they might be. But regardless, Kingsley found that he was drawn back to number twelve, Grimmauld Place time and time again, even when he had no reason to be there, even when there wasn’t a meeting or anything going on that required his presence. He couldn’t deny it to himself: he was coming back to see the man who lived there, to share drinks and play chess, to make conversation, to get to know him just a little bit better.

Sirius was fascinating, a dark and lonely fallen aristocrat hidden away in a decrepit house, like a character out of a gothic novel.

Sirius was human, a person with dreams and memories and a sense of humor. The photos and news stories didn’t even come close to capturing a fraction of who he was.

Sirius was hurting, stuck in a place that was clearly full of bad memories, his eyes still harboring the telltale haunted look of someone who had spent too much time around the dementors.

So Kingsley kept coming back, kept talking to him, kept doing his best to make him smile.

Grimmauld Place was usually quiet, but when Kingsley arrived one evening in late September, he immediately heard the shouts of Mrs. Black’s portrait and a pitiful wailing coming from the drawing room. His heart pounded as he started running through the unpleasant possibilities. Had Sirius been injured? Was he missing? But as he stepped nervously through the doorway, he found nobody in the room but Kreacher, who was lying on the floor in front of the sofa, sobbing and pounding his fists against the carpet.

“Kreacher?” Kingsley said softly.

The elf didn’t reply, too busy sobbing and thrashing about. It was a pitiful sight, truly pitiful, and something in Kingsley’s heart clenched.

“Kreacher, sit up and look at me,” he said firmly.

Kreacher turned to glare up at Kingsley with bloodshot eyes, tears and snot dripping down his face. He shook his head and began to mutter to himself.

“The blood traitor cannot give Kreacher orders. Kreacher answers only to the House of Black.”

Kingsley didn’t think he even did that, really. Not when it came to Sirius or Tonks, anyway. But he was right that the Blacks and the Shacklebolts were about as distantly related as it was possible for two pure-blood families to be.

“Right,” he said, seating himself on the floor beside the elf. “You’re right, I can’t order you around. But I’d like to talk to you, if you’ll humor me for a minute.”

Giving him a wary look, Kreacher hauled himself into a sitting position. He looked utterly pathetic, dressed in nothing but a dirty loincloth, his eyes bloodshot and his large ears drooping.

“What does the blood traitor want?” he asked, looking at Kingsley like he was expecting some kind of cruelty.

“Well, first of all, I’m sorry if I startled you” said Kingsley, “I know it must be hard for you to have so many strangers in the house after being alone for so long. I want you to know you don’t have anything to fear from me.”

That should go without saying, really. Even among the darkest of Dark Wizards, harming another family’s house-elf was looked down upon, seen as disrespectful towards said family. But Kreacher clearly didn’t trust anybody in the Order, and it was obvious that he - like everything else about this house - held little value to Sirius.

"And secondly,” he continued, “you’re clearly upset right now. Would you like to tell me what’s wrong?”

Kreacher looked at him with deep suspicion.

“The filthy blood traitor runaway is throwing away precious family artifacts. Oh, if Kreacher’s mistress knew, her heart would break.”

They were Sirius’s things, his inheritance, and Kingsley couldn’t blame him for wanting nothing to do with it. After all, about half the stuff in this house was cursed. Dangerous. Not the sort of things you’d want lying around.

But still, the whole thing was clearly distressing to Kreacher, and as unpleasant as he could sometimes be, he looked so pathetic that Kingsley couldn’t help pity him just a little. He shifted a bit closer and reached out to gently put his arm around the elf’s shoulders.

“I’m sorry.”

Kreacher’s eyes widened. He looked at Kingsley as if he had said something truly unexpected. Kingsley wondered how long it had been since someone had considered the elf’s feelings enough to apologize for anything. As if he was thinking along exactly the same lines, Kreacher spoke again.

“Not many people have ever said ‘I’m sorry’ to Kreacher,” he said in a deep croak, tears pooling up in his eyes. Then, letting out a wordless wail, he buried his face in his arms and began sobbing again.

“Okay, help me understand,” said Kingsley. “You’re not happy about the cleaning, but that’s been going on for months now. What’s he working on right now that you’re so upset about?”

Kreacher sobbed harder, remaining silent. 

“Okay, that’s fine,” said Kingsley after a moment. “Can I tell you something, then?”

Kreacher nodded.

“I’m a pure-blood,” said Kingsley.

Kreacher lifted his head to look at Kingsley, his eyes narrowed into a glare, tears still dripping down his wrinkled face.

“Blood traitor,” he whispered. “Must be, to be here with all these mudbloods and filth.”

“In some ways, yes,” Kingsley admitted. “I don’t have a problem with Muggle-borns, and I don’t practice the Dark Arts. But my family has its own traditions and history going back just as far as the Blacks’. It’s none of my business what Sirius does with his inheritance, but if one of my cousins showed up at our family’s ancestral home and started filling up garbage bags full of priceless heirlooms, I’d duel them right then and there over it.”

Kreacher looked at him long and hard, frowning deeply. Something changed in his eyes, and after a few moments of silence, he nodded.

“The blood traitor has gone upstairs,” he said in an anguished whisper. “He ordered Kreacher not to interfere, not to even set foot on the top floor. But he means to empty out Master Regulus’s room.”

Oh. Kingsley’s brows rose as he processed Kreacher’s words.

“And that matters to you?” he asked. “More than what he did to the drawing room, or to his mother’s bedroom?”

Kreacher nodded in silence.

It was a strange thing to consider. Kingsley hadn’t known the younger Black brother well, and he couldn’t say he was particularly impressed by what he had known of him. Blood purist. Death Eater. Dark Wizard. He could easily understand why Sirius would want to be rid of any reminders of him.

Still, his own opinions weren’t really important at the moment, were they?

“He was kind to you, then?”

He said it as a question, but it wasn’t, really. Whatever else Regulus Black had been, he must have treated Kreacher well, at least in comparison to the rest of the family. There was no other reason a house-elf would show such loyalty to someone long gone.

Sure enough, Kreacher nodded, looking miserable, more tears pooling up in his eyes.

“Okay, here’s what we’re going to do,” said Kingsley. “I can’t stop Sirius from doing what he wants to do in his own house. But I can offer to … ah … help him. I don’t think he’ll even notice if I pocket something for you to hide away. That’s what you’ve been doing in the other rooms, isn’t it?”

Kreacher nodded silently.

“Anything in particular you want me to bring back?”

No response. The elf had begun to sob again, covering his face with long, thin fingers.

When Kingsley reached the top of the stairs, the first thing he heard was sobbing. Unlike Kreacher’s, though, these sobs were stifled, the sound of someone trying very hard not to cry and failing miserably. There, halfway down the hallway, a pale, dark-haired man sat with his back against a door, his legs pulled up to his chest and an empty garbage bag lying on the floor beside him.

“Sirius?”

The man looked up at the sound of Kingsley’s voice. His eyes were red and puffy, his expression bleak.

Kingsley sat down slowly beside him, forcing himself to resist the urge to reach out and embrace Sirius. He had refused even a handshake the first time they met; he surely wouldn’t want a hug now.

“Are you okay?” he asked.

“I was,” said Sirius. “Until I saw that stupid little note.”

His words didn’t mean anything to Kingsley, but that didn’t really matter.

“Kreacher told me what you were doing. I was going to offer to help, but …” he hesitated, suddenly overwhelmed by concern for Sirius. “You know you don’t have to do this, right?”

“He was a Death Eater. Who knows what he left in there?”

“It doesn’t matter.” Kingsley wasn’t sure anyone else in the Order would agree, but who gave a damn what they thought? “This is your house, this is your family’s stuff, and you’re entirely within your rights to do whatever you want with it. Throw it out, keep it, lock the door and forget that it’s here, whatever. It’s entirely your decision.”

“It’s headquarters.”

“And you’re our host, and it’s still your house.”

“I shouldn’t care. He was a Death Eater. I shouldn’t still …”

His voice trailed off, but the conflicted expression lingered on his face, and he looked away as if he was afraid of his feelings.

“You know,” Kingsley said, “Aurors aren’t allowed to work on cases that involve their relatives. It’s hard to be impartial about your own family. I can’t even get Tonks assigned to help me, and she’s just your cousin’s kid who’s supposedly never met you.”

Sirius frowned and looked at him in confusion.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“I’m just saying, if the memory of your brother still means something to you, that’s normal. There’s nothing wrong with it. And if you don’t want anyone else to know, that’s fine, too. I can keep a secret.”

Sirius stayed silent for a moment, but the look in his eyes spoke volumes. He gave a slight, almost imperceptible nod.

“Still,” he said. “What if there is something dangerous in there?”

Kingsley shrugged.

“The bedrooms haven’t been very interesting, so far,” he pointed out. “All the worst stuff has been out on display for everyone to see. I reckon you’ll find robes, Quidditch gear, maybe a few Dark Arts books. Nothing that can’t wait until you’re ready.”

Sirius responded with a slight nod, looking profoundly relieved.

“Come on,” said Kingsley, standing and offering his hand. “Let’s go downstairs and get something to drink.”

This time, Sirius didn’t reject his hand. His palm was warm and sweaty, his grip weak and tentative, but he managed a faint smile. As they fell into step beside each other, Kingsley had to resist the urge to put his arm around Sirius and pull him into a hug. He doubted it would be welcome at the moment, but the more time Kingsley spent around him, the more he saw of just how much Sirius was still suffering from both old wounds and new ones, the more he wanted to hold him close and assure him that it would be okay. That nobody would ever hurt him again.

He couldn’t promise that. He knew better than to make promises he couldn’t keep.

Chapter Text

Time passed by, and the air outside grew cold. Of course, Sirius couldn’t actually stand outside and feel the cold wind against his skin. No, he only knew that from pressing his palms up against the windowpanes, looking out at the street below. How pathetic was that?

He had always liked autumn, in the old days - before the betrayal, before Azkaban. Back then, autumn had meant an escape from this place, a chance to return to Hogwarts and see his friends again. And, of course, it didn’t hurt that his birthday came in early November. Everything had changed, though, the night James and Lily were murdered. Suddenly, the crisp coolness of autumn signaled not the chance to see his friends again but the swiftly-approaching anniversary of the day he lost them forever.

Not to mention, he wasn’t too fond of the cold anymore, either. It crept in through the windows and under the door, filling the house with a chill that - while completely natural and relatively mild - made Sirius shiver at the reminder of a hollow cold that never faded, even on the hottest days of summer.

He retreated from the windows despite the urge to look outside. He cast warming charms and stayed close to fireplaces.

“Are you sure you’re quite alright?” asked Molly repeatedly. “You haven’t got a fever, have you?”

He didn’t have a fever. But no, he wasn’t alright. Not even close.

“It’s been like that every winter since I escaped,” he confided in Kingsley over a game of chess by the fireplace in the drawing room.

Kingsley nodded and looked at him thoughtfully, moving one of his pawns forward before responding.

“Long-term exposure to dementors,” he said. “I wish I could tell you there was some magic cure, but …” he shrugged awkwardly. “Quite frankly, you’re holding up better than most people do, even after a much shorter time.”

Well, that was certainly a comforting thought. Sirius wasn’t surprised. He had heard the toughest, cruelest Death Eaters sob through the night, scream themselves hoarse, and eventually go quiet. He remembered how hard it had been just to remember who he was and keep any kind of grip on reality.

“It wasn’t so bad last year,” said Sirius. “I think … outside, it was easier. But being stuck in here …”

He probably shouldn’t complain. He probably sounded like a petulant child, whining about his circumstances while Kingsley and all these other people went to great lengths to protect him.

Kingsley, though, didn’t seem offended. Sirius didn’t much like the look of pity on his face, either, but it only lingered for a moment; as Sirius moved one of his knights, Kingsley turned his attention back to the game.

Sirius lost. Again. He didn’t mind much, losing to Kingsley; the other man didn’t gloat about it, and at least he didn’t pity him quite enough to let him win. What would be the fun in that?

On a dreary evening in early October, Molly Weasley paced back and forth in the kitchen of number twelve, letting loose all her worries and complaints while Sirius tried to tune out her endless tirade.

“What do they think they’re doing?” she demanded. “They’re just kids! They ought to be worrying about their schoolwork, not sneaking around training to fight in a war.”

“To be fair,” said Kinglsey, “it sounds like they’re training to defend themselves, which is something they’ll be tested on in their O.W.L.s.”

She turned to glare at him.

“Dumbledore’s Army?” she demanded. “That doesn’t sound like they think they’re soldiers to you?”

“Well, I think it’s a brilliant idea,” said Sirius.

“Oh, you would.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Only that it doesn’t take a genius to look around this house and see what sort of wizards lived here,” she said harshly. “The Death Eaters might’ve recruited schoolchildren back in the day, but our side does not, and you would do well to remember it.”

Nothing she had said was wrong, but Sirius bristled at the implication.

“You can’t possibly be suggesting -”

“I’m saying that my children are going to have their childhood, war or no war,” she said. “Next time you speak with them - and I know you’re planning to, don’t try to pretend otherwise - you’re to tell them they’re absolutely forbidden from having any involvement in this group. I do realize I can’t forbid Harry or Hermione, but - well, I’ve got their best interests at heart.”

Sirius glared back at her, unable to conceal the hurt that he felt at the implication that he did not.

“I could tell it struck a nerve, what Molly said,” Kingsley murmured, lingering behind after she left for the Burrow.

Sirius shrugged and said nothing, remaining in his seat at the kitchen table. Kingsley slipped quietly into the chair beside him.

“Do you want to talk about it?”

Another moment of silence, but then Sirius spoke, his voice intense and more than a bit defensive.

“It’s not the same. Harry and his friends aren’t joining the Order. They’re not being sent on missions. They’re sure as hell not being ordered to hurt innocent people. They’re just learning to defend themselves, because they might have to.”

Kingsley nodded, looking like maybe he understood.

“They’ve already been targeted,” he murmured. “What happened to the Diggory boy last year …”

“Yeah. And what Umbridge is doing now. James would’ve wanted his kid to fight back. He and I would’ve never taken that sort of thing laying down.”

“You and James also fought back against perfectly reasonable things like curfews and rules against hexing your classmates,” Kingsley pointed out. His tone was light, almost joking, but Sirius still felt a little bit like he was being reprimanded. “I was there, remember? I gave the lot of you detention more times than I can count.”

“Yeah, I remember,” Sirius grumbled. “You never let us get away with anything. Until, of course, you graduated and there was nobody left who could keep us in check.”

Kingsley chuckled and nodded, but then his expression grew solemn.

“That’s not what I really meant,” he said.

“Hmm?”

“If that’s what you want to talk about, we can,” said Kingsley. “But what I meant was … well, you seemed upset when she mentioned your family”

Ah. Exactly the part of what bothered him that Sirius did not want to talk about.

“You’re nothing like the rest of them,” Kingsley said, “and nobody should be implying that you are just to win an argument. It was wrong of her to go there. Nobody gets to choose who they’re related to.”

Sirius nodded. He knew that, but there was something reassuring about hearing someone say it aloud.

“But we do need to be careful, I think, about how much we let the kids on our side get involved. We don’t need an army of child soldiers.”

Sirius nodded. That would be going too far, even he had to admit.

“Still. What they’re doing now is a good idea, don’t you think?”

After a brief pause, Kingsley nodded.

“Yeah. At some point, they’re probably going to have to defend themselves, and it’s better if they’re prepared.”

There weren’t a lot of people Kingsley liked less than Dolores Umbridge, but Dawlish might qualify. At the very least, he was certainly making a nuisance of himself right now, standing in front of Kingsley’s cubicle with nothing better to do than pester him about Sirius. 

“Are you sure he’s in Tibet?” Dawlish asked.

“Well, not entirely,” said Kingsley. “To be honest with you, I won’t feel entirely sure of where he is until I’ve got him in handcuffs. But I’d be shocked if he hasn’t gone abroad, most likely to someplace warm since the dementors are so poorly suited to those climates. So with that in mind, yes, I think we should be taking the sightings of him in Tibet very seriously.”

“You don’t think he’s probably gone to his family?” asked Dawlish. “He’s related to the Malfoys, right? And everyone knows they were You-Know-Who supporters.”

The thing about Dawlish was that despite being rather obnoxious, he wasn’t actually stupid. In fact, he could be pretty clever from time to time. You had to be, to even qualify as an Auror. But on this, he was laughably wrong - although Kingsley couldn’t exactly explain why.

“Lucius and Narcissa Malfoy were found not guilty by reason of Imperius curse.”

Dawlish opened his mouth to protest, but Kingsley cut him off. “I agree they were probably lying, but they didn’t hesitate to throw their former allies under the bus the moment the tide turned. Hardly seems likely they’d harbor a fugitive now.”

He had his doubts about that. If Bellatrix, for instance, were to escape from Azkaban, Kingsley would not be surprised in the least to find her at Malfoy Manor. But Sirius most certainly wasn’t there, and Kingsley needed to avoid questioning the Malfoys too closely, lest they reveal the truth about Sirius’s animagus form to the wrong person.

“In any case, Sirius and Narcissa were on very bad terms even before he was disowned from the family. I highly doubt -”

“On bad terms? Where’d you hear that?” Dawlish asked.

“I witnessed it,” said Kingsley. “At Hogwarts, and at dozens of dinner parties and social events that our families dragged us to. I had the distinct displeasure of a front row seat to the Black family drama, and trust me when I say, any place with a connection to them is the last place Sirius would want to go.”

It wasn’t even a lie. Not technically. Kingsley had no doubts that Sirius hated his childhood home. The fact that he had gone there anyway … well, Dawlish and the rest of the Aurors didn’t need to know that.

As Dawlish grumbled and plodded away, Kingsley turned to glance back up at the pictures that lined the walls of his cubicle. Dozens of photos of Sirius stared back down at him, and that was all the motivation he needed to keep going with what sometimes felt like the most frustrating job imaginable.

It didn’t matter how careful a line he had to walk or how little he was able to let himself actually accomplish.

It didn’t matter if he was risking far worse than losing his job every single day.

It was worth it. For Sirius, he would risk everything - and after knowing him for several months, Kingsley had to admit that it was no longer a simple matter of protecting an innocent man on principle. He liked Sirius. He wanted to see him standing in the sunlight with a smile on his face, not shut up inside that awful house, and definitely not thrown back in Azkaban or given the Dementor’s Kiss. The gut reaction that had once protested “but he’s innocent” now insisted “but he’s Sirius” instead.

Huh. That was new, and potentially going to be a problem.

The month of October crawled by as Octobers were wont to do. Even in Azkaban, where every moment was a painful eternity, October was especially long, filled with vivid memories of two dead bodies and a crying baby being taken away to live with Muggles, a man with the heart of a cowardly rat scurrying off into the sewers as Sirius stood there unable to stop his hysterical laugher.

Octobers were slow and painful, and they got worse as they crawled closer to that terrible day.

“I’m sorry,” said Remus, dropping by briefly one evening. “I wish I could be here with you, but Dumbledore’s sending me on another mission.”

If he remembered that it was almost the anniversary, he didn’t say anything. Neither did Sirius. It wasn’t as if they had spent any other Halloweens since then together, seeking comfort in each other. And he knew that wasn’t fair - after all, until recently, Remus had believed him to be the one who betrayed the Potters - but that didn’t change the fact that, every year on the anniversary, Sirius had been alone.

Alone for twelve years in Azkaban.

Alone trying to break into a tower while the students feasted in the Great Hall below.

Alone on the run, eating rats and living in a cave.

Alone now, in the empty drawing room of number twelve, Grimmauld Place, ignoring the ruined tapestry and the tattered curtains, watching the flames flicker in the fireplace.

As he watched, he thought he saw familiar figures moving in the shadows. Was that a flame dancing, or was it Lily’s bright red hair fanning out behind her as she turned to face Voldemort, begging for her son’s life? Was that James’s body falling to the floor, or just a charred bit of log falling deeper into the fire? Were those footsteps he heard, or -

No, they were footsteps. With bitter memories surging through his mind, Sirius leapt to his feet, spinning around and drawing his wand in a panicked reflex. That was Hagrid coming to take baby Harry away to the Dursleys. It had to be, because what else would come next? But Sirius wouldn’t let him, not this time.

The footsteps were too quiet to be Hagrid’s, and Sirius’s heart beat faster, fury surging through him. Wormtail, then. Wormtail, come to “confront” him, come to frame him for their deaths all over again.

The door opened, and there, in the door frame, stood Kingsley. Sirius felt his grip on the wand go slack, his tense posture relaxing as reality came seeping back in.

It was October 31, 1995. Not 1981. The Potters were long dead, Harry was nearly grown up, and the man in the doorway was a friend, not an enemy.

“Oh. I’m sorry, I thought -”

How was he supposed to explain that for a terrifying moment, he hadn’t been in the present at all?

“It’s alright,” said Kingsley, looking at him with far more pity than Sirius was comfortable with. “I can go, if you’d like. I just thought you might not want to be alone tonight.”

Awkwardly, Sirius sheathed his wand and collapsed back onto the moth-eaten sofa, beckoning silently for the other man to join him. His footsteps echoed harmlessly as he walked into the room. The cushions of the sofa shifted under his weight. He sat beside Sirius, a gap of a few inches between them, so precisely that Sirius thought it must be intentional: not quite close enough to touch by accident, but close enough for his presence to be felt, close enough that Sirius could reach out and take his hand or rest his head on his shoulder should he have any desire to.

Sirius didn’t move.

“Why?” he asked quietly.

“Why what?”

“Nobody else thought to check on me tonight. Why did you?”

To Sirius’s surprise, Kingsley laughed. He didn’t get the feeling he was being laughed at, though, at least not in an unkind way.

“You’re talking to the man whose job it is to be an expert on Sirius Black,” said Kingsley. “I’d be a pretty lousy detective if I didn’t remember what tonight is.”

He didn’t mean Halloween, Sirius realized, or the anniversary of Voldemort’s disappearance that so much of their world still celebrated each year. He meant the night Sirius lost everything.

“Yeah. I guess so.” Sirius shrugged. “You’re a pretty lousy detective anyway, aren’t you? By design, I mean.”

“I’ll have you know I’m a very good detective,” said Kingsley with a note of amusement in his voice. “One of the best. How do you think I got the job?”

Sirius laughed, too, a harsh, bitter sort of laugh that didn’t contain much actual mirth.

“Care for a drink?” he asked. “I’m sure there’s some firewhiskey around here somewhere.”

He hadn’t imagined this was how he would spend Halloween, but couldn’t say he was disappointed. In fact, it was looking like it might just be the best Halloween in fifteen years, purely by virtue of being the least horrible.

Chapter Text

Sirius Black was the most fascinating man Kingsley had ever met, and he couldn’t stay away. He probably shouldn’t be spending so much time around him, probably shouldn’t get to know him too well as a person when his mission for the Order depended on being able to pretend he only knew him as a fugitive being hunted.

He couldn’t afford to slip up and mention Sirius’s dark sense of humor or persistent efforts to win at chess in front of his co-workers. He couldn’t afford to blur the line between the man whose photos stared down from the walls of his cubicle and the man he had drinks with at Grimmauld Place. They weren’t easy to keep separate, though, given that they were both the same man.

It sometimes took all Kingsely had to hold himself back from just telling Scrimgeour outright that Sirius was innocent and deserved far better than literally anything that had happened to him. Or, even worse, from telling him to just sit down and talk to Sirius and see if his clever eyes and the courage in his voice didn’t make the idea of doing anything to hurt him simply impossible to consider.

That would only make things worse, so he kept quiet. And, like a moth drawn to a flame, he kept coming back.

He sat with Sirius by the fire in the drawing room on Halloween, and he showed up on November 3 with a birthday cake, joking that there was “more cake for us” when nobody else arrived to celebrate. He brought Sirius newspapers and lingered to talk about everything from the Quidditch league to the news of the day. The man had spent too much time in isolation already. No matter how much time he spent sulking, Kingsley hadn’t missed the eagerness in his eyes when they all gathered for dinner or sat around the table in meetings. He was obviously lonely.

And he always would be, unless they could find a way to get his name cleared. He deserved better than to spend his life in hiding, dependent on others and cut off from the outside world. He deserved to breathe fresh air and see sunlight, to go where he liked, to relax on a beach or soar through the sky on a broom.

He deserved everything.

“Of course,” Dumbledore agreed. “For the moment, though, it’s not feasible. The Ministry doesn’t want to listen.”

“But as soon as we can,” Kingsley insisted. “We need to start building a case, so that when the time comes, we’re ready.”

The Order, though, apparently had other priorities. Or at least its leader did. Well, that would make things more complicated, but Kingsley didn’t need Dumbledore’s permission, and he could find other people to help.

One day, as they lurked in the shadows of a Muggle street on an Order mission, he dared to bring up the topic to Emmeline Vance.

“I’m worried about Sirius. Hiding him isn’t enough. We need to clear his name.”

Emmeline looked at him thoughtfully and nodded.

“I’m not going to disagree with you,” she said, “but I’m not sure what you think I can do to help.”

“You’re one of the smartest people I know,” he said. “And I don’t just mean book smart. You’re a strategist.”

She laughed, fixing him with a smug look that told him she saw right through his polite evasiveness.

“You need a Slytherin’s help,” she said. “That’s what you’re saying, right?”

He didn’t deny it.

“It couldn’t hurt,” he said. “But I was also thinking, you did courtroom reporting, didn’t you? When you worked for the Prophet?”

“Yes, but I’m a disgraced ex-reporter,” she pointed out. “Even if I did still work at the Prophet, they’d never print a story about Sirius being innocent.”

“Right,” he agreed. “But you know something about how the legal side of this works. More than most people who aren’t directly involved with law enforcement. So look at his file with me. Let’s see if we can find anything that might help prove his innocence without admitting we’re hiding him.”

Emmeline paused for a long moment, looking at him with scrutinizing eyes.

“You really care about him, don’t you?” she asked.

“He’s my friend.”

The words felt inadequate, but Kingsley wasn’t sure what else to call the strange rapport that had developed between them over the past few months.

“Of course I care about him. And I care about not sending an innocent man back to Azkaban.”

“Alright,” she said. “I’ll do what I can to help.”

Sirius, surprisingly enough, was more difficult to convince. The next day, when Kingsley joined him for dinner at Grimmauld Place, he listened with an expression of almost complete indifference, as though his own wrongful conviction was of little concern.

“Are you paying attention?” Kingsley asked. “You do understand I’m talking about how we’re going to clear your name?”

“That’s not why I broke out,” Sirius said with a shrug.

“No, from what I’ve heard, you broke out to protect Harry,” said Kingsley. “But do you want to go back to prison?”

He raised an eyebrow and looked Sirius in the eye from across the table, silently demanding that he think logically about it for a moment, if for some reason the primal desire for survival wasn’t enough on its own to convince him that returning to Azkaban was a really horrible idea.

“Sirius. Do you want to go back?” he repeated.

“No, of course not.”

“Do you want to spend the rest of your life hiding in your childhood home?”

“This place was never home,” said Sirius bitterly. “Not really.”

“I’ll take that as a no,” said Kingsley. “So here’s what’s going to happen. You’re going to stay safe and hidden for now, and Emmeline and I are going to do our best to make a case for you. It might not happen overnight, but when the time is right, we’ll be ready. Okay?”

He wasn’t really asking for permission. Still, he couldn’t deny the relief he felt when Sirius nodded.

“Yeah. Okay.”

“Good,” said Kingsley. “I have to look at your file on a daily basis anyway, I might as well do something useful with it.”

A few weeks later, the three of them sat around the kitchen table at Grimmauld Place, pouring over papers Kingsley had brought home from work.

“They couldn’t have used a better picture for the wanted poster?” Sirius complained.

“I don’t think they were trying to pick a flattering one,” said Kingsley. “Count yourself lucky they don’t have a current picture, at least. This one’s - what? A decade or so old?”

Sirius looked down at the picture of his screaming face.

“Older than that. It’s from ‘81.”

He remembered the moment that picture was taken, when they had shoved the sign with his prison number into his hands and forced him in front of the camera just before shipping him off to Azkaban.

“Come to think of it, we probably should take new pictures of inmates every year or two,” murmured Kingsley. “I suppose nobody thought it was necessary, given that there’s never been a break-out before. But it would be smart, just in case anybody who’s actually dangerous ever manages it.”

“But there is a more recent picture, isn’t there?” asked Emmeline. “The one they used on the Muggle news.”

“You watch the Muggle news?” asked Sirius in surprise.

“Yeah.” Emmeline shrugged. “Call it professional curiosity. And it makes it much easier to talk to my dad’s family when I actually know what’s going on in their world.”

“Well …” Sirius shook his head. “No. No second photo that I know of, and I’m pretty sure I’d remember if they dragged me out of my cell for picture day.”

“Yeah, that one was faked,” said Kingsley. “I don’t know how they did it. Some kind of Muggle technology. They couldn’t show the moving photo - or the prison number with the runes - to the Muggles. I suppose they updated it a bit, too, to look more like you did when you escaped. But they couldn’t have done the same with the moving one, because magic and technology don’t mix.”

Sirius nodded, a slight smirk on his lips.

“Well, by all means, arrange an annual photoshoot at Azkaban if you want, when you climb the ladder high enough to be calling the shots,” he said. “But right now, can we focus on making sure I won’t have to take part in it?”

“Right,” said Kingsley, shuffling through the papers. “Amelia Bones is reasonable - she’s not one of Fudge’s mindless cronies - but she’s not going to even consider reopening your case without a lot of evidence. If we did get that far, though, I think you’d get a fair trial from her. Unless, of course, Fudge decided to interfere and preside over it himself, the way he did when Harry used magic this summer. In which case …”

“I’m screwed.”

“It’s probably better to wait until Fudge is out of office,” Kingsley went on. “Let’s be honest, the moment the news breaks that Voldemort is back, he’s going to lose his job. And at that point, it’s going to be obvious that the Ministry got it wrong a lot of the time back then. Once they realize people like Nott and Avery really are Death Eaters, I think it’ll be easier to convince people you’re not. At that point, too, the Prophet’s going to be begging Emmeline to come back.”

“Maybe,” said Emmeline, looking unconvinced. “You don’t know Barnabas Cuffe the way I do. The man’s going to do whatever will make him the most money, not necessarily what’s right.”

“But at that point, being in the Order will be a point in your favor,” said Kingsley. “If you can get back in, and make sure you’re the one covering the trial …”

“Then I can spin it to support the narrative of his innocence,” she agreed, looking at Kingsley with admiration in her eyes. “I didn’t know you had it in you to be so pragmatic.”

“I’ll take that as a compliment,” said Kingsley.

“Oh, it was meant as one, definitely.” She turned to Sirius and added, “Do you know, when we were in school together, he was the biggest stick in the mud I’d ever met? Took House points just because he caught one of his friends out after curfew with one of mine.”

Sirius tried to remember who the two of them had been friends with. His eyes widened as he realized who she was probably referring to.

“You mean Andromeda and Ted?” asked Sirius, turning to Kingsley in shock. “You took House points from Andromeda and Ted?”

“It was my duty as a prefect,” said Kingsley with a shrug. “I didn’t report them to anyone or start spreading gossip. I’m still not sure why five points each was such a big deal.”

“Because most people would cut their friends a little slack,” said Emmeline. “And now look at you. Sneaking around, lying to your boss, having dinner three times a week with the guy you’re supposed to think is in Timbuktu.” 

“Tibet.”

“Whatever.” Emmeline grinned. “I’ve gotta say, I like the new Kingsley better.”

Sirius smiled and thought privately that he felt very much the same. The stuffy teenager who had delighted in putting a stop to the Marauders’ pranks had nothing on the grown man he had gotten to know over the past few months.

Later, when the papers were all filed away and Emmeline had gone home to the flat she shared with Hestia Jones, Sirius and Kingsley sat together in the drawing room sharing a bottle of wine and playing yet another game of chess.

“Where will you go, do you think?” Kingsley asked, looking at Sirius thoughtfully. “When you’re free - really free, I mean - where will you go?”

Sirius just stared back at him for a moment, trying to process what he had just asked. Nobody had really acknowledged before that the life he was living now wasn’t freedom. Being stuck here in this house filled with memories …

“Someplace far away,” said Sirius. “Someplace warm, where I can lie on the beach for a while. And then, probably, back here. Not here - not this house - but back to Britain. Be nice to live in the countryside.”

“I’m surprised you’d come back at all,” said Kingsley. “If I were you, I think I’d want a fresh start somewhere new.”

Sirius smiled sadly.

“I might, if it wasn’t for Harry. He’s worth sticking around for.”

“Yeah.” Kingsley nodded, looking at him with something new in his expression, something Sirius couldn’t quite figure out.

Sirius took another swig of firewhiskey, and pushed one of his rooks forward, unwilling to let his thoughts linger too long on the softness in the other man’s eyes.

“Checkmate,” he said smugly.

For a moment, Kingsley scrutinized the board, apparently searching for a mistake. Then, grinning, he looked up to meet Sirius’s eyes.

“Well done,” he said. “See? You were just out of practice before, that’s all.”

Sirius smiled back, savoring the warmth of Kingsley’s smile as much as the sweet taste of victory.

Chapter Text

As the month of December arrived, Sirius found himself with his face pressed up against the windows like a kid, watching the snow fall outside. The chill of winter wouldn’t bother him, he didn’t think, if only he could go running around outside, four paws on the ground and tail wagging, snowflakes melting on thick, dark fur.

“Some of us have to go out in the cold,” said Snape as he slipped away after a meeting. “How nice it must be to remain indoors by the fire all day.”

As if he didn’t realize Sirius would gladly give that up if he could only step outside for a few minutes, no matter how bitterly cold it was and no matter how much that cold brought back memories of a place where it was never warm.

“It’s more dangerous than usual,” Dumbledore reminded him. “The dementors thrive in the dark and cold. This time of year, it’s especially important to stay indoors.”

Right. Stay indoors. Stay safe. Stay locked up with his mother’s portrait and the most unpleasant house-elf he’d ever met, in a place that was only slightly better Azkaban as far as how miserable being there made him.

“If there was even a backyard,” he muttered. “A lawn. A patio. Something.”

“People aren’t made to be stuck indoors all the time,” said Hestia sympathetically. “I’ve seen it with the long-term patients at Saint Mungo’s, too. It starts to wear on you after a while.”

Sirius thought he would gladly take the long-term care ward at Saint Mungo’s over the endless gloom of Grimmauld Place, but he kept that thought to himself.

It was Kingsley who found a way to help. It was always Kingsley, wasn’t it? Sirius didn’t know what he had done to deserve the man’s kindness, but he always seemed to be there, willing to spend his time off making conversation over dinner or chess games, keeping Sirius company when he was under no obligation to do so. And while the rest of the Order had nothing but - at best - empty platitudes or unhelpful pity for him, it was Kingsley’s idea that managed to actually take the edge off this lonely, trapped existence.

One weekend in early December, they sat on the floor of an upstairs sitting room, all the furniture pushed to the walls and the floorboards covered in thick, artificial grass that almost felt real. Sirius lay on his back and looked up at the sky above, where a vast blue sky stretched from one end of the ceiling to the other, dotted with fluffy white clouds.

“I know it’s not as good as the real thing,” said Kingsley, seated beside him, glancing at him with an almost nervous expression on his face.

“It’s better than looking at the same ugly wallpaper,” said Sirius. “Can it do other stuff, too?”

“Sure,” said Kingsley. “What do you want it to look like?”

“Winter,” said Sirius. “Snow.”

Kingsley frowned.

“You don’t think the cold will bother you?”

“Well …” Sirius shrugged. “Maybe a bit. But maybe it’ll help, to feel like I’m outdoors in it.”

“Alright,” said Kingsley, nodding. “I can’t promise it won’t damage the furniture …”

Sirius laughed, a full belly laugh, and shook his head.

“When, exactly, have I ever given you the impression I care about anything in this house?”

“I think we both remember the answer to that,” said Kingsley matter-of-factly. “Anyway, it’s still your house. People ought to ask, even if you don’t care about most of it.”

Sirius nodded and tried not to think too hard about the top floor bedrooms, because that was a surefire way to ruin his mood.

“Well, I definitely don’t care about the furniture in Great Aunt Cassiopeia’s favorite sitting room,” said Sirius. “Let’s make it snow.”

Kingsley smiled and stood, holding out his hand to help Sirius to his feet. A moment later, he raised his wand towards the ceiling. The warmth of the artificial sun faded a bit, and the clouds grew thicker, denser-looking. A few light flakes of snow began to fall around them. Sirius held out his hand to catch them as they landed on his skin, light and cold.

He took a step, feeling the grass crunch beneath his slippers. The snow was beginning to gather in white patches on the floor now. Faster than it would have in real life, it formed a thick white blanket that covered the artificial grass. Sirius shivered and wrapped his arms around his body, freezing in his thin button-down shirt.

“I can wait while you go get a coat,” said Kingsley.

Sirius shook his head.

“I don’t want to go back yet.”

Kingsley stepped closer and pointed his wand directly at Sirius. In that moment, Sirius felt his whole body tense up, his fingers instinctively reaching for his own wand, ready to defend himself.

“Hey, don’t panic,” said Kingsley, lowering his wand and speaking in a soothing voice. “I’m just going to cast a charm to keep you warm and dry, okay?”

Sirius smiled sheepishly and nodded, letting himself relax.

Later, after the two men were finished giggling like schoolboys and throwing snowballs at each other, they sat beside the fire downstairs with mugs of hot apple cider. Sirius slouched back with his head on Kingsley’s shoulder and felt happier and safer than he had in a long time. Grimmauld Place wasn’t nearly as horrible with pleasant company, and out of everyone in the Order, Kingsley was one of the ones whose company he craved the most.

“You think Sirius Black is in South America?” asked Rufus Scrimgeour, raising his eyebrows skeptically from across the large wooden desk in his office. “I thought you said he was in Tibet.”

“Yes. Well, there have been no sightings there for some time, but I’ve got reports of a sinister stranger who matches his description being spotted in Buenos Aires. We know he’s sticking to warm places out of reach of the dementors. Is it really so surprising he’d head to the southern hemisphere for the winter?”

Scrimgeour stared at him for a moment, too skeptical, too wary.

“You’re one of my best investigators,” he said.

“Yes, sir.”

“But you’re not the only one, and this isn’t the only case that needs solving. Maybe it would benefit from a pair of fresh eyes.”

Kingsley tried his best to keep his emotions in check, his mind clear and his face neutral. Occlumency had always come easily to him, but in that moment, as his thoughts turned to the worst case scenario, it was nearly impossible to remain calm. He could see it clearly in his mind’s eye: Sirius in handcuffs, being dragged into the D.M.L.E. by Williamson or Robbards while Kingsley was off working on a different case, unable to intervene, unaware of what was happening until it was too late.

He had seen the effects of the Dementor’s Kiss before. He remembered all too clearly the empty shell that had once been Barty Crouch Jr., and that had been enough to almost make Kingsley pity the man despite his horrific crimes. The idea of Sirius staring blankly at nothing in particular, with breath in his lungs and a heartbeat but nothing left of his mind, his personality, his soul …

Well, it just didn’t bear thinking about.

“With all due respect, sir, I still believe I’m the best man for the job,” said Kingsley, trying to keep his voice steady. “I’ve spent more time studying Black than anyone else here. I’ll find him. Just give me more time.”

Scrimgeour looked him in the eye and slowly nodded. Kingsley breathed a sigh of relief. Nothing he had said was technically a lie - well, apart from the bit about Buenos Aires - but the deception was a fragile one.

He couldn’t afford to be caught. He couldn’t afford to fail. Which was awfully difficult, because he also couldn’t afford to succeed.

When Phineas Nigellus’s portrait broke the news, Sirius was delighted. Harry and the Weasleys coming to stay with him? Of course, Arthur’s injury was tragic and unfortunate, but he couldn’t deny it would be a relief to have company during the holidays.

This was not the time or the place to celebrate, though. Not with half a dozen worried children showing up in the middle of the night, anxious to see their father and unable to do so, uncertain as to whether he would even make it through the night. Still, once the immediate danger had passed and it became obvious that Arthur would recover, Sirius embraced the Christmas spirit in a way that he hadn’t since he was a small child. He had once been indifferent to the doxy infestations and a decade’s worth of grime, but he now found himself eagerly putting up garlands and mistletoe, decorating the tree, and dressing up the house-elf heads in beards and Santa hats, singing Christmas carols all the while.

“Don’t you think that’s a bit disrespectful?” Hermione asked him, looking disdainfully at the elf heads.

Sirius shrugged. If he liked his family’s tradition of beheading house-elves, he would have long since done it to his least favorite elf ever. It was a cruel practice. But these ones were already long since dead, and there was something absurdly funny about the row of elf heads all decked out in festive costumes.

The next time Kingsley came over, he lingered in the entrance to the drawing room, and Sirius had to smile, pointing up at the sprig of mistletoe hanging just above him.

“Ah.” Kingsley glanced up at it, then turned to stare at Sirius for a long moment before stepping to the side, looking awkward and confused.

“Yeah, sorry,” said Sirius, his face growing warm. “I didn’t think that part through.”

Kingsley glanced around at the room: at the glittering garlands, the majestic Christmas tree, the sparkling chandelier.

“You really went all out with the decoration,” he commented.

“Yeah” Sirius told him. “I’ve always liked Christmas. You wouldn’t think it, just based on their dreary aesthetic and hatred of anything fun. But this time of year was always a big deal for us. For them, I mean - my family.”

Kingsley shrugged, leaning back against the door frame.

“It still is, I think. Tonks has been humming Christmas carols since November, and Narcissa throws a pretty spectacular Yule Ball.”

“I’ve heard about that,” said Sirius, nodding. “We used to decorate the whole house together, just like this.”

He stopped to consider, then shook his head.

“Well - no, not just like this. The tree wasn’t in front of the tapestry back then, and we only put hats on the elf heads once.” He smiled bitterly at the memory. “The last Christmas before I went to Hogwarts. Regulus and I thought it would be funny. Our mother …”

He allowed his voice to trail off, cringing at the memory of her shouts echoing through the halls.

“She didn’t agree?”

“Definitely not.”

Kingsley nodded silently, watching Sirius with a sympathetic look in his eyes.

“My cousins always came over,” Sirius went on. “Andromeda would tell me all about Hogwarts. Her friends, her favorite classes, the Quidditch games, the common room. Not the one I ended up in, of course. And we would gather around and sing Christmas carols while Narcissa played the piano.”

He paused, catching himself, remembering that he wasn’t supposed to have any happy memories of Narcissa. His mouth twisted into a scowl.

“She was such a show-off,” he said weakly.

His words came out far too fond and exasperated.

“I never cared much for the gifts,” he went on. “None of the grown-ups were ever very good at picking out things I’d actually like. My idiot of a brother loved getting fancy, uncomfortable dress robes and genealogy books, but … well, you can see why they never bothered to say anything came from Santa Claus.”

He sighed. After all these years, it would still be so easy to start ranting about what stupid choices of gifts those were for preteen boys.

“It was always a special time of year, though. Is that …?”

Kingsley shook his head. “No. It’s not strange at all.”

He looked at Sirius thoughtfully, then smiled.

“Is that piano still around?”

“Yeah, I think it’s upstairs somewhere, why?” asked Sirius.

“Well,” said Kingsley, “Tonks isn’t the only one who’s been singing a lot of carols lately. You’re pretty good, you know? Maybe Xeno Lovegood is right about you being - what was it? - a ‘singing sensation’?”

Sirius chuckled and rolled his eyes, his laughter intermingling with Kingsley’s as they stood there on opposite sides of the mistletoe.

“And I happen to play the piano,” Kingsley went on. “I figured, why not make our own Christmas memory right now?”

Sirius’s ironic laugh grew into a genuine smile.

“Do you know God Rest Ye Merry, Hippogriffs?”

Kingsley hadn’t been lying. He not only played the piano, he played it extremely well. His fingers danced across the keys, and a beautiful melody filled the dusty upstairs room where the instrument had been tucked away after all those who knew how to play it were gone.

Sirius wondered who the last person to use it had been. His father? Narcissa? Regulus? Perhaps Aunt Druella or Uncle Cygnus? He had no idea, but whatever the answer was, he couldn’t hold it against the piano. It was just wood and ivory, held together by metal strings and kept in tune via magic. It wasn’t the instrument’s fault, really, that the family it belonged to had been rotten.

Wow. He really was in the Christmas spirit, wasn’t he?

Kingsley played the familiar tune in a slightly different key, but it sounded better that way. Sirius’s voice filled the room, clear and strong despite being out of practice.

God rest ye merry, hippogriffs
Let nothing you dismay
As friends and loved ones gather ‘round
From near and far away
To sing a song of peace and hope
Upon this Christmas Day
Oh, tidings of comfort and joy
Comfort and joy
Oh, tidings of comfort and joy

Those weren’t the lyrics he had learned as a child, nor was it the Muggle version Lily had liked. This one he had learned from the Potters, and it brought back vivid memories of the winter he left Grimmauld Place for good.

Something wet dripped down his cheek. He pretended not to notice. Kingsley kept playing, and Sirius fell silent, but the lyrics continued in his mind, shifting between the three different songs he had heard sung to that tune over the years.

God rest ye merry, gentlemen …

The memory of Lily’s voice filled his mind, but the lyrics faded away after a single line, and another version took hold, older - at least to him - and far more painful.

On icy, frozen nights 
In winter storms and bitter winds
With magic burning bright
The stars above shine down below
And guide us with their light

His family’s version - written, his parents used to say, by an ancestor of theirs who liked the popular tune but felt they were above the saccharine sentiments of the more mainstream version, and certainly too good to sing lyrics written by a Muggle. The words echoed in his memory as he listened to the familiar music filling the room. It wasn’t his own voice he heard them in, but rather, a chorus of familiar voices belonging to people long gone, most of whom he had been perfectly happy never to see again.

All of a sudden, the music came to a stop, and Kingsley looked up at him with worry in his eyes.

“Are you alright?”

“Yeah. I’m fine.”

Sirius could tell he didn’t sound fine, and he could feel the wetness around his eyes. 

“Sorry,” he said, wiping his eye with the edge of his sleeve and attempting a half-smile. “It’s alright, keep playing.”

Kingsley nodded and began another song, one that Sirius vaguely recognized but couldn’t put a name or lyrics to. He watched the other man’s fingers move across the piano keys, so quick and agile. Remembering his own disastrous piano lessons as a child, he couldn’t help feeling impressed that anyone could manage to play it so skillfully, moving each finger to the right place at the right time to create music. He hadn’t appreciated it then, and if he was honest with himself, he probably still wouldn’t have the patience for it. But there was something beautiful about it nonetheless.

“My parents signed me up for lessons as a kid,” Kingsley said, pausing and turning to look up at Sirius as though following his train of thought. “I never really minded. Music can be quite interesting, don’t you think?”

“To listen to, sure,” said Sirius with a shrug.

“Well, I enjoyed learning to play.” He gave Sirius a tense smile. “I was never a rebel, you know.”

He meant more than simply that he had enjoyed his childhood piano lessons, Sirius realized, and he wasn’t just talking about his rule-follower tendencies at Hogwarts, either.

“I’m sure you know how to dance a waltz and exactly which fork to use for each dish at a posh dinner,” said Sirius. “You seem like the type who’d be right at home among the pure-blood crowd just as long as nobody started talking politics. But that doesn’t mean you’re like the rest of them. My parents would still call you a blood traitor, you know?”

Kingsley shrugged.

“The people who use that term are not people whose opinions I value.”

It came as a relief to hear him say that, although Sirius had known perfectly well it was true. Sometimes, it was difficult to separate the Dark Arts and blood purity obsession from the more benign trappings of pure-blood society, and hard to understand why someone who had rejected the former would still embrace the latter.

“Yeah,” said Sirius. “Good. That makes two of us.”

As Christmas approached, Sirius did very little to prepare gifts for those who came and went from Grimmauld Place. He wouldn’t know where to begin, and quite frankly, he didn’t like most of the people enough to bother.

But there were, of course, exceptions.

For Harry, he and Remus selected a set of Defense Against the Dark Arts books, a quiet nod of support for the D.A.

He asked Remus to help him get a Weird Sisters t-shirt for Tonks, sent Tonks shopping for a set of enchanted quills for Emmeline, and got Emmeline to stop by Flourish and Blotts for a book Remus had mentioned wanting to read.

He contemplated for weeks what to do for Kingsley, certain that he wanted to give him something but unsure of what exactly the other man would like. In the end, he melted down a silver goblet of his father’s and refashioned the metal into a lantern within which he trapped a tiny magical light, floating there like the flame of a candle.

“It won’t go out,” he explained when he presented it to Kingsley. “It’s magic-powered - specifically, by my magic. So as long as I’m alive, it’ll keep glowing.”

Kingsley smiled at him with a hint of sadness in his eyes.

“I hope you’re not planning to do anything risky that would make me need to check this to see if you’re still breathing.”

Sirius felt his face burn bright red.

“That’s not what I - I just meant … it won’t go out. That’s all.”

“Yeah, I know,” said Kingsley. “But it had better not, okay? Stay safe for me.”

It sounded different when Kingsley said it than when Dumbledore or Mrs. Weasley did. With the two of them, he felt like a naughty schoolboy being scolded for wanting to sneak out of bed after curfew, but Kingsley spoke in the tone of a concerned friend.

Stay safe for me. As in: I care whether you live or die.

Sirius was pretty sure he could count on one hand the people who could honestly say that.

“I’ll try,” he said.

“I have something for you, too,” said Kingsley, setting the lantern down on a nearby shelf and reaching into his pocket.

The package he pulled out was small and square-shaped, wrapped in shimmering golden paper and tied with silver ribbon. It was almost too pretty to unwrap, Sirius thought, but that had never stopped him before. He tore the paper off and lifted the lid on the box it concealed.

“A miniature piano?”

“A music box.”

Sirius held it in the palm of his hand, examining its tiny keyboard and polished wooden frame. Turning it over, he found nothing that could be used to wind it up.

“Just touch the keys and think of what you want to hear,” said Kingsley. “It’ll play just about anything.”

Placing it on the shelf beside the lantern, Sirius followed Kingsley’s instructions. The first few notes of “God Rest Ye Merry, Hippogriffs” began to play. Even as he lifted his finger, the music continued.

“Thanks,” he said. “Did you make that yourself?”

“I did,” Kingsley confirmed. “I’ve always enjoyed creating things with magic. Something that I believe we have in common.”

Sirius glanced from the music box to the lantern and thought of the map tucked away in Harry’s trunk at Hogwarts.

“Yeah,” he agreed. “I guess so. Want to stay for some eggnog and maybe a game of chess?”

It wasn’t a perfect Christmas, but even in the shadow of the old family tapestry, Sirius wouldn’t trade that moment for anything in the world.

Chapter Text

It was a cold, bitter day in January, and the D.M.L.E. was in an uproar. As well they should be, Kingsley thought, with ten of the most dangerous Death Eaters now at large. But if he had imagined for one second that the reality of Dolohov and Bellatrix Lestrange escaping would take the pressure off the hunt for Sirius, he had been wrong. It was, in fact, making things much worse.

“He’s her cousin,” said Rufus Scrimgeour, looking at Kingsley with a stony expression from across the vast expanse of the desk in his office. “And, of course, he’s the first and only person ever to have escaped from Azkaban.”

“Not technically,” said Kingsley.

“I beg your pardon?”

He probably should have remained silent. Scrimgeour was a proud man on the best of days, and this was certainly not a good day by any stretch of the imagination. The affronted tone and the cold eyes made it clear he was not impressed to be interrupted or corrected.

Still, his question demanded an answer.

“Barty Crouch Junior did, as well. He was technically the first.”

Or, at least, the first that they knew of. Over the course of centuries, Kingsley wouldn’t be surprised if more people had found ways of escaping undetected, or even if the Ministry had chosen to ignore or cover up its failures. They were certainly doing a lot of that now.

“Yes, well, Crouch is not in a state to be helping anyone else escape,” said Scrimgeour grimly. “Black, on the other hand, has yet to be apprehended and Kissed. It seems likely he was involved, wouldn’t you agree?”

Kingsley hesitated, searching for a way to disagree without giving away that he didn’t think Sirius was guilty.

“One of the most interesting things about Sirius Black,” he said carefully, “is that he was estranged from his family. He had very little to do with any of them after the age of sixteen. However his allegiances might have changed during the war, it doesn’t appear that he ever reconciled with his parents, or any of his other relatives.”

“Well, not with the law-abiding ones, certainly,” said Scrimgeour. “It’s understandable the Malfoys want nothing to do with him, to say nothing of that distant cousin of his who married Harfang Longbottom. But as for the Lestranges, they were Death Eaters together.”

“Yes, I suppose that’s true,” Kingsley admitted, locking away the fact that he knew nothing could be further from the truth and hiding it behind a smooth layer of occlumency. “Although very few of the Death Eaters knew Sirius was one of them. Or, at least, very few are willing to admit it.”

Because, of course, he hadn’t been. Kingsley still had vivid memories of visiting the high security wing in Azkaban, his silver lynx patronus by his side, interrogating those who had supposedly been Sirius’s allies during the war and demanding to know by what means he might have escaped. To a person, they had claimed ignorance, and even his attempts at legilimancy had not revealed anything worth knowing.

Bellatrix Lestrange had looked him in the eye and laughed.

Travers had outright told him Sirius wasn’t one of them, a hint of pity in his voice as he did so. Not that Kingsley had believed him at the time.

“This is serious business,” said Scrimgeour harshly, jarring him out of his memories. “Don’t go repeating this to anyone, but you should know, there are reports of the dementors going rogue. If he’s somehow gotten them on his side …”

Kingsley shuddered. The thought of Voldemort in command of the dementors was a troubling thought indeed. But of course, that wasn’t what his boss meant. He still thought Sirius was behind it all.

“I understand, sir,” said Kingsley. “I’ll make it my top priority to get to the bottom of this.”

That night, he sat beside Sirius at number twelve, Grimmauld Place, passing a bottle of firewhiskey back and forth. The liquor burned Kingsley’s throat as it went down. It didn’t do much to numb the feeling of panic that had been following him from the moment he heard the news.

Sirius, though, looked much worse. That haunted look had never quite left his eyes, but Kingsley had never seen him quite like he looked tonight - not just guarded and wary but utterly shattered.

“Are you okay?” Kingsley asked, looking at him with concern.

Sirius remained silent for a long time, staring into the fireplace, his shoulders moving softly up and down as he breathed deeply, clearly trying to calm himself and only halfway succeeding.

“Your people might think I’m a killer, but that lot really are,” he said at last.

Kingsley winced at the words “your people,” as if Kingsley was one of them, as if he believed what they did. He was suddenly very aware of the distinctive cut and colors of the Auror uniform he was wearing, and he had the impulse to rip it off and cast it aside.

Usually, Sirius didn’t seem to blame Kingsley for the situation he had been put in. He didn’t seem to mind that Kingsley’s career choice and current assignment would have made them enemies if Kingsley didn’t know the truth. But it was always there in the room with them, an awkward and uncomfortable truth that had perhaps become less noticeable over time but hadn’t actually changed. Never had Kingsley felt its presence so strongly.

“They do know that,” he said quietly. “They do know the ten new escapees are dangerous. They’re just keen to pin the blame on you. Anything to keep from admitting that Voldemort’s really back.”

He held the bottle of firewhiskey out to Sirius, who accepted it and took a huge swig of the dark liquid.

“Idiots,” he muttered, wiping a few droplets from his mouth with the cuff of his sleeve.

“Yeah. It sucks. And I’m sorry.”

Sirius sighed and set the bottle down with a harsh clang. It sat there on the coffee table as he looked at Kingsley with something tired and desperate in his eyes.

“I sometimes wish I could hate you.”

The words were like a knife to the heart. Kingsley tried not to let his reaction show, but he could tell from the weary amusement in Sirius’s eyes that he was failing.

“Aw, don’t look at me like a kicked puppy. I don’t hate you. I could never. I just wish I could, at times like this. It’d be nice to think everybody at the Ministry’s just awful and incompetent.”

He sighed and shook his head, looking surprisingly vulnerable in that moment, his head drooping and his shoulders slumped. Kingsley reached out almost instinctively to place a hand on his back.

“It’s alright,” he murmured. “Whatever you’re feeling, it’s - you have every right to be upset with the Ministry.”

“I just don’t know how you can stand to work there.”

Sometimes, neither did Kingsley.

“I’m already part of the system,” he said quietly. “I have been for a long time. In some ways, my role in the Order is not so different from Severus’s.”

Now that seemed to catch Sirius off-guard.

“You’re nothing like Snivellus.”

“Not in terms of personality, perhaps,” said Kingsley, unable to resist a smile. “But we’re both valuable to the Order because we’re trusted by their enemies. I don’t think it’s too much of a stretch to call Fudge an enemy right now.”

Sirius nodded, looking a bit put off by that assessment.

“In any case,” Kingsley went on, “I’d choose the Order over my career if it came down to it. But it’s better for me to stay where I am if I can, because Dumbledore doesn’t have many people close to the Minister.”

He didn’t bother mentioning that, through his work in the Auror department, he could keep Sirius safe from his colleagues. They both knew that already. It would feel rude and arrogant to repeat it now. Instead, he simply grasped the bottle of firewhiskey and lifted it to his lips again. The drink was called that for a reason, he mused to himself as it filled his mouth and throat with a harsh, burning sensation on the way down.

He savored its bitter flavor for a moment in silence before placing the bottle carefully back on the nearby table.

“We’ll catch them, you know,” he said at last. “Bellatrix and Dolohov and the rest. We’ll catch them and send them back.”

“I dunno,” said Sirius with a dark chuckle. “I made it two years with you actually trying to find me.”

“That lot isn’t nearly as smart as you,” said Kingsley, glancing at Sirius with an affectionate look in his eyes. “And we know what they’re up to. That should make it easier.”

Sirius grinned back at him, the smile not quite meeting his eyes.

“Yeah,” he said. “I reckon you’ll send them back soon enough. The hard part is, how do you keep them there? It’s not actually that secure, is it, without the dementors?”

His smile slipped away as he spoke, and Kingsley hesitated, mulling over the question. Eventually, he gave a weak shrug and shook his head.

“There’ve got to be other ways of keeping them locked up,” he said. “To be honest with you, I’ve thought the dementors were a bad idea for quite some time.”

There were very few people he would dare to say that to, but Sirius nodded solemnly as he spoke. Well, of course he would feel the same. The hard part would be convincing people who hadn’t spent time in Azkaban.

“I think the key is to take down Voldemort,” Kingsley went on. “Most Death Eaters aren’t much of a threat on their own, and last time around, they had no clue what to do without him. But as far as how to take him down, I don’t know.”

“Yeah. I guess nobody does.”

Neither of them mentioned Harry Potter, but Kingsley knew they were both thinking it: how in the name of Merlin did a one-year-old - or, more likely, a pair of young parents - manage to do what nobody else had been able to?

“As long as you stay here, you’re safe,” Kingsley reminded him. “Both from the Death Eaters and from the Ministry.”

Sirius didn’t look thrilled by that idea, and Kingsley couldn’t blame him. He wouldn’t want to be stuck in hiding twenty-four seven at his perfectly nice house in the countryside, and he couldn’t imagine that such bleak surroundings made it any easier to handle. Not to mention all the history Sirius had with this place. He had left at sixteen for a reason, and it seemed almost cruel to expect him to see it as a sanctuary now.

Necessary. Practical. But cruel nonetheless.

He moved closer and put his arm around Sirius’s shoulders, half expecting him to pull away. Instead, Sirius leaned in and allowed his tense body to relax.

“You’re going to be okay,” Kingsley murmured. “It won’t be long now ‘til they have to admit he’s back, and then Emmeline and I will get you out of here. Just hold on a little longer.”

He probably shouldn’t promise that. He had no idea if any of it was true. But he knew he would do everything in his power to make sure it happened exactly as he had promised.

After that night, their entire dynamic was different. They had been friendly before, but physically distant, rarely touching one another and never in anything other than a detached, almost professional sort of way. Now, the embrace on the couch seemed to have opened the floodgates. The two men found that they couldn’t keep their hands off of each other.

Sirius pulled Kingsley into a side hug as he passed him in the hallway on the way in to a meeting.

Kingsley nudged Sirius’s shoulder with his own and nodded with raised eyebrows towards Mundungus just as the latter slipped another priceless piece of silver into his pocket.

As they sat together on the couch after most of the others were gone, their thighs brushed against each other. Instead of moving away, Sirius placed a hand on Kingsley’s knee and looked at him with a mischievous grin. Kingsley responded with a tentative smile and wrapped his arm around Sirius, savoring the chance to be close to him.

“Are you two an item?” asked Emmeline Vance with all the unquenchable curiosity of a once and future journalist.

“Oh. No.” Kingsley shook his head, feeling his face grow warm. “It’s not like that. We’re just friends.”

“Uh-huh,” said Emmeline with a sly smile. “Right. Definitely just friends.”

She didn’t sound as though she believed him, and to be honest, he didn’t believe what he was saying, either. But the thought of putting his feelings into words felt impossible.

Chapter Text

Emmeline was about 99% sure that Sirius and Kingsley were head over heels for each other, but the two of them clearly didn’t have a clue. She watched them stare longingly at each other in meetings. She noticed when Kingsley lingered behind as the others left, finding his way to the drawing room with Sirius. She saw the hint of a smile on Sirius’s face when Kingsley was around, like sunlight breaking through a cloudy sky, when all he could do was sulk and glower around the rest of them.

It would have been funny if it wasn’t so frustrating to watch. 

“Don’t you ever want to tell them to go get a room?” Emmeline asked Hestia when they returned to their shared flat after a meeting in which the yearning had been especially palpable.

“Who?” asked Hestia.

“Kingsley and Sirius. Didn’t you see how they were acting today? They couldn’t keep their eyes off each other, and there was definitely some flirting going on.”

Hestia smiled and rolled her eyes.

“I don’t know,” she said. “Maybe they’re just friendly. After all, I always thought Sirius and Remus …”

Her voice trailed off at the look Emmeline was giving her.

“I remember the rumors, back during the first war,” said Emmeline. “I’m not sure if they were true or not. We were in the Order together, but I was never close enough to either of them to be somebody they’d confide in. In any case, that was a long time ago, and a lot’s changed since then.”

Few people ended up with the first person they gave their heart to. Emmeline knew that better than most. She still went to visit her first love sometimes, leaving daisies by her bedside at Saint Mungo’s. In all these years, Alice still barely recognized her each time she returned and had no memory of their time together at Hogwarts. But they had gone from romance to awkward friendship long before the horrific sequence of events that left Alice in a hospital bed with a shattered mind.

It hurt too much to think about that, so Emmeline tried not to. There was nothing she could do for Alice now.

“Sirius and Kingsley like each other,” she said. “I’m sure of it. We ought to do something, don’t you think?”

“You just can’t mind your own business, can you?” Hestia asked in a gently scolding tone.

Emmeline shook her head.

“Nope. So, want to help me set them up, or do I have to do it alone?”

Hestia’s smile was affectionate and warm, if a bit hesitant. She nodded.

“Alright. I’ll help. It’d be nice to see Sirius smile.”

Another day, another useless meeting in which Kingsley tried to pretend he was open to the idea of Sirius aiding Bellatrix and the others. He longed to return to his cubicle, to avoid the questions and scrutinizing looks, but that wasn’t going to happen for a while longer.

In the meantime, he would simply have to put up with his fellow Aurors as best he could. Which they weren’t making easy at the moment.

“Okay, so tell me if this sounds like a crazy idea,” said Dawlish, seated halfway down the table. “Why can’t we just use a summoning charm?”

A frown creased its way across Kingsley’s face.

“To summon the escapees, you mean?” he asked. “That’s not possible. You can’t summon a person, or any living thing, for that matter.”

“Sure,” said Dawlish. “But you can summon something they’re wearing, right? Why not just accio Sirius Black’s trousers or something, and get the man himself along with them?”

Kingsley glanced sharply at Dawlish’s hands, relieved to see that he was not holding his wand. He shook his head - and he wasn’t the only one who did.

“Think it through for a moment,” said Williamson. “He’s probably too far away to summon, but or even if he’s somewhere in the London area, you can’t send a man flying through the air over Merlin only knows how many Muggles’ heads. It’d be a massive Statute violation.”

“Yes,” Kingsley agreed. “Besides which, it would be too dangerous. Such rapid, uncontrollable movement  … even at close range, it’s incredibly risky. Over a long distance, it would definitely be fatal.”

“I mean …” Robbards shrugged. “He’s getting the Kiss anyway, right? Who cares if he’s brought in dead or alive?”

Kingsley forced his feelings of white-hot rage down and sealed them away behind careful occlumency. He couldn’t afford to appear concerned for Sirius. Not in front of these people.

“It’s still our job to capture him alive if we can.”

“Shacklebolt is right,” said Scrimgeour gruffly. “In any case, the Statute makes it a moot point. No messing around with summoning charms, end of story.”

As the early weeks of February passed by, Valentine’s Day slowly approached. Sirius wasn’t exactly in the mood to celebrate, and needless to say, he had nobody to celebrate with. His circumstances hadn’t exactly done any favors for his love life over the past decade and a half. This wasn’t like Christmas, where he had taken great delight in filling number twelve with festive decorations. Still, someone must have decorated the ground floor in paper hearts, streamers, and red balloons, because they were all over the place.

“Kreacher!” Sirius called out.

A moment later, the elf appeared in the middle of the drawing room floor, looking around with a disdainful expression at the mess of red and pink.

“Is this your idea of a joke, Kreacher?” Sirius demanded.

“Kreacher would never fill the house with such disgusting Muggle filth,” he muttered.

“Do you know who did?”

“Those filthy half-blood women, unworthy to set foot in my mistress’s house - oh, the dishonor! The betrayal!”

Sirius’s brows rose. Running through the list of women with access to Grimmauld Place, he struggled to figure out who Kreacher was talking about.

“Tonks?”

Lacy pink and white hearts didn’t seem like her style, but who else could it be?

“No, not the blood traitor’s brat, not the unnatural shape-changer.”

Well, Minerva McGonagall seemed an unlikely candidate, and Molly Weasley was a pure-blood.

“Hestia? Emmeline?”

Kreacher nodded.

“You’re sure?”

“Kreacher cannot lie to his master, unworthy though he is to hold that title.”

Sirius rolled his eyes and yanked down one of the pale pink streamers dangling from the ceiling.

“Were the decorations your idea?” Kingsley asked when he dropped by that night, a briefcase in his hand and a worried look on his face.

“No.” Sirius glowered at a nearby heart-shaped balloon and shook his head. “They’re coming down, just as soon as I can work up the energy to get rid of them. What brings you here?”

Kingsley’s eyes widened in confusion.

“Well …” he sat his briefcase down on the floor and seated himself on the couch beside Sirius. “I was going to ask you that, actually. Hestia told me you needed to speak with me urgently.”

A picture was beginning to form in Sirius’s mind, and he wasn’t sure he liked it. He let out a groan and shook his head.

“So that’s what all these streamers are for.”

“I take it you didn’t actually need to talk to me?” asked Kingsley dryly.

“No. I mean -” something inside of him screamed out in silence at the thought that Kingsley might turn around and leave. It had been nearly a week since he had proper company, outside of five minutes with Arthur the day before when he stopped by looking for Mad-Eye.

Instinctively, he reached out, placing his hand on Kingsley’s arm.

“You don’t have to go. You’re welcome to stay for dinner, if you’d like.”

Kingsley did stay for Valentine’s Day dinner. Or, rather, for dinner on what happened to be Valentine’s Day. It didn’t mean anything, except that the two of them were already there anyway and didn’t have anyone else to spend the evening with.

Still, it wasn’t unpleasant. Kreacher’s cooking left quite a bit to be desired, but Sirius barely noticed the dryness of the meat and the lack of flavor in the green beans. After Azkaban gruel and dead rats roasted over a fire in a cave, just about anything tasted good by comparison.

“So,” he said, stabbing at the green beans with his fork. “No Mrs. Shacklebolt you need to get home to? I remember you were engaged to one of the Greengrass girls, back during the first war.”

Kingsley's smile slipped away.

“Eugenia Greengrass, yes. She passed away several years ago. I live alone now.”

Alone someplace much nicer than Grimmauld Place, no doubt, but Sirius still couldn’t help feeling sorry for him. After all, loneliness was not great even under the best of circumstances, especially when it was because you had lost someone you loved. And although it had been a very proper pure-blood marriage, Sirius suspected that Kingsley had loved his late wife. The deep sorrow in his eyes said as much.

“I’m sorry.” The words felt insufficient, but they were all Sirius could offer. “Can I ask ...?”

“The family blood curse.”

That didn't surprise Sirius. There had always been rumors. What did surprise him was that after however many years, Kingsley was still single.

“Your parents didn’t insist you remarry?” he asked. “Mine were already trying to play matchmaker before I ran away. Who cares about your kids’ happiness when you can have pure-blood grandchildren?”

There was a bitter edge to his voice. Kingsley grimaced.

“Yeah, they would’ve liked that,” he admitted. “But they’re not the sort that would try to force me into it. Anyway, we’re a big family. I’ve got cousins. It’s not as if the family line ends with me, regardless of what I do.”

Sirius’s family used to be a big one, too. So much for that.

“What about you?” Kingsley asked. “Have you ever wanted a partner or kids?”

Sirius noticed the careful use of the word “partner,” without the assumptions that accompanied “wife” or “husband” or even “spouse.” He appreciated that, but it also surprised him, coming from someone who had been married to a pure-blood woman.

“A partner, maybe, sure. But keep this godforsaken bloodline going? No. Not a chance,” he said, shaking his head. “Anyway, our lovely friends who put up the streamers were right about one thing. I’ve only ever found men attractive, and as far as I know, even magic isn’t enough for two men to have a baby.”

He watched carefully to see how Kingsley would react. After all, some wizards were still remarkably backwards about such things. Kingsley, though, just nodded and gave him a half-smile.

“It doesn’t matter, really,” Sirius added. “I’ve got Harry, and I’ve loved him like a son since the day he was born. My parents would be rolling in their graves if they knew I meant to leave everything to James Potter’s kid, but - well, you’ve seen enough to know I take great pleasure in making them roll in their graves.”

“Yeah,” said Kingsley, “I gathered that.”

With a look of confusion in his eyes, he remained silent for a moment, poking at his half-eaten pork chop before he spoke again.

“You’ve made a will, then?”

“Yeah.” Sirius shrugged. “Long time ago, during the first war. We all did - James and Lily and … well, pretty much everyone in the Order. We all knew we might not make it.”

“Ah.” Kingsley nodded. “I was going to ask how you managed to do that in hiding. I’m fairly certain Gringotts doesn’t allow highly-intelligent cats to handle people’s affairs for them - unlike certain broom salesmen I might mention.”

Sirius grinned at Kingsley, who smiled back at him for a moment before growing solemn and contemplative.

“You know,” he said, “that’s something we might be able to use in your defense when the time comes. Why would you try to get the Potters killed if Harry was the sole beneficiary in your will?”

“Yeah, that doesn’t make a lot of sense, does it?” Sirius frowned, then shrugged. “Well, you know how Crouch was. Issue sentences first, ask questions never.”

Kingsley grimaced.

“Yeah. Amelia Bones isn’t like that, though. If we put together a good case, she’ll hear us out. She probably would now, even - it’s just that Fudge would overrule her and make things complicated.”

It wasn’t much of a Valentine’s Day dinner. But then again, they were just two allies - at best, two friends - sharing a meal together on what happened to be Valentine’s Day. And if they also happened to be single, that only mattered inasmuch as there was no partner waiting impatiently for either one of them to arrive home with roses and chocolates. No matter what Emmeline and Hestia might think, that was all.

And yet, Sirius couldn’t help feeling a bit disappointed when their plates were finally empty and Kingsley said goodbye, wrapping a warm winter cloak around his shoulders and disappearing from the snowy street outside. Alone in a house filled with paper hearts and streamers, he found himself wishing the other man had stayed longer.

The balloons, streamers, and paper hearts had long since been vanished by the next Order meeting, where Sirius sat three seats down from Snape and clenched his jaw as the man sneered at him.

They needed him. Much as Sirius disliked him, the work he was doing was important. Still, when Snape insinuated that Sirius wouldn’t be any good in a fight after years of languishing behind bars, it took everything Sirius had not to pull out his wand and give the man a demonstration of just how capable he still was.

Instead, when the meeting was over, he made his way to Kingsley’s side and asked him to stay.

“Sure,” said Kingsley. “I was going to, for a bit, anyway. Why?”

Sirius reached for his wand.

“Spar with me.”

Sirius was a fantastic duelist, Kingsley had to admit after three rounds of dueling. Even as severely out of practice as he must be, he still managed to best Kingsley one time out of three, which was something plenty of trained Aurors couldn’t claim. Wiping his brow, he collapsed onto a sofa pushed back against the wall in the upstairs sitting room where they had made space to practice.

“Again?” asked Sirius. He leaned against the wall, his chest heaving and his face glistening with sweat.

“That’s enough for one day, I think,” said Kingsley. “Maybe some other time.”

He didn’t mention Snape’s comment, and nor did Sirius. It was clear, in any case, that he had been wrong: Sirius was more than capable of handling himself in a fight.

Which was good, Kingsley thought, because in the long run, he would almost certainly have to.

Chapter Text

Sturgis Podmore stood in the street outside of number twelve, Grimmauld Place, savoring the warmth in the air and the feeling of a gentle breeze against his skin. After six months in Azkaban, freedom felt like being dead and coming back to life. The sun shone brightly up above, and the sound of laughter from somewhere just around the corner brought a smile to his face.

Welcome back, he thought to himself.

Taking a deep breath, he walked up the front steps to the door. The dimly-lit hallway that greeted him sent a shiver down his spine. As the portraits muttered their disapproval, he shuddered and shrank away, heading as quickly as he could towards the nearest doorway.

The drawing room was better. With its high ceiling and warm hearth, the chandelier now glistening in the light rather than veiled by dust and cobwebs, it felt almost welcoming compared to the cold and dark of the entrance hall.

Not to mention the cold and dark of Azkaban.

Sirius seemed to think so as well, if his presence there, in an armchair by the fire, was any indication. He looked up with a raised eyebrow and a smile that contained no joy whatsoever.

“You look like you’ve been to hell and back.”

Sturgis laughed bitterly.

“Haven’t I?”

“Stay for a while,” said Sirius. “Remus just got back from a mission, and I think Tonks is stopping by later. We can all have drinks together.”

The thought of facing his allies in the Order and trying to put a brave face on what he had just been through was too daunting to consider. He shook his head.

“I’ve got a wife and a kid waiting for me to come home,” he said. “I should get back to them. Can you tell Dumbledore I want to talk to him next time he’s here?”

Sturgis couldn’t help notice something like envy in Sirius’s eyes as he nodded and gave him another pained smile.

What would it be like to get out of prison with a loving family waiting to welcome him home with open arms? Sirius remembered his first year on the run, living mostly in dog form, avoiding animal control and hunting or scavenging for food, speaking to no one and trusting no one. He looked around at the house that had never been a home, filled with horrible portraits of his ancestors, and the half-destroyed tapestry on the wall.

In that moment, he felt more lonely than ever.

He wasn’t alone. Remus was there, taking a long and well-deserved nap after a dangerous undercover mission. Tonks stopped by just as she had promised and shared drinks with him, regaling him with anecdotes about her own days at Hogwarts and asking about his with gentle curiosity. The mirror he had given to Harry remained unused, but Dumbledore or McGonagall would surely tell him if anything had happened to his godson. He would see him again in the summer, and that would have to suffice.

Still, he couldn’t deny that he was incredibly lonely.

The fire flickered, and Harry’s face vanished. Sirius sat in the drawing room beside Remus with memories of their school days still lingering in his mind, brought to the surface by Harry’s questions.

“You think he’ll be okay?” he asked.

“Yeah.” Remus shrugged. “It’s hard, you know, feeling let down by someone you put up on a pedestal. I can only imagine that’s even more true when it’s a parent you never got the chance to know. But he’ll be fine.”

Sirius didn’t want to think about who Remus might have put up on a pedestal and how they might have let him down. He had a bad feeling at least one of those people had been him, using Remus as a weapon against Snape and later jumping to conclusions that he must be the spy. If that was the case, he didn’t want to know, didn’t want to think too hard about it.

“It’s been a long time since I thought about fifth year,” he murmured. “James with that snitch, messing up his hair all the time. You constantly trying to study.”

“You thinking you were too good to study, because it all just came naturally to you,” added Remus, cracking a smile.

Neither of them mentioned the fourth member of their little quartet, but he was there in Sirius’s memory, tagging along after them, laughing as James and Sirius teamed up against Snape, looking over Remus’s shoulder to copy his meticulous notes.

“It was all so much easier then.”

It hadn’t felt like it at the time. Between Sirius’s family problems and Remus’s monthly transformations, not to mention the war and the ordinary awkwardness of being a teenager, nothing had seemed easy at the time. But compared to the mess that they found themselves in now, it had been a golden age. A time before betrayal and loss had wreaked havoc on their lives.

“You never told anyone,” said Sirius quietly. “You thought I was the spy, but you kept quiet about it.”

Of course, the same was true in reverse. They had both put each other above the common good, whispering accusations in private and confiding their doubts in James and Peter but never going to Dumbledore to recommend any kind of action against each other, even as their relationship deteriorated.

“What can I say?” asked Remus. “I didn’t want to be right. I’m glad I wasn’t.”

“You’re glad it was him instead?”

“Well …” Remus shrugged. “It sounds horrible when you put it that way, doesn’t it?”

It kind of did, Sirius thought. But even in the old days, Peter had always been the odd one out in their group of four. James at the center, the magnetic force that they all gravitated towards. Sirius right by his side from the first moment they met on the train, a team of two ready to take on the world together. Sirius and Remus slowly falling into and out of each other’s orbit as the years went by. Peter hadn’t been as close to any of them as they were to each other. If he hadn’t been their roommate, Sirius had often thought they might have bullied him rather than befriending him; as it was, he had been included, but never anyone’s priority.

It sounded horrible to be glad he was the traitor, but Sirius couldn’t deny that he felt the same. He regretted trusting Peter, but he was glad he had been wrong to suspect Remus.

“Do you ever miss … us?” asked Sirius softly.

“You mean …” Remus looked at him shyly, his face turning a bit pink, but after a moment, he shrugged and shook his head. “I dunno. It was nice, while it lasted. But we’re not the people we were back then.”

Yeah. Sirius nodded, figuring he probably had a point. Too much had changed, and it would be hard to go back.

“I never asked,” Sirius said. “Is there anyone special in your life now? Boyfriend? Girlfriend?”

Remus flushed and shook his head.

“No. Werewolf, remember?”

“Ah, well …” Sirius shrugged. “The right person won’t care. You know that, right?”

He had never cared. Except, of course, when he had. When he had looked at Remus and seen a dark creature, a monster, and been so convinced he must be the traitor, more due to that than because of anything Remus had actually done.

He looked away, unable to meet the other man’s eyes.

“What about you?” asked Remus.

Sirius let out a harsh laugh.

“Right, I forgot to tell you about the guy I met in prison. Of course, things are complicated right now, because he’s got awful taste in tattoos and a really bad boss.”

Sirius looked up to see Remus’s eyes widening in alarm. He shook his head and burst out laughing.

“You’re joking,” said Remus, his voice wavering uncertainly.

“Yeah,” said Sirius. “That was a joke. No, there’s no one.”

Remus’s tense shoulders relaxed, and he let out a muffled laugh as well, but he raised an eyebrow like he didn’t quite believe Sirius’s words.

“What?” Sirius demanded.

“The Death Eater boyfriend thing was a joke, I get that,” said Remus. “But are you sure there’s no one?”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Well …” Remus shrugged. “Let’s just say Emmeline and Hestia aren’t the only ones who’ve noticed. You and Kingsley …”

Sirius groaned.

“I’m just saying, you do seem to like each other.”

“Of course I like him,” Sirius protested. “We’re friends.”

He looked at Remus searching for agreement, but he found only skepticism.

“You don’t look at him the way you look at your friends,” the other man said quietly. “You look at him like you used to look at me.”

Sirius couldn’t quite meet Remus’s eyes. Deep down, he suspected what he was saying just might be true.

“You think I should - what?” he asked. “Throw myself at him?”

“Let him know how you feel.”

“Right. Because if you liked someone, that’s definitely what you’d do,” said Sirius, turning to look at Remus with a wry smile. “You wouldn’t bottle it up and pine after them silently. No, not at all.”

Remus’s cheeks turned a little bit red, and Sirius laughed.

Kingsley wasn’t supposed to fall in love with anyone. He was perfectly happy on his own, and quite frankly, he had far too much going on to even have time for romance.

Except, of course, that he had already been finding plenty of time to spend with Sirius. Even as friends, the other man had somehow become a priority for him. And why shouldn’t he be? Most of the Order seemed quite content to simply make use of number twelve, Grimmauld Place as headquarters without worrying much about the man who lived there, but it was obvious Sirius was suffering. It wasn’t good for him to spend so much time alone in a place that was clearly full of bad memories.

It was a more comfortable prison than Azkaban, but in many ways, it was still a prison. One without guards or locked doors, but what difference did that make? He was still trapped.

“I spent a few months living in a cave in the mountain,” Sirius told him when he asked about his years on the run. “The one near Hogsmeade. I used to catch rats, and sometimes I would sneak into the village as a dog. I figured out pretty quickly who would take pity on an adorable stray.”

He looked downright nostalgic, and that hurt more than anything. Sirius shouldn’t have to feel nostalgic about living as a dog. Life shouldn’t be so miserable that sleeping outdoors, eating rats and food scraps, and spending little to no time around other humans except in animal form seemed desirable by comparison. Sirius didn’t deserve that.

He deserved to live where he wanted and go where he pleased. He deserved to feel sunlight on his face and the wind in his hair. He deserved to go to Quidditch games and cheer as loudly as he wanted, to stroll openly through the streets of Hogsmeade, and to walk right into the Ministry of Magic without fear.

If Kingsley imagined himself walking beside Sirius on the beach, the water lapping against their bare feet … if he pictured the two of them together in the stands of a Quidditch stadium, yelling at the top of their lungs … if he longed to be there to hear Sirius laughing, to see the wind in his hair and the sun on his skin …

Well, what of it?

That was nobody’s business but his.

“You like him, though?” asked Emmeline, her sharp eyes noticing far too much, when they met in late March to go over their plans for Sirius’s legal defense.

“Does it matter?” Kingsley asked. “I can’t tell him how I feel.”

“Why not?” asked Emmeline. “And don’t give me any nonsense about not wanting to ruin your friendship, because endless pining and bottling up your feelings will do that, too.”

He shook his head.

“It’s not that. But even now it’s not a straightforward friendship, is it?” he asked. “At some point, I’m going to have to explain to my boss why I knew where he was for - what is it, almost a year now? - and didn’t bring him in. If the answer is ‘because we were sleeping together’ …”

To his surprise, Emmeline laughed and rolled her eyes.

“That wouldn’t be the reason, and you know it,” she said. “You’re helping him because you know he’s innocent. You wouldn’t be doing that if you thought he was guilty. And I know you well enough to know you wouldn’t have fallen for someone who really did the things he was framed for.”

What she was saying made sense, but he hesitated, still uncertain.

“Wouldn’t it be better to wait until his name is cleared?”

“Maybe,” said Emmeline with a shrug. “But who knows how long that will take? Or what might happen in the meantime. I hate to say it, but we’re at war, and none of us know if we’ll live to see tomorrow, let alone some distant future where everything is as it should be.”

Chapter Text

The next time Kingsley returned to number twelve, Grimmauld Place, it was with Emmeline’s words lingering in his mind. He found Sirius upstairs feeding Buckbeak, who was lounging on a four poster queen-sized bed, its sheets wrinkled and littered with stray feathers. Sirius sat beside the creature on the edge of the mattress, stroking its head as it ate.

“Careful,” he warned as Kingsley entered the room. “He’s pretty friendly, but he’s still a hippogriff.”

Kingsley approached the bird with caution, making eye contact and bowing. It inclined its head towards him and continued eating, and Sirius grinned, beckoning for him to join them. Kingsley seated himself on the opposite side of the hippogriff, reaching out with a steady hand to touch its shoulder.

“He likes you,” said Sirius. “Not that I’m surprised. He’s a pretty good judge of character.”

Kingsley smiled in response.

“How’d you end up with a hippogriff, anyway?” he asked.

“Escaped on him, when they caught me at Hogwarts,” said Sirius. “I’d have thought you’d know that. A condemned animal goes missing the same night I slip through your fingers? Come on, you’re smart enough to connect the dots.”

He said it in a light, humorous tone, smiling at Kingsley from over Buckbeak’s head. Kingsley chuckled and shook his head.

“I wasn’t actually there that night, you know,” he said. “Lucky for you that I wasn’t. I would never have let you out of my sight once I’d caught you.”

“Yeah, I know,” said Sirius with a cheeky smile. “I’m just so handsome you wouldn’t have been able to take your eyes off me.”

They both knew that wasn’t what Kingsley had meant, but he let the comment pass without bothering to explain the truth: that he would have stood there like a sentinel guarding Sirius until the dementors arrived and made no move to stop them from doing what they had been authorized to do.

“I suppose Fudge didn’t think a missing hippogriff was important enough to mention,” he said, desperately trying to redirect the conversation, unwilling to spend any time imagining Sirius, blank and empty and soulless because of him. “Although come to think of it, I do remember Macnair complaining about a condemned creature that disappeared. Seemed awfully disappointed.”

“Oh, yeah,” said Sirius, nodding vaguely. “He would be. He’s one of the cruel ones.”

MacNair was indeed a cruel man who seemed to take great pleasure in his duties as an executioner, but from the way Sirius said it, Kingsley got the feeling he was missing something. His confusion must have shown, because Sirius shrugged and glanced at him warily.

“You know he’s a Death Eater, right?”

“Yes.”

“I’ve got a theory about why people join the Death Eaters,” Sirius went on. “Well - it’s not really my idea. It’s something I heard Dumbledore say once, but I reckon he’s right.”

Kingsley stroked Buckbeak’s feathers and listened in silence as Sirius spoke.

“There’s some that joined out of fear. Either he came recruiting and they didn’t have the guts to say no, or they thought he could protect them from their enemies, or whatever. No real loyalty, just cowardice.”

“People like Pettigrew,” murmured Kingsley.

“Yeah.” Sirius nodded, scowling at the name. “And then there’s the ambitious ones. The ones who wanted to burn the world down and remake it, who thought the history books would remember them as heroes.”

Sirius’s voice was bitter, his eyes were angry, and behind all that, Kingsley thought he could see a glimpse of deeply-buried sorrow. He didn’t ask, and whatever Sirius was thinking, he kept it to himself.

“Or, more cynically,” he went on, “the ones who thought he was going to win and wanted to make sure they’d be in power when he did.”

Kingsley nodded silently.

“And then there’s the third sort,” Sirius said. “The ones who aren’t cowardly or ambitious or particularly concerned about the cause, who just like hurting people and will take any excuse to do it. That’s what I meant when I said Macnair was one of the cruel ones.”

He paused and stroked Buckbeak’s feathers in silence for a while, and Kingsley did the same, wondering to himself which of the three motives he would have ascribed to Sirius if he had heard that theory before discovering he was innocent. Ambition or cruelty, probably, as laughable as either of them seemed now. Not cowardice. Even when he had believed Sirius to be a killer, he had never thought him a coward.

After a while, Sirius’s voice broke the silence again, soft and hesitant.

“If you’d caught me back in those days, would you have let them Kiss me?”

Kingsley cringed as the conversation circled right back around to the topic he had most wanted to avoid. He knew the answer, but he hesitated for a moment nevertheless, searching for a way to soften it.

“Those were my orders,” he said at last. “I don’t like the Kiss - or the dementors in general, really - but I wouldn’t have risked my career for someone I believed to be a murderer.”

He forced himself to look at Sirius, to accept whatever pain or judgment he found in the other man’s eyes. Instead, he found grim acceptance.

“I’m sorry,” he said.

“You’re an Auror,” said Sirius in a harsh voice, jerking his shoulders up and down in an awkward shrug.

It felt like an insult. Maybe it was meant as one. He couldn’t really blame Sirius for holding a grudge.

“I’m an Auror because I wanted to make a difference,” he said. “To protect the innocent and fight the Dark Arts. Same reason I joined the Order.”

“Yeah.”

“I wouldn’t have had the authority to overrule your sentence, and letting a mass murderer go free … I’m sorry, but short of convincing me you were innocent, there’s nothing you could’ve said to make that happen.”

Sirius nodded, stroking Buckbeak’s feathers and watching Kingsley out of the corner of his eyes.

“I understand,” he murmured. 

“For what it’s worth, I’m glad you were so hard to find,” said Kingsley.

He would never have imagined just two years ago how deeply he would grow to care for the man he had been assigned to hunt down.

“And I’m glad they put me on your case,” he added. “I probably wouldn’t have ended up in the Order otherwise, and I’m glad I got the chance to know you.”

“Even if it ends up ruining your career?” asked Sirius, looking at him with his eyes widening. “Or worse?”

“Yes.” Kingsley didn’t hesitate. “I wouldn’t change it for the world.”

He reached out to touch Sirius’s hand halfway across the hippogriff in between them.

“Yeah,” said Sirius. “I’m glad, too.”

Emmeline’s words repeated in Kingsley’s mind again, but he said nothing. This didn’t seem like the right moment for a confession of romantic love.

Sirius sat on his mother’s old bed stroking Buckbeak’s feathers and watched Kingsley with a strange, heavy sort of feeling in his heart. There was no elephant in the room between them, not at that moment. It was right out there in the open: under any other circumstances, Kingsley would not be helping him escape what the Ministry described as “justice.”

And yet, how could he blame him for that? Arresting dangerous Dark Wizards was his job. Someone had to be there to protect innocent people from the likes of Bellatrix and Dolohov. Sirius’s own situation was hardly Kingsley’s fault.

He trusted him. Against all odds, he knew, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that this man would never betray him. Not now that he knew the truth - and especially not now that they had gotten the chance to know one another as people and not just fugitive and Auror.

He had trusted someone else, once, and he had been wrong.

He wasn’t wrong now.

April crept by slowly, filled with dreary gray skies too much like the ones that surrounded Azkaban and busy Order members with no time to stop and chat popping in and out of Grimmauld Place in a hurry. By about halfway through the month, Sirius had stopped bothering to notice who was coming and going unless it was someone he especially wanted to talk to.

Remus stayed overnight a few times in between missions, and Sirius tried to talk to him, to find some remnant of what they used to be. It didn’t work. Perhaps they had just been apart for too long, or perhaps they would never have been close to begin with, if not for the magnetic force that was James Potter pulling them together.

“Nice catching up with you,” Remus told him after a quiet, painfully awkward lunch that hadn’t involved much catching up at all. “I’ve got to go.”

Sirius watched him go and missed the Remus in his pre-Azkaban memories more than the man he now barely knew.

Outside, a heavy rain was falling, tapping on the rooftops and rippling across the street. Sirius sat alone by the fire in the drawing room, watching the flames flicker before him and letting his thoughts linger on stormy nights long ago by the fire in the Gryffindor common room. Suddenly, the sound of footsteps jarred him out of his thoughts. He looked up just in time to see Dumbledore enter the room, looking weary and solemn.

“Ah, Sirius,” he said. “I hoped I would find you here.”

Sirius stared back at him in astonishment.

“What are you doing here?” he asked. It probably sounded a bit rude. Maybe he ought to apologize. Instead, he just added, “Don’t you have a school to run?”

Dumbledore responded with a smile that didn’t quite reach his eyes.

“I’m afraid that as of tonight, I no longer do,” he said.

He listened as Dumbledore told the story of a child betraying her friends and a secret revealed, and he tried not to picture “Miss Edgecombe from Ravenclaw” with Peter Pettigrew’s mousy brown hair and watery eyes.

“Fortunately, Kingsley thought to modify her memory,” Dumbledore went on. “So she was unable to reveal the whole truth. Harry and the others should be safe for now.”

“At a school run by that awful woman?” Sirius demanded, jumping to his feet. “You can’t seriously think -”

Dumbledore held up a hand, and Sirius fell silent.

“It’s far better for me to lose my position as Headmaster than for Harry to be expelled,” the old man said. “He will be safe from Lord Voldemort at Hogwarts. That must be our priority.”

Sirius nodded. For once, he and Dumbledore were on the same page.

“Are you staying here, then?” he asked, privately hoping the answer was no. As much as he appreciated what Dumbledore was doing, he wasn’t sure he wanted to live under the same roof. He felt cooped up enough already without spending each day with the man who was so insistent that he could not leave.

“Oh, I don’t believe that will be necessary,” said Dumbledore, and Sirius couldn’t resist breathing a sigh of relief. “I may drop by from time to time, but I have important work that will take me elsewhere.”

“For the Order?” Sirius asked.

Dumbledore nodded and provided no further detail.

Kingsley woke up feeling groggy and disoriented.

Where was he?

Oh. Right. Hogwarts.

As he struggled to his feet, he exchanged a pained glance with Dawlish, who looked just about ready to fight someone. Fudge was saying something to Umbridge, something about making her the new Headmistress. Kingsley ought to be paying attention, probably, but his head ached and the whole world was still spinning around him.

“You alright, mate?” Dawlish asked.

“Yeah,” said Kingsley. “I think so.”

Dumbledore wouldn’t have used the sort of magic that would cause permanent harm. Not even against his enemies, but certainly not when one of his allies was caught in the crossfire. He just needed to get out of here, to get someplace safe …

He made his way to the fireplace and stepped inside, throwing down the powder and speaking his home address. But the little house in the countryside felt too empty. He didn’t really want to be alone at all. He wanted to be with someone safe and familiar.

He wanted to be with Sirius.

So he turned right around again, fixating on the entrance to number twelve, and apparated right onto the doorstep. Making his way into the entrance hall, he crept quietly past Mrs. Black’s portrait and knocked on the door to the drawing room.

“Yeah?”

Sirius’s voice sounded tired and a bit hollow. Kingsley cracked the door open and stepped inside.

“I saw the light under the door,” he said. “Figured you’d be here.”

Sirius nodded silently.

“Has Dumbledore told you what happened?” he asked.

“Yeah. I hear you did some pretty quick thinking.”

He gave Kingsley a half-smile that faded quickly. Kingsley sat down beside him on the couch, watching with concern.

“You’re worried about Harry, aren’t you?” he asked.

“Yeah. Umbridge in charge, without Dumbledore to keep her in check?”

Kingsley nodded.

“I’m sorry,” said Sirius. “I know I’m not great company right now. But …”

“Harry’s your priority,” said Kingsley. “That’s totally understandable.”

He put his arm around Sirius, and the other man leaned into the embrace, letting his head rest against Kingsley’s neck.

“We’re going to figure this out,” he said, gently rubbing Sirius’s shoulder. “We’re going to put things right.”

Normally, he wasn’t big on making promises he couldn’t keep. But this was a promise to himself as much as to Sirius. He would find a way. He would figure out how to make things right. For both their sakes - and Harry’s, and everyone else’s. But he’d be lying if he said that it wasn’t mostly for Sirius.

“I love you.”

The words slipped out uncontrollably, as if they had a will of their own and demanded to be spoken. Sirius lifted his head and turned to look at Kingsley with big, startled gray eyes, and Kingsley felt his face grow warm, realizing what he had just said.

“I’m sorry. You don’t have to say anything, I shouldn’t -”

To his surprise, Sirius laughed. It was a dark chuckle, more irony than joy, but it wasn’t the response he had expected.

“What?”

“Don’t be sorry,” said Sirius.

He didn’t say the words back. He just stared at Kingsley with a million unreadable emotions in those intense gray eyes of his.

“I can’t say it back,” he said at last. “Not right now.”

“Okay.” Kingsley heard his own voice, only halfway conscious of the fact that he was the one speaking. “Okay, that’s fine. I didn’t mean to - can we still be friends, or do you want me to keep my distance?”

He didn’t want to, but he would, if that was what Sirius wanted. Still, he couldn’t deny the relief that he felt when Sirius shook his head.

“No. Don’t go. I -” he sighed and looked away. “That’s not fair, is it? I can’t expect you to wait around for me. But I don’t know how to do this. I’ve only been in one real relationship, and that was before … and I’m worried about Harry, and stuck in this fucking awful house, and …”

“It’s alright.” Kingsley took his hand. “Hey - hey, listen to me, okay?”

Sirius turned to look him in the eye.

“You don’t owe me an explanation,” said Kingsley. “You’ve been through a lot. You’re still going through a lot. Just know that I’m here for you, okay? As a friend, or as more than a friend, if that’s something you decide you want. And if not, that’s okay, too.”

Sirius nodded, looking more than a bit relieved.

Chapter Text

There was nothing more miserable than being stuck inside, except maybe being stuck inside number twelve, Grimmauld Place in particular. Which was why, when Kingsley showed up the first weekend in May with a bottle of polyjuice potion and two human hairs, Sirius didn’t hesitate to agree. It might have been one of the most reckless ideas he had ever heard of, perhaps second only to attempting the animagus transformation at fifteen, but what did that matter? He was desperate to get out.

“We’ll have to stay in the Muggle world,” Kingsley said. “And you’ll have to dress the part. Do you know how to dress like a Muggle?”

Sirius glanced down at the outfit he was wearing: a dark button-down shirt, a vest, a pair of trousers, a velvety jacket.

“Am I not dressed like a Muggle now?” he asked.

“Well, you’re not wearing a robe,” Kingsley acknowledged, “but the brooding aristocrat look won’t work if you want to actually avoid being noticed - which is kind of the point.”

Sirius looked longingly at the bottle of polyjuice and the few hours of freedom it represented.

“Alright,” he decided. “What do I need to do?”

An hour later, two men walked through a public park, enjoying the light breeze and warm springtime air. One had short blond hair and soft facial features nothing like Sirius’s; the other was too short and round to be Kingsley, although he shared his deep brown skin. With their new appearances and the Muggle t-shirts and jeans they were wearing, nobody would ever have guessed at their true identities, even if they happened to run into someone who knew about the Wizarding world.

There was something very freeing about being outdoors after so long cooped up inside. Sirius looked up at the sky, vast and blue and dotted with fluffy white clouds. He soaked up the warmth of the sun on his skin, so different from the stifling heat of a fire in the hearth. He ran his fingers along the bark of a nearby tree and breathed in the fresh scent of flowers blooming. His laughter mingled with the birdsong and the footsteps of total strangers who didn’t look twice as they passed by.

“I can’t believe we didn’t think of this sooner,” said Kingsley.

There were probably better uses for a rare and difficult potion, but in that moment, Sirius couldn’t think of a single one.

“We could do it more often,” said Kingsley, smiling at him. “Maybe not with polyjuice, because it was hard enough to get just a couple of doses. But we could use human transfiguration. Or we could go somewhere really remote. I’ve never been into camping, but … well, I’ve got some vacation time saved up, and Scrimgeour’s been hinting that he thinks I could do with a long weekend. Care to give it a try together?”

Sirius grinned.

“I’d love to.”

The weeks that followed passed by slowly. Each day seemed to drag on forever, the walls of Grimmauld Place somehow even more unbearable after a small taste of freedom - and in anticipation of another one.

As far as Sirius was concerned, the promised camping trip couldn’t possibly come quickly enough. There was nothing quite like listening to Kreacher’s muttering and his mother’s portrait screaming while the sounds of birdsong and wind rustling the branches of trees were still fresh in his mind. There was nothing quite like the musty smell of an old house right after grass and flowers.

A week passed, and then another. He made small talk with Remus, with Mad-Eye, and with Hestia Jones as they dropped by, and he made no mention of his upcoming plans. It was just a day and a night. Most likely, no one would even notice he had been gone.

That was a thought that sat bitterly in his mind, sending him back into the gloom of misery that had haunted him for so long.

He did, at least, find that he was enjoying Tonks’s company. It seemed strange that some of his favorite people in the Order were Aurors, and the irony of that did not escape him. But Tonks wasn’t Moody, all gruff and pragmatic, paranoid out of his mind and so proud of personally sending dozens of people to Azkaban. No matter if they were on the same side again, no matter that he had liked him during the first war, Sirius doubted he would ever feel quite at ease around Moody.

Tonks wasn’t Moody, and she sure as hell wasn’t Dawlish or Scrimgeour. She was young and idealistic and just about the sweetest person he had ever met. And, bizarrely enough, she was family. Family without any of the animosity that the concept of family usually entailed for him.

As the months passed by, she began asking him more and more questions about the relatives she had never known. She was one of the few people he would tolerate such questions from. Much as he hated to dwell on it, he knew she, at least, was neither inclined to think his family was in the right nor to judge him for being related to them. She was just curious, and he couldn’t blame her.

“Did my mum grow up here, too?” she asked, glancing around the kitchen as they shared lunch on a Saturday.

“No.” Sirius shook his head. “My aunt and uncle had their own place. They used to come over for Christmas, though, and we spent a lot of time together in the summer, usually at our grandparents’ house. Or sometimes my grandfather’s on my dad’s side.”

He saw her brow furrow in confusion.

“Aren’t you related on your dad’s side, though?” she asked. “My mum’s maiden name was Black, right? So - wouldn’t you have the same grandfather?”

Sirius chuckled darkly and shook his head.

“Technically, we’re related on both sides,” he said. “My parents - ah - may have had the same surname before they got married.”

Her eyes widened in horror, but Sirius just shrugged.

“Second cousins. A bit awkward, but it could be much worse. My mother and your grandfather were siblings. In any case, Arcturus - my dad’s dad - had gotten it into his head that being the oldest man in his generation made him everyone else’s boss. He liked to be very connected to the rest of the family, no matter how distantly related they were.”

“Are all pure-blood families like that?” asked Tonks, frowning.

“Not all,” said Sirius. “The Potters weren’t. But yeah, a lot of them are very patriarchal, very hierarchical. Not a lot of room for making your own choices, at least not without getting kicked out.”

“That sucks.”

“Yeah,” he said. “Yeah, it does.”

He had known that since his Hogwarts years, but it still felt like a relief to hear someone else express the same sentiment.

Finally, the day arrived. Early one morning on a day when nobody else was expected to come by, Kingsley arrived with a bag slung over his shoulder, dressed in casual Muggle clothing nothing at all like his Auror uniform. The sight of him - not under polyjuice but as himself - wearing jeans and a t-shirt made Sirius’s heart skip a beat. He looked incredibly handsome like that. Not that he wasn’t handsome ordinarily.

Some people had uniform fetishes. Sirius, apparently, had something like the opposite: a burning desire to forget about the bloody uniform and all that it represented. He tried not to think too hard about that and instead focused on Kingsley’s face: his beautiful brown skin, his gentle eyes, and the golden hoop earring dangling from his earlobe. His gaze drifted down to the t-shirt clinging to Kingsley’s muscular chest, and he couldn’t resist a smile.

“You look good,” he said, as casually as he could manage.

“Well, I didn’t make an O in Muggle Studies for nothing,” said Kingsley. “If we run into other campers, nobody will suspect a thing.”

That couldn’t be further from what Sirius was thinking.

“No, I mean - you look nice today,” he said, feeling his face burn. “I’m giving you a compliment.”

“Oh.” Kingsley smiled almost shyly at him. “In that case, you look nice today, too.”

Kingsley held out his hand, and Sirius took it in his own. A moment later, they were standing together in a clearing in the forest with trees all around and a clear blue sky up above. For the first time in weeks, Sirius felt as though he could breathe again.

They waved their wands, and the tent assembled itself, unfolding and anchoring itself in place without much effort on their parts. Thank goodness for that. Sirius couldn’t imagine how difficult it must be for Muggles, who had to somehow put their tents together with just their own hands.

“I brought food from Grimmauld Place,” he said, gesturing to the picnic basket on his arm, more for the sake of having something to say than anything else. “Kreacher isn’t a great cook, but even he can’t mess up sandwiches.”

A strange look came over Kingsley’s face, and Sirius thought for a moment he was going to say something tiresome about not insulting the miserable old elf, but then he just shrugged and nodded.

“I brought a chess board, if you’d like to play.”

Sirius couldn’t help thinking it was odd that they would come all the way out to the middle of nowhere just to do the sort of things they would have done indoors at Grimmauld Place, but he couldn’t deny that sitting down on conjured lawn chairs with the grass brushing against his ankles and a chess board floating between them was an entirely different experience from playing in the stuffy sitting rooms of his childhood home. This outdoor paradise was a world away from dark curtains and creaking floorboards.

He didn’t even mind that much when he lost.

“Again?” Kingsley asked.

“Oh, definitely,” said Sirius.

With a wave of his wand, he quickly repaired the broken chess pieces and arranged them neatly on opposite sides of the board.

“Your move.”

Kingsley sent one of his pawns forward, and Sirius did the same. As the moves unfolded, he turned all of his focus to the tiny pieces, planning his strategy carefully. If he moved his bishop, he could take Kingsley’s rook, but he’d be putting his bishop right in the path of Kingsley’s queen. Was a rook worth a bishop? Probably not … unless, of course, he could make the whole thing a trap to take the queen.

He met Kingsley’s eyes across the top of the chessboard and saw that familiar look in his eyes, clever and calculating. The other man’s lips curved into a sly smile as he ordered his knight to retreat.

It wasn’t enough. Sirius had his king cornered now. He slid his second bishop into place and grinned.

“Checkmate.”

They sat in the grass together and ate sandwiches, sipping on lemonade and swatting flies away. Sirius could tell Kingsley didn’t feel entirely comfortable sitting on the ground like this, but although he carefully smoothed the grass around him with a slight frown, he didn’t complain.

For Sirius, it was as familiar and easy as breathing. Between running around in the Forbidden Forest on four legs as a teenager and hiding out during his years on the run, he had long since lost any residual traces of the snobbishness that his parents once tried to instill in him.

This wasn’t quite the same. It was quieter and more peaceful than his youthful excursions with the Marauders and not nearly as lonely as his time as a fugitive. But still, it felt incredibly right in a way that remaining cooped up in Grimmauld Place most certainly did not.

As he finished his sandwich, he reached out to take Kingsley’s hand. Their eyes met, and Sirius saw such warmth and affection in the other man’s gaze that he almost had to look away, suddenly feeling the bizarre urge to pinch himself and see if it was all just a lovely dream.

No, on second thought, he didn’t want to know. If this was all a figment of his imagination, if in a few minutes he would be waking up at Grimmauld Place or in Azkaban, he would much rather relish every second of the dream.

He reached out to pluck a cluster of small purple flowers that might have been lilacs or hydrangeas from a nearby shrub, twisting their stem between his fingers.

“That’s lovely,” said Kingsley.

“I’m not sure what they are,” said Sirius. “I never cared much about flowers. My cousins would know.”

He cringed and shook his head slightly.

“Sorry. I didn’t mean to …”

“It’s alright,” said Kingsley, scooting closer. “They probably would know. Did I ever tell you about the time I asked Narcissa to go to Hogmseade with me?”

Sirius turned and looked at him with astonishment.

“You asked Narcissa out? On a date?”

“Yeah.” Kingsley laughed and shook his head. “She conjured a bouquet of yellow carnations and practically threw them at me. Called me a blood traitor for good measure. I knew she wasn’t saying yes, but I had to go to the library to find out what they meant.”

“Rejection,” said Sirius. “Even I know that one.” With a laugh, he added, “Don’t worry, she gave those to most of the guys who made a move on her. Be glad she didn’t put a hex on them.”

He turned to Kingsley and held out the flower.

“I’m not my cousins,” he said. “I don’t know what this is or if there’s some kind of meaning that goes with it. But …”

Kingsley reached out to accept the flower. Their fingertips brushed against each other, lingering there long after Sirius could have let go. He scooted closer, gazing into the other man’s soft, dark eyes.

“I …”

I love you.

The words fell silent on his tongue. He smiled sadly.

“Thank you,” he said instead. “For today. And for everything. Being stuck in that house isn’t half as awful when you’re around.”

Kingsley smiled back at him.

“Don’t thank me for that,” he said. “My motives are quite selfish, really.”

He didn’t repeat the words that had slipped out all those weeks ago, but he didn’t have to. It was obvious what he meant.

“Good,” said Sirius, smiling back. “Be selfish. I’d rather hear that than find out you’ve just been hanging around because you feel sorry for me.”

“Not a chance,” said Kingsley, smiling in amusement. “I spend enough time around people I don’t like at work. I’m not nearly selfless enough to do it in my free time as well.”

He put his arm around Sirius’s shoulder and held him close, and for just a moment, everything was right in the world.

The blue sky above faded to a dusky gray, and - eventually - a dark expanse dotted with tiny, gleaming stars. The two men sat beside the campfire and made s’mores, a Muggle tradition Sirius vaguely remembered from one blissful summer in his late teens. Gooey melted chocolate and toasted marshmallow filled his mouth. He laughed as he wiped the sticky stuff from his lips.

Later, they lay on their backs side-by-side, looking up at the stars.

“Which one is yours?” Kingsley asked.

“You can’t see it this time of year,” said Sirius. “Didn’t you take Astronomy in school?”

“It was never my best subject,” Kingsley admitted. “I think I’ve forgotten most of it.”

“I sometimes wish I could,” Sirius muttered. “Looking up at the night sky basically just means looking at the family tree.”

He made no move, though, to look away. Instead he remained there on his back, listening to Kingsley’s soft breathing and staring up at the vast cosmos above.

“It’s beautiful,” he murmured. “I wish it didn’t remind me of them.”

Kingsley squeezed his hand. He said nothing, but the reminder of his presence was reassuring all the same.

“Do you mind if I transform?” he asked.

He wasn’t sure what made him ask, but it felt right, in that moment. 

“Sure,” said Kingsley. “If you want to.”

In the next moment, Sirius was no longer human but a creature on four legs with thick, dark fur. Kingsley propped himself up on his elbow and looked at the dog with affection in his eyes, and Sirius felt his tail begin wagging as he approached, sniffing cautiously. He felt a hand stroking his fur, scratching gently between his ears. With a small bark, he planted a sloppy kiss on Kingsley’s cheek, his tail sweeping back and forth as he watched the man laugh and wipe it off on his sleeve.

It was a side to himself he had not shown to many people, at least not outside of using it as a disguise. In some ways, it felt very intimate, like a gesture of trust.

“You’re beautiful,” Kingsley murmured.

That wasn’t something people usually said about Sirius’s dog form. Usually, they panicked and thought they were seeing death omens. Sirius’s tail wagged faster as he barked again as if to say, yes, I know I am.

“It’s incredible, you know,” Kingsley said, running his fingers through Sirius’s fur. “Very few wizards are brave enough to attempt the animagus transformation. To have mastered it so young … well, you’re brilliant. Did I ever tell you that?”

Sirius let out another soft bark and lay down in the grass, resting his chin on Kingsley’s leg. Somehow, everything was easier like this. His thoughts were simpler, his emotions easier to understand. His human mind was full of doubt and hesitation, but the dog didn’t understand those things. The dog just knew that this human was safe, that he could trust him, and that he belonged right there by his side.

The next morning, they returned to Grimmauld Place. As they walked through the entrance hall, the walls threatened to close in on Sirius all over again. But Kingsley was there, and his presence somehow made it easier.

“It’s not forever,” he assured Sirius before he left. “Emmeline and I are making good progress building a case for you. When the time is right, we’ll be ready, and then you’ll be properly free.”

That was a terrifying thought. Not the freedom part - Sirius would give anything for actual, proper freedom - but the idea of facing the Wizengamot and having to prove his innocence. Until it happened, there would probably always be a part of Sirius that wondered if it would all be for nothing. Maybe they would simply refuse to look at the evidence. Or maybe they would hear his case and still decide he belonged in Azkaban.

“What if …?”

“Hey.” Kingsley gave Sirius’s hand a reassuring squeeze. “Try not to worry. You’re innocent, and we can prove it. Just a little longer, okay?”

Sirius nodded. It felt like an impossible request, but he would try.

Chapter Text

The second week in June, Kingsley stood in Scrimgeour’s office trying to keep his emotions in check as all his plans crashed and burned.

“Williamson is going to be taking over the Sirius Black case,” Scrimgeour told him. “I’m switching you to the team working on the more recent breakout. You’ll be focusing on Bellatrix Lestrange.”

“Sir,” Kingsley tried to protest, “are you sure -”

“Yes,” said Scrimgeour curtly. “I’m sure you’ve done your best, but it doesn’t seem to me like you’re making much progress. Maybe a pair of fresh eyes will help. And maybe you’ll have better luck on a different case.”

A pair of fresh eyes? That was the last thing Sirius needed. But there was only one answer Kingsley could give.

“Yes, sir.”

“Dismissed.”

He spent that morning carefully taking down the pictures of Sirius that lined the walls of his cubicle. If this were any other case, any other suspect, he would be talking to the new investigator, going over the file and the work he had done, discussing any leads he had picked up on. But as far as he was concerned, Williamson could start from scratch.

He sorted the photos into two piles: one that went on top of the map and the paperwork, to be dropped off at Williamson’s desk later that day, and a second, much smaller stack that he duplicated, adding the copies to the middle of the larger pile but slipping the originals covertly into his briefcase to take back to Grimmauld Place. Williamson could have the wanted poster with the screaming mugshot; Sirius deserved to keep the picture from the Potters’ wedding.

He didn’t need to make copies of the paperwork in the file. He had long since done that; a whole set of duplicates now lived at Grimmauld Place, where he, Sirius and Emmeline could peruse them at their leisure. Once everything was taken down and stacked up neatly, there was not much else to do. He took one last look around at the strangely blank walls and made his way to Williamson’s desk, where he reluctantly set the file down, fighting the lump in his throat and the possessive instinct that had been creeping over him from the very moment Scrimgeour told him he’d been reassigned.

This was his case.

It was his wild goose chase to be dragged out indefinitely.

His ally, his friend, his maybe-sort-of-almost-lover.

He was worried for Sirius, yes. When Williamson smirked at him and said he wasn’t so sure Sirius was abroad at all, Kingsley was definitely worried. It would be so easy to pretend to himself that worry was all he was feeling, but he knew better.

He was worried, but he was also jealous. It was bizarre. It didn’t make any sense. Williamson wasn’t going to be doing what he had done. He wouldn’t be sharing dinner and drinks with Sirius at Grimmauld Place. He would never get to match wits with Sirius across a chess board, spar with him in a friendly duel, or pet the silky black fur of his animal form. He would never see Sirius face-to-face at all unless something went terribly wrong, and it seemed highly unlikely he would piece together the whole truth on his own.

Not that it would be a bad thing if he did, Kingsley reminded himself. If someone else were to figure out Sirius was innocent, that could only be a positive.

Still, he couldn’t help feeling irrationally bitter and resentful right on top of the very rational worry that was plaguing him.

He needed to get back to headquarters. He needed to warn Sirius. But he would have to wait. If this was in any way a test - if his fellow Aurors were watching to see what he would do - he couldn’t afford to mess up.

Which meant he was already taking a risk just holding onto those few, precious pictures of Sirius laughing and smiling with his friends. He couldn’t simply walk out of the office in the middle of the afternoon, right after being told he was off the case. It would look far too suspicious.

Instead, he reviewed the file on his new assignment, pouring over the list of horrific crimes committed and tacking up a new wanted poster where Sirius’s had once hung.

This was important work, at least. He should probably be grateful he hadn’t been given some trivial bit of busy work; if he was tracking down real Death Eaters, he could still make a difference. Better yet, this was work he could do to the best of his ability, without intentional failure being part of the plan. It had been a long time since he was able to put his skills as an Auror to the test against a genuine enemy, and he couldn’t deny that a part of him was looking forward to the challenge.

A small part.

But still, the urge to protect Sirius was stronger. As he looked up at Bellatrix Lestrange’s wanted poster, he couldn’t help noticing the family resemblance. He could see traces of Sirius in Bellatrix’s regal beauty and the proud fire in her eyes. He knew Sirius would hate to hear that, so he would never point it out, but it was undeniable nonetheless.

Shaking his head and trying to dismiss the thought, Kingsley turned his attention back to the paperwork before him. The words floated before his eyes, passing through his mind without leaving much impression as he tried to force himself to focus.

… proudly confessed to the abduction and torture …

Sirius, sitting alone at Grimmauld Place, restless and bitter.

… expressed the belief that He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named would return and …

Sirius, with his sharp gray eyes gleaming as he planned out his strategy on a chess board.

… may have been involved with the murder of …

Sirius, with his harsh laugh and his dark sense of humor.

Oh, for Merlin’s sake, thought Kingsley. It’s not as though you’ll never see him again.

But it was no use. He simply couldn’t focus on Bellatrix when Sirius was on his mind.

Sirius knew the moment Kingsley walked in the door that something was wrong. His eyes were worried, his posture tense, and he sat down on the drawing room sofa looking vaguely nauseous.

“What happened?” asked Sirius. “Did someone stink up the bathroom at Auror headquarters?”

Kingsley frowned and didn’t reply, and Sirius deflated a bit, his attempt at humor falling flat. Cautiously, he sat down beside Kingsley.

“Seriously. What’s wrong?”

Kingsley looked at him with eyes full of unguarded worry.

“You’ve got to be more careful than ever,” he said. “Don’t take any risks. I might not be able to help you if you do.”

Sirius shrugged.

“Yeah, but that’s always been the case.”

“No.” Kingsley shook his head. “I mean I’m not in charge anymore. Scrimgeour had me reassigned. So now I’m supposed to be focusing on your cousin and letting Williamson handle you.”

“Oh.”

Sirius couldn’t deny the way something inside of him clenched up in fear. He hadn’t realized until that moment just how much he had come to count on the fact that the man who the Ministry had looking for him was someone who would never in a million years want to turn him in. He had known, of course, that it made things convenient for the Order - and he had also known that if he were caught by someone else, there might be very little Kingsley could do to save him. But the idea of some unknown Auror looking over his file, trying to track him down, perhaps figuring out that he had never been in Tibet or Argentina…

“Shit.”

“I’m sorry,” said Kingsley.

“Are you in trouble?” asked Sirius. “Did they figure out you weren’t trying?”

Even with his own future still on the line, he couldn’t deny the relief he felt when Kingsley shook his head.

“No, I think Scrimgeour just got impatient. I’ll be fine. If he has any doubts, I’ll be able to prove myself again on the new case. I’ve got absolutely no moral qualms about capturing the Lestranges.”

Sirius imagined the Auror locked in a duel against Bellatrix, caught in the blast of one of her signature curses. He tried to dismiss the worry. Fighting Dark Wizards - and Dark Witches - was Kingsley’s job, and he was one of the best. He could handle a bit of danger and probably wouldn’t thank Sirius for doubting him.

“Here,” said Kingsley, interrupting Sirius’s thoughts and bringing him back to reality. He heaved his large leather briefcase onto his lap and opened it, pulling out a few photographs that lay atop the papers and office supplies. He held them out to Sirius, who looked down to see his own face, about twenty years younger, laughing and smiling, standing beside James and Lily as their Best Man. From another, a quartet of boys in Gryffindor scarves waved at the camera as snow fell all around. A third showed Sirius and Remus at twenty years old, a snapshot taken from the living room of the flat they once shared.

“Figured you should have these,” said Kingsley by way of explanation. “I kept them back when I handed everything over to Williamson. He got copies. I wanted you to have the originals.”

Sirius nodded silently, ignoring the tears that gathered at the corners of his eyes.

“This means a lot,” he said. “Thank you.”

He scooted closer to Kingsley, needing to feel the warmth of his presence and savoring his touch as he wrapped his arm around Sirius’s shoulders. Sirius wasn’t sure what he had done to deserve someone who understood so intuitively what he wanted or needed, but after so long on his own, it almost felt too good to be true.

“I love you,” he whispered.

Kingsley squeezed his shoulder gently and pressed a kiss against his temple.

They sat together for a while in peaceful silence, simply enjoying each other’s presence and the reassuring feel of their bodies pressed against one other. Then, when about half an hour had gone by, Sirius picked up the photos from the coffee table again and glanced at Kingsley with a mischievous glint in his eyes.

“I’m going to take these to my bedroom,” he said. “Would you care to join me?”

His tone left little doubt as to what he was really asking. Kingsley hesitated, looking at Sirius with longing but speaking in a gentle, cautious voice.

“Are you sure?” he asked. “We can take things as slowly as you want.”

Sirius laughed. As if he didn’t already know that. As if Kingsley hadn’t made it abundantly clear.

“I want you,” he said. “And I don’t want to wait for some future that might never come.”

Kingsley nodded. There was something bittersweet in his smile, but he leaned forward and took Sirius’s hand.

With a nervous flutter in his chest, Sirius stood and led Kingsley up the stairs to a second floor guest room once frequented by his great-aunts. Drawing his wand, he transfigured the drapes from emerald green to crimson and vanished the ugly lace doilies that seemed to be everywhere.

“There,” he said, setting the wand down on the bedside table along with the photos and turning his attention back to Kingsley. “That’s better.”

“I thought you said we were going to your bedroom,” said Kingsley with a hint of amusement.

“This is better,” Sirius said, thinking privately that letting anybody else into his room on the top floor would require far more emotional vulnerability than he was ready for. And as for the other room they might use …

“The alternatives are either my mother’s bed with a hippogriff watching, or a room with posters of girls in bikinis all over the walls.”

Kingsley nodded, a bit too much understanding in his eyes. His hands cupped Sirius’s face gently, stroking his cheek with his thumb. Leaning forward, he pressed a kiss against Sirius’s lips.

“I’ve wanted to do that since the day I met you,” he said.

“When I was five and you were ten?” Sirius quipped. “At that awful tea party of Mrs. Selwyn’s?”

“Okay, maybe not the very first time we met,” said Kingsley with a chuckle. “But for the past year, anyway.”

He leaned in again for another kiss, this one fiercer and more urgent, but no less tender than before. Sirius clung to his robes and kissed back desperately, like a drowning man gasping for air. He couldn’t breathe, but it didn’t seem to matter.

“It’s been a long time since I’ve done that,” he murmured when they came up for air.

“Yeah?”

“Not a lot of opportunities where I’ve been.”

“Well,” said Kingsley with a sly smile, “why don’t we make up for lost time?”

Sirius replied with a sharp, wicked smile of his own, reaching for the top button on Kingsley’s shirt. He hesitated, running his fingers over the cool surface, his fingertips brushing against the fabric.

“Can I …?”

“Oh, yes.” Kingsley’s smile grew wider as he nodded, his own hands drifting downwards. “Can I?”

“Please.”

Sirius’s mother would’ve scolded him for that. “A man of your status must not beg for anything,” she would have said. The thought was so absurd that the only thing he could do was ignore it as his hands slipped beneath the fabric of Kingsley’s shirt, sliding it off his shoulders to reveal bare skin.

“You’re … wow.” He said, suddenly at a loss for words.

“The job keeps me in shape,” Kingsley said with a shrug.

Sirius suddenly felt very self-conscious of his own body, still thin and weak from his time in prison. He was suddenly very aware of the string of numbers and runes inked into the base of his neck, the only one of his tattoos he didn’t get by choice, no longer hidden behind the collar of his shirt.

“You’re beautiful, too,” said Kingsley, looking at him with such desire in his eyes that it was impossible to contradict him.

And then words didn’t matter anymore as they collapsed onto the bed together. Pressed between the soft mattress and the body of his lover, Sirius didn’t have the time to think about what his mother would say or to worry about the impact that twelve years in Azkaban had made on his looks.

Kingsley’s touch was soft and gentle, as though Sirius was something fragile and precious that he didn’t want to shatter. His hands moved slowly across Sirius’s skin, caressing him, sending shivers of anticipation through his body.

“I’m not made of glass,” Sirius murmured.

Kingsley let out a huff of laughter and smiled at him with eyes full of affection.

“I never said you were.”

Sirius kissed him passionately, his tongue pushing past Kingsley’s lips. He ran his fingers over the other man’s muscular chest, his hands moving lower and lower until all of a sudden, it all seemed so unreal that he had to stop, pulling away abruptly.

“Is everything okay?” Kingsley asked, going still and looking at Sirius in concern.

“Yeah.” Sirius nodded.

“Are you sure? If you’ve changed your mind …”

He shook his head fervently.

“It’s been a long time,” he murmured. “It’s …”

Strange.

Intimidating.

“What if I don’t know how to do this anymore?” he whispered.

To his credit, Kingsley didn’t laugh, and the pity that surfaced in his eyes lingered only for a moment.

“Sirius,” he whispered back, an almost conspiratorial look on his face. “Would it bother you, if I told you I’ve only been with women before?”

“No, of course not,” said Sirius. “Why would that have anything to do with ... well, anything?”

“Because if you’re worried you don't know what you’re doing, you should know that neither do I,” said Kingsley. “But you’re an amazing person, and I trust you completely. Do you trust me?”

“Yes.”

The answer came automatically.

“Then we’ll figure this out together. It might not be perfect the first time, but it will be a chance for us to explore a new aspect of our relationship. And over time - assuming there is a next time - we’ll both learn more about how to bring each other pleasure. Okay?”

“Yeah, okay.”

Sirius moved closer and kissed him again, melting into his embrace.

A few days later, Buckbeak cried out in pain as Sirius carefully wrapped a bandage around his wounded leg. The blood soaked through the fabric, staining it red.

“It’s going to be alright,” said Sirius. “I know it hurts, but it’s not really that bad. I mean - I’m sure it feels that way to you, but as long as we keep it from getting infected …”

He sighed and fell silent. Listen to him, talking to a bloody hippogriff as if it could somehow understand him.

“If James could see me now …”

It wasn’t worth thinking about. If James were there, Sirius would be somewhere else, not hiding in his parents’ old house. If James were still alive, he would never have allowed anyone to think that Sirius had betrayed him.

“Well, that should do it,” he said, tying the bandage in place. Carefully, he stroked the creature’s beak, his touch soft and soothing. Buckbeak’s pained cries eased away, and he nuzzled gently against Sirius’s hand.

“Good bird.”

Buckbeak glared at him in annoyance but made no move to snap at his fingers, let alone attack him.

“I know, I know. Not a bird.”

How could the Ministry ever believe this animal was dangerous?

When he made his way downstairs, feeling bitter and lonely, he sat down on the couch in the drawing room. With a bottle of firewhiskey in his hand, he tapped on the keys of the music box Kingsley had given him for Christmas, prompting it to play Celestina Warbeck’s “A Cauldron Full of Hot, Strong Love.”

Huh. That was not what Sirius had meant when he said to play him a love song, but as he settled down onto the couch, he found that he didn’t care enough to get up and change the song. It was fine.

Oh, come and stir my cauldron
And if you do it right …

He rolled his eyes and tuned it out, popping open his bottle of firewhiskey. But before he could lift it to his lips, he was interrupted by the sound of footsteps and murmurs, a door creaking, and the distant shriek of his mother’s portrait. Another door opened, and there, in the entrance to the drawing room, stood Kingsley, Remus, and Tonks, all grinning at him.

“Wotcher, cousin,” said Tonks.

Sirius felt his foul mood begin to dissipate. Returning her smile, he set the bottle aside and beckoned for the three of them to join him.

“What’s going on?”

“Well, I’ve just got back from my latest mission,” said Remus, taking a seat in an armchair with a weary sigh while Tonks remained standing, bouncing slightly on the balls of her feet, full of energy. Kingsley slid into the seat beside Sirius on the sofa and scooted close to him, wrapping one arm around his waist.

“I ran into these two on my way in,” Remus went on. “What are you lot doing here, anyway?”

“Trying to catch Sirius’s crazy cousin,” said Tonks cheerfully.

“Hey,” Sirius protested. “She’s your crazy aunt, you know.”

“Yeah.” Tonks made a face. “Technically, I’m trying to track down Rabastan. They’ve got some stupid rule about close blood relatives. But we all know, where one of the Lestranges is, that’s where you’ll find the lot of them.”

Sirius figured that was probably true.

“Anyway, we’re supposedly checking out all the places connected to them,” said Kingsley. “Which Grimmauld Place technically is. Of course, we’re not going to find any Death Eaters here, but it seemed like a decent place to come to plan out our strategy away from the rest of the folks at the Ministry.”

“Right,” said Sirius with a dark chuckle. “Because they’d rather blame me than admit Voldemort’s involved.”

“Yep,” said Tonks brightly. “So I think -”

Whatever she thought, though, she was cut off by the uneven sound of Moody’s footsteps in the hallway and more screaming from the portrait of Sirius’s mother.

“What is this, an Auror meeting?” Sirius asked, raising his eyebrows as Moody shut the open door behind him.

“Retired,” Moody reminded him in a gruff voice, gesturing to himself before pulling over a stool and sitting down. “Lucky for you, Black, because you wouldn’t have made it a month if I were still an Auror.”

Sirius rolled his eyes and scoffed.

“You’d have been looking for a big black dog, would you?”

He no longer felt any intimidation from being around the three of them. They were no longer three Aurors and an escaped criminal. Even Moody, who wasn’t his lover or his cousin, had become an ally again over the course of the past year. Not a friend, perhaps, but it didn’t seem so strange anymore to sit down with him among a group of their fellow Order members, making conversation about nothing particularly important.

“Did you hear about the Weasley twins?” Tonks asked.

Kingsley and Sirius nodded, but Remus shook his head.

“No, what happened?”

“Left school,” said Tonks. “Set off massive, enchanted fireworks and flew away on brooms to open a joke shop.”

“I bet Molly loved that,” said Remus.

“Oh, she was furious,” said Kingsley. “But not as furious as Umbridge. Which means, of course, Fudge was furious, too. Not much he could do, though. They’re of age, and they’ve got their O.W.L.s. There’s no law against dropping out of N.E.W.T.s in the most dramatic way possible.”

Well, it didn’t look like Tonks and Kingsley were going to get much work done. Sirius figured that wasn’t his business. He certainly wasn’t going to complain about being surrounded by friendly faces when, half an hour ago, he had been alone with an injured hippogriff.

Their conversation went on for a while before footsteps interrupted them again, these ones sharp and heavy.

“Half-blood! Abomination! Filth besmirching the house of my fathers!”

The door slammed open. There, in the entryway, stood Severus Snape, a look as intense as fire in his eyes. His gaze settled directly on Sirius, his brows rising slightly.

“So Potter was wrong as usual,” he said bluntly. “You’ve not been captured by Death Eaters after all.”

Sirius sat up straighter, alarm coursing through him.

“What?”

“The boy somehow got it into his head that you had been. I had to be sure.”

“Wait, what’s going on?” Tonks demanded, turning to look at Snape with something fierce in her eyes.

“His exact words were ‘he’s got Padfoot at the place where it’s hidden,’” said Snape. “I presume he meant the Department of Mysteries.”

“Well, we’ve got to go,” said Tonks. “However they made him think that, they did it for a reason.”

“It’ll be an ambush,” Kingsley agreed, rising and leaving the seat beside Sirius suddenly empty and cold. “If he’s made it there, we’ve got to go after him as quickly as possible.”

Sirius leapt to his feet as well, reaching for his wand.

“Agreed.”

“Not so fast, Black,” said Snape, fixing his gaze on Sirius. “You should stay here.”

“Why?” Sirius demanded.

“Because Dumbledore is on his way. Someone must remain behind to tell him what has happened, and I will be missed if I’m away from Hogwarts much longer.”

“He’s right,” said Kingsley, squeezing Sirius’s hand. “You’ll be in more danger than the rest of us if you go. It’s better if you stay and explain things to Dumbledore.”

Sirius turned on him with a glare.

“Not a chance. I’m not going to leave my godson in danger. If something happens to him and I wasn’t there -”

He shook his head. It didn’t bear thinking about.

“Kreacher can make himself useful for once and tell Dumbledore,” he decided. Without waiting for anyone’s agreement, he called out the elf’s name. “Kreacher? Kreacher! Get in here!”

A loud cracking sound rang out, and Kreacher stood there in the center of the drawing room. Sirius stood over him, looking down coldly as he explained what he required.

“As Master Sirius wishes,” Kreacher said, bowing before throwing back his head and letting out a joyless laugh.

Sirius didn’t stop to wonder what was so funny. The only thought in his mind was of Harry facing Death Eaters alone.

The moment they burst through the doors, Sirius knew they had arrived just in time. Even another few moments’ hesitation and they might have shown up too late. As it was, Harry and another boy were surrounded by about a dozen Death Eaters. Harry's friend lay on the ground, trembling and clutching a bleeding nose.

Sirius drew his wand, but it was Tonks who cast the first spell, aiming a hex directly at the Death Eaters. A moment later, there was chaos - the very same chaos that Sirius remembered from the battles of his youth, when James Potter fought by his side and they both thought themselves somehow invincible.

Sirius knew better now. But even after all these years, his old reflexes kicked in as though no time at all had passed. Pure muscle memory and instinct, that was the only explanation, because even after occasionally sparring with Kingsley over the past few months, he was still out of practice.

Then again, so were their opponents. It was no wonder that Kingsley could duel two at once, Sirius thought. Whether they were in prison or pretending they’d been under the Imperius Curse, the Death Eaters hadn’t been in a battle since the first war, either - whereas the Aurors on their side still fought Dark Wizards on a regular basis.

There was no time now, though, to admire Kingsley’s brilliant dueling technique. Sirius had his own problem to deal with: namely, Rabastan Lestrange, who was trying very hard to kill him. Sirius countered hexes with shield charms and shot back his own hexes in return, glancing at Harry as they raced past.

“Stupefy!”

The spell hit Rabastan’s shoulder, knocking him off-course and sending him falling to the ground. Sirius didn’t have time to waste on savoring his victory, though. Not with Dolohov towering over Harry and Neville just a few meters away. Sirius sent a jet of light flying in their direction, distracting Dolohov from the two boys. As they began to duel, Harry joined in with a spell of his own, fighting just as boldly and skillfully as his father once did.

“Nice one!” Sirius called out to him.

James would be so proud.

There was no time to dwell on that, though. He grabbed Harry’s arm and pulled him downwards as stunners flew over their heads.

“Harry, take the prophecy, grab Neville, and run!” he yelled out.

He could only hope that his godson would listen, because at that moment, Bellatrix lunged towards him, a wicked smile on her face and a cruel laugh cutting through the chaos. Sirius had only one thought: get her away from Harry.

So he dodged in the other direction, deflecting her curses and leading her away from the two boys. She struck back against him viciously, shooting one spell after another with that same intensity and precision she had always possessed. It was clear that her years in Azkaban had not dulled her skill whatsoever.

Somewhere, there were shouts of fear and the sounds of struggling. Dumbledore’s name echoed through the room. Sirius caught a glimpse of the man himself out of his peripheral vision, but he ignored him. The other Death Eaters might surrender or attempt to flee now that he had arrived, but Bellatrix would most certainly not. Which meant Sirius wasn’t done fighting, either.

They were dueling on the dias beneath the archway now, in the shadow of its billowing gray fabric. She shot a jet of red light in his direction. A stunning spell - how marvelously tame by her standards! He deflected it, laughing as he did.

“Come on, you can do better than that!”

He didn’t have time to react as her second stunner hit him in the chest.

Sirius seemed to fall in slow motion, hanging in front of the archway as the stunning spell melted the laugh away from his face. Kingsley watched in horror, his thoughts racing as he thrust out his wand arm, shouting out the only spell that might help.

“Accio!”

It was risky. Even over such a short distance, it was incredibly risky. He could break every bone in Sirius’s body if he wasn’t careful - and in that moment, he didn’t have time to be careful. But his instincts told him the risk was worth it.

There was nothing he wanted more at that moment than for Sirius’s shirt and trousers - and Sirius along with them - to be by his side, a safe distance from the deadly archway.

A split second later, that was exactly what had happened. Wrenched free of the veil, Sirius slammed to a stop right beside Kingsley, crumpling to the ground. As the battle came to a halt and the Death Eaters fled or were captured, Kingsley sank to his knees at Sirius’s side, for once thinking not as an Auror but as a man who couldn’t be sure if his lover was dead or alive.

Harry and Remus joined him a moment later, and the three of them carefully laid Sirius out on his back. Kingsley touched his neck and found a heartbeat. His chest heaved up and down, but his breathing was pained and uneven, and he did not open his eyes. His limbs lay at unnatural angles. Blood trickled down the side of his head.

“Stay with me,” he said, grasping Sirius’s hand.

“What’s going on?” Harry asked.

Kingsley ignored him, instead fixing his attention on Remus.

“We need a Healer,” he said. “Someone in the Order who knows he’s one of us.”

“Hestia Jones,” Remus said, nodding. “I’m not sure where she is, though. She and Emmeline - I know they live together somewhere in London, but I’ve never been.”

It didn’t matter. Kingsley drew his wand in his free hand and focused as hard as he could on the memory of lying beneath the stars with Sirius.

“Expecto Patronum.”

A silver lynx leapt from his wand and raced off to deliver his message.

“Hold on,” he told Sirius. “Help is coming, just hold on, okay?”

Sirius didn’t reply, but he was still breathing.

Somewhere, the battle was still going on. The Death Eaters trapped in the room with the veil, struggling against Dumbledore’s containment spell, were no threat, but Bellatrix Lestrange was still out there, and the rest of the Order was still fighting. Even Remus had gone on, taking Harry with him, to find the other children and get them to safety. Kingsley remained at Sirius’s side as Hestia ran her wand over his mangled body, murmuring soft incantations. Slowly, his limbs straightened, his wounds sealed, and his breathing evened out. But to Kingsley’s dismay, he did not sit up or speak.

“Broken bones, gashes, a bit of internal bleeding,” Hestia said at last. “All that was easy enough to take care of. But there’s something going on that I can’t quite diagnose properly, let alone put right. It’s as if he’s caught somewhere between life and death, for no apparent reason. As if someone hit him with a killing curse that didn’t quite finish the job.”

Kingsley glanced warily at the empty archway. Then, rising with a surge of fear and anger, he stalked towards the little group of defeated Death Eaters, grabbing Augustus Rookwood by the front of his robes.

“You were an Unspeakable,” he said.

Rookwood didn’t respond, but that was okay. It hadn’t been a question, just a statement of fact.

“Tell me about the archway.”

“Why would I do that?” Rookwood asked, smirking at him. “What’s in it for me?”

“You’re in no position to bargain,” Kingsley said. His voice was quiet, but a fierce, angry quiet. He could see Rookwood’s eyes widening slightly, growing fearful even as he struggled to hide it. “Tell me.”

A moment passed, and then Rookwood’s fear vanished behind a cold, smug smile.

“It’s death.”

“What’s going to happen to Sirius?”

Rookwood shrugged.

“I dunno. We never tried pushing someone just halfway in.”

Kingsley let him go, and he staggered backwards, rejoining the others, still held captive by Dumbledore’s spell.

“I can’t fix this,” Hestia told him as he fell back to his knees beside her and Sirius.

“You’re saying he’s going to … to …”

He couldn’t bring himself to say it. Hestia shook her head.

“I don’t know. But I’m saying I can’t treat him here, like this, on my own. He needs to go to Saint Mungo’s.”

Kingsley’s heart just about stopped beating. A moment passed, and then:

“He can’t.”

His voice came out in a horrified whisper. He looked down at Sirius, his chest rising and falling faintly, his eyes closed.

“He can’t go to Saint Mungo’s,” he repeated. “We need to get him back to - back under the Fidelius.”

He looked desperately at Hestia, searching for reassurance. She shook her head sadly.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “I wish I could tell you something different. But if he goes back into hiding now, he might very well never wake up.”

They stayed by Sirius’s side until the doors opened again and Aurors arrived. When Dawlish and Williamson spotted Sirius, Kingsley positioned himself firmly in between.

“You’re not going to touch him,” he informed them. “Take care of that lot” - he gestured to the little group of real Death Eaters still trapped by Dumbledore’s spell - “and leave Sirius Black to me.”

“We’ll send the dementors for him right away,” said Williamson.

He didn’t say it like a threat. He said it like he thought that was what Kingsley would want.

“No.”

“There’s no sense in delaying the inevitable,” Williamson protested.

Kingsley shook his head.

“Sirius fought against the Death Eaters,” he said. “I have reason to believe he’s not what we thought. So we’re going to send him to Saint Mungo’s for healing, and when he’s recovered, we’re going to reopen his case.”

“But -”

“Don’t argue with me on this,” said Kingsley firmly. “The man’s unconscious. At the moment, he’s the least dangerous person in the room even if he is a Death Eater.”

For a moment, he thought Williamson and Dawlish would press the issue. But then, with shrugs and bemused glances, they moved on to arrest the actual Death Eaters, leaving Kingsley, Sirius, and Hestia in peace.

They wouldn’t be the only ones Kingsley had to convince, of course. But he wasn’t about to give in. He would stay by Sirius’s side and not let him out of his sight until he had heard from Dumbledore, from Rufus Scrimgeour, and from the Minister of Magic himself that Sirius was safe. He would have the chance to prove his innocence that he should have gotten fifteen years ago. Kingsley would make sure of it.

“Hold on,” he told him again. “You’re going to be okay, just hold on.”

All thoughts about not making promises you couldn’t keep were long gone. Sirius would be okay. Kingsley wasn’t about to accept any other outcome.

Chapter Text

When Sirius woke, the first thing he knew was pain. His arms and legs ached. His chest ached. Every inch of his body ached.

The second thing he was aware of was the bland, almost unnoticeable temperature of the room and the feeling of a not-quite-soft-enough surface beneath him. Not Azkaban, then. It wasn’t cold enough, the bed wasn’t hard enough, and when he opened his eyes, the room around him was sterile white, not the miserable dark gray he still remembered so clearly.

He tried to sit up, and the room spun around him. He collapsed weakly back onto the mattress. From somewhere nearby, a dark-haired woman dressed in green Healer robes approached. He recognized Hestia Jones at once, even in his sluggish and confused state.

“It’s alright,” she whispered to him. “It’s alright. You’re safe for now, and the Order has a plan.”

“Can I see Harry?” he asked. “And Kingsley?”

Hestia smiled sadly at him and shook her head.

“Immediate family only, I’m afraid.”

He had no immediate family left, and it wouldn’t matter if he did. The people he had chosen to love meant much more to Sirius than anyone he happened to be related to.  

The light was still burning. Kingsley glanced at it again to reassure himself that it hadn’t changed. Within the lantern wrought from melted-down heirloom silver, the tiny ball of light still glowed as brightly as it ever had, and he was grateful that he at least had that much.

He wasn’t trying to hide the lantern. He hadn’t exactly told his co-workers what it meant, but it didn’t matter if they knew. Now that the whole world knew Voldemort was back, his activities over the past year were no longer a secret. They all understood he was part of the Order, and Dumbledore had provided evidence of Sirius’s innocence, so plenty of people had put two and two together.

Rufus Scrimgeour included.

“You should’ve gone through the official channels,” he had scolded.

Right. Because that would’ve worked so well.

There wasn’t much he could do, though. Kingsley was one of his best Aurors, and he had been proven right in the end. Scrimgeour couldn’t afford to lose him. Not when they were now officially at war. So here he sat, in his familiar cubicle, working on a report while he glanced at the lantern Sirius had created every few seconds, clinging to the reminder of his continued survival.

When he finished work, he flooed home and stopped only to drop off his briefcase before apparating to number twelve, Grimmauld Place. Still clutching the lantern, he walked past the scowling, muttering portraits, careful not to tread loudly enough to awaken Walburga, and made his way into the dining room, where Hestia and Emmeline waited.

“Is he still alright?” he asked Hestia.

She beamed at him, a new cheerfulness and warmth in her eyes.

“He woke up today.”

“He did?”

“Yeah. We think he’s going to be alright.”

Kingsley could breathe properly for the first time in weeks. Sirius, awake. Sirius, recovering properly, no longer suspended between life and death.

“He was asking for you.”

The relief slipped away, replaced by a pang of regret.

“I should be there,” he murmured. “Is there any way you can get them to let me in?”

Hestia’s smile evaporated. She shook her head sadly.

“I’m sorry. You’re not family, and Sirius is … well, he’s still technically a prisoner. They’re not going to be lenient about letting anyone in to see him unauthorized. If you could get the Aurors to put you on guard duty …”

That wasn’t likely to happen. As far as Scrimgeour was concerned, Kingsley couldn’t be trusted to deal impartially with Sirius Black and should never be allowed near his case again. He was right, of course. If Kingsley found out they were planning to deny Sirius a trial again, he would absolutely be breaking into Saint Mungo’s to help him escape. Screw the consequences. Sirius was more important.

It was hard to be objective when it came to the people you loved.

“Let’s focus on the trial,” he said. “Emmeline. Are they going to let you cover it?”

Emmeline nodded, a smug smile on her face.

“I told Barnabas Cuffe I’d only come back if he promised,” she said. “He wanted me back, so he didn’t have much choice but to agree.”

“Good,” said Kingsley. “I think we’ve put together a pretty solid case. He’ll probably still have a criminal record for being an illegal animagus, but I feel certain we can get his sentence reduced to time served once it’s clear he’s not a killer. We might even be able to get him a pardon. If Remus and Dumbledore testify …”

It wasn’t a foolproof plan, but Fudge already looked bad enough that he wouldn’t be likely to make things worse for himself by insisting on meddling in Sirius’s trial. Not when Dumbledore was now vocally supporting his claims of innocence.

“I can’t let you in to see him,” said Hestia, “but I can pass along a message. Anything you want me to say?”

Kingsley nodded.

“Yeah. Tell him we’ve got a plan. Tell him I’ve been keeping in touch with Harry, making sure he’s okay and knows what’s going on. And tell him … tell him I love him.”

Hestia smiled sadly at him.

“I can do that.”

Dear Harry,

I hope your summer is going well. I spoke to Dumbledore a few days ago, and he said he’s planning to come get you from your aunt and uncle’s house soon, most likely within the next week.

Emmeline was ambushed by Death Eaters a few days ago, but she survived unscathed, thankfully. She and Hestia have both moved into headquarters, and we’ve been hard at work on Sirius’s legal defense. I’m not sure how long the trial will last, but it should be relatively straightforward. There’s not a single person in the Order who won’t testify on his behalf if needed.

Which brings me to my most important news: he’s awake. Apparently, the Healers believe he’s going to make a full recovery.

I’ll keep you updated on everything as it plays out. Please let me know how things are going with your aunt and uncle and whether there’s anything that you need.

Sincerely,
Kingsley Shacklebolt

Setting his quill down, Kingsley drew his wand and waved it over the parchment, murmuring a charm that left the ink instantly dry. He folded it up and slipped it into an envelope before calling to his owl, Athena, who fluttered over from her perch nearby.

“Another one for Harry,” he said as he fastened the envelope to her leg.

It still seemed strange to be corresponding regularly with the Boy Who Lived. But except in rare moments when it all felt a bit unreal, he no longer thought of Harry that way, as some sort of impossible legend. He was Sirius’s godson, and if nobody else was going to check in on him while Sirius couldn’t, Kingsley was damn well going to do it himself - for the sake of the orphaned teenager and the man in Saint Mungo’s as much as for any reasons to do with the war or the Order.

“Kingsley is keeping an eye on Harry,” Hestia said softly as she checked Sirius’s vital signs. “And he said to tell you he loves you.”

Sirius smiled.

“Thanks. Tell him I feel the same?”

“I can do that.”

It wasn’t much. He was still weak and bedbound, surrounded by walls, guarded around the clock by Aurors. He still didn’t know what the future was going to hold. But the thought that there were people out there who cared for him was enough to make it just a little bit easier.

Time crawled past. Between restlessness at being confined once again and dread of the upcoming trial, he wasn’t sure whether he wanted it to speed up or slow down. With each day that passed, as he slowly healed, he got closer to freedom - or to having his soul violently ripped from his body.

Still, time did pass, and before he knew it, he was well enough to sit up, to stand, and to walk. Before long, he was dressed in formal robes with his hands cuffed behind his back, and Aurors whose names he didn’t know were taking him by portkey directly to the lower levels of the Ministry of Magic. He spotted Kingsley and Harry watching from afar and gave them a weak smile as he stepped out onto the courtroom floor, walking towards the chained chair in the center of the room with his heart pounding in his throat.

This was what always should have happened.

This was good. Far better than the alternative.

But it was still terrifying.

He sat down, cautiously placing his arms on the armrests of the chair. It came as no surprise when the chains wrapped themselves around his arms, binding him in place, but he couldn’t deny the feeling of hollow dread. Not panic, not terror, just miserable familiarity.

Here we go again …

Except this time it was different. This time, Amelia Bones sat at the center of a sea of elderly witches and wizards in plum-colored robes, and half the Order had arrived to testify on his behalf. He glanced over towards Kingsely and Harry again, spotting, in the seats around them, Remus exchanging a meaningful glance with Hestia, Tonks giving him an encouraging smile, Sturgis Podmore with his jaw clenched and determination in his eyes, Molly and Arthur Weasley holding hands, and Dumbledore looking down at him with a warm twinkle in his eye.

Not far off, Emmeline waited with her quill poised, not there as a witness but as a reporter. Whatever happened, the version of events that made it into the Prophet would be the truth, not some sort of sensationalist garbage.

As the trial began, he was astonished to realize that he no longer felt afraid. It wasn’t over yet, but he wasn’t alone this time.

Every moment felt like teetering on the edge of a precipice. Kingsley did his best to stay calm, and he was fairly certain his outward appearance showed little if any of the nervousness he was feeling.

Still, it was obvious that things were going well. Dumbledore was back in favor again, and it didn’t seem like too much of a leap of logic from acknowledging he had been right about Lord Voldemort’s return to admitting he might be right about Sirius’s innocence. Those who had worked with Sirius via the Order of the Phoenix and fought alongside him at the Ministry were called upon to give testimony - including, of course, Kingsley himself.

“When were you informed of Mr. Black’s alleged innocence?” Amelia Bones asked him, looking down with a severe expression.

“Almost exactly a year ago, the first week of July,” said Kingsley. “Although, to tell you the truth, I had already begun to suspect.”

“Can you elaborate?”

“Certain details of the case didn’t line up,” he explained. “He was estranged from his family and vocally rejected their blood supremacist ideology, even at the cost of the inheritance and social connections he would otherwise have been afforded as the heir to a wealthy pure-blood family. An unlikely origin story for a Death Eater. And after his escape from Azkaban, there were no more murders attributed to him. Even when he broke into Hogwarts, he left without doing any harm beyond slashing a portrait.”

“And based on your observations over the past year, you believe he did not commit the crimes he was convicted of in 1981?”

Convicted would imply he was tried in the first place, but there was no point quibbling over the details. Kingsley nodded.

“I’ve witnessed his animagus transformation for myself,” he said. “And I haven’t seen any signs to indicate that he’s loyal to the Death Eaters. If he were, I’d imagine he’d be letting them use his house as headquarters instead of the Order.”

He watched the Wizengamot’s expressions carefully and noticed a few nods, a few frowns and glances exchanged. At least they were listening.

“As plenty of people have already testified, he fought with the Order during the battle this June. In fact, he came very close to being killed by his own cousin. If there was ever any doubt - which, in my mind, there was none at that point - his actions the night of June 18 made it very clear that he’s on our side.”

In the end, it wasn’t Kingsley whose testimony would make or break the case. He couldn’t do much more than provide another voice confirming what others had said. Remus could vouch for the fact that Pettigrew had been an animagus as well, Dumbledore could explain in more detail how the Fidelius charm worked, and even Tonks could say more about his attitude towards his notorious family. Kingsley didn’t dare to talk about anything so personal. He didn’t dare to explain the exact nature of their relationship, lest all his evidence be dismissed as biased and unreliable. Tonks, on the other hand, was the daughter of a disowned cousin. If she said he treated her like family and had nothing to do with the bigots and Dark Wizards who had kicked her mother out, that meant something.

Finally, when everything that needed to be said had been said, Amelia Bones spoke.

“All those in favor of returning Mr. Black to Azkaban?”

Hands rose. Kingsley’s heart pounded in his throat as he attempted to count them.

“All those in favor of acquittal?”

There were more this time, right? Perhaps not the overwhelming majority there should have been, but enough. Unless he had counted wrong. Unless …

“Cleared of all charges. Mr. Black, do be sure to register as an animagus on your way out.”

Kingsley breathed a sigh of relief. From across the courtroom, he met Sirius’s eyes, grinning at him as the chains fell from the arms of the chair, setting him free at last.

Freedom.

It was a strange feeling, after so many years as a prisoner and a fugitive. As Sirius walked out of the courtroom, he half expected someone to grab him by the arm and clamp handcuffs around his wrists. But no, they simply allowed him to walk out, side-by-side with the rest of the Order.

Free. Free at last. Free to walk through the Ministry atrium. Free to take the phone booth lift up to Muggle London. Free to shop in Diagon Alley and buy season tickets to the Quidditch League.

Free to fight with the Order instead of remaining in hiding while they risked their lives.

Free to be there for Harry the way he needed and deserved.

Free to leave number twelve, Grimmauld Place once and for all.

Maybe not right away, though. From the Ministry, they made their way back to headquarters, where they gathered in the drawing room, drinking butterbeer and celebrating their victory. Sirius raised his glass and gulped down the warm liquid.

Everyone wanted to talk to him. To shake his hand. To clap him on the back. But there were only three people he really wanted to talk to right now.

“Now that you’re free, can I come live with you?” asked Harry.

Sirius smiled at him.

“Yes,” he said. “I’ll talk to Dumbledore, but I’m not going to take no for an answer. If you want to live with me, you can.”

Harry smiled in relief and embraced Sirius, clinging to him so tightly that Sirius almost had trouble breathing.

“I’m going to be there for you,” he assured his godson. “I promise.”

“Where are you going now?” Kingsley asked him when they were finally alone.

“I’m not sure,” said Sirius. “Away from here.”

“You know, I’ve got a house in the countryside,” said Kingsley. “A bit big for one person. You’d be welcome to move in with me.”

Sirius hesitated, torn between the impulse to say “yes” right away and the other plans he had that might not be compatible with this one.

“Harry would be welcome, too,” said Kingsley. “And he’d probably be safer with both of us around.”

A grin spread across Sirius’s face.

“Yeah. That’s true.”

“I should warn you, though,” Kingsley added, “there’s no house-elf.”

Sirius raised his eyebrows, unable to conceal his surprise.

“Hermione Granger’s got the right idea, I think,” Kingsley explained. “The whole thing has always felt a bit distasteful to me. Is that going to be a problem?”

Sirius’s laugh echoed through the drawing room.

“I spent twelve years in Azkaban, one year living in the shrieking shack, and one in a cave above Hogsmeade, eating rats and villagers’ table scraps,” he said. “Do you honestly think no house-elf is going to be a deal breaker for me?”

“Is that a yes, then?” asked Kingsley.

“Yes. Definitely yes.”

Dumbledore tried to insist that Harry couldn’t be done at the Dursleys’, but Sirius flat-out refused to accept that.

“He’s going to come of age next summer,” he argued. “He’s old enough to choose for himself who he wants to live with, and he’s made his feelings very clear.”

“His mother’s blood protection …”

“Will break when he turns seventeen,” said Sirius.

“The time he spent there while you were in Saint Mungo’s should be enough to keep it going,” Dumbledore said, “but he’ll need to go back again next summer.”

“But that will make him a target the moment it breaks. If we break it now, when he’s already at headquarters …”

“But you do not intend for him to stay at Grimmauld Place.”

“No. But Kingsley’s house is well-protected. Are you saying you don’t trust us to keep him safe?”

A heavy pause.

“Very well. Against my better judgment, I’ll allow it.”

Sirius bristled at the implication that he could have denied permission, when Lily and James had been so clear about who they intended to raise their son should anything happen to them. But there was no point in arguing over it now.

“What shall we do about the house?” Dumbledore asked.

“Keep using it as headquarters,” said Sirius with a shrug. “And anyone in the Order who needs a place to stay is welcome here. But I’m only coming back for meetings. Not to stay.”

Kingsley remained at number twelve to help Sirius pack. A few days after the trial, Sirius took a deep breath, his gaze fixed on the staircase at the end of the entrance hall.

“I think it’s time to do the top floor,” he said.

“Are you sure?”

Sirius glanced at Kingsley and found only concern mixed with affection in his eyes, not doubt or condescension.

“Yeah. I’m ready now.” Turning to Harry, who was seated on the drawing room couch doing his summer homework, he smiled. “Want to see where I grew up?”

“Didn’t you grow up here?” asked Harry in confusion.

“Yeah, he means his childhood bedroom,” said Kingsley. “And - I think - maybe his brother’s, too?”

He shot Sirius a questioning look, and Sirius nodded.

“Sure, I’d love to,” said Harry, all-too-eagerly setting aside his History of Magic homework.

The three of them walked up the stairs side-by-side. When they reached the top floor, they hesitated between the two doors. Harry and Kingsley both glanced at Sirius, and he realized with surprise that they were waiting for him to make a decision.

Another moment passed, then Sirius took a step towards his brother’s room, touching the note affixed to the door.

“Do not enter without the express permission of …” he chuckled under his breath and shook his head. “I remember when he put that up. Like he really thought it would keep me from barging in whenever I wanted.”

He reached for the knob and found it locked. Drawing his wand, he pointed it and murmured under his breath.

“Sorry, Reg, but express permission or not, I’m coming in. Alohomora.”

The knob turned this time, and the door creaked open. Within was a room flooded in the green and silver of Slytherin, with the family crest and motto looming over them, painted carefully onto the wall above the bed. Despite the thick layer of dust and cobwebs, Sirius could practically see his younger brother studying at the desk or sprawled out on the bed.

He almost turned around and locked the door again, but the presence of the two people on either side of him made it easier to take a step forward instead. He vaguely heard Harry and Kingsley following him, but all his attention was drawn to the collage of Daily Prophet clippings pinned to the wall below the family crest. The Dark Mark blazed in the sky in one of the photos, and a further look confirmed that the articles were about Voldemort.

“Stupid little idiot,” he muttered under his breath.

Harry, meanwhile, was picking something up from the desk. A framed photo. He looked down at it, his eyes widening in surprise.

“He played Seeker.”

“Yeah,” said Sirius. “How did you know?”

Harry held out the photo, and Sirius saw the whole Slytherin Quidditch team from the seventies looking back at him, smiling and waving like half of them weren’t future murderers. Harry pointed at the boy in the middle of the front row.

“That’s him, right?” he asked. “He looks a bit like you. Not as handsome, though.”

Sirius chuckled and ruffled Harry’s hair.

“They do a picture of the Gryffindor team every year,” said Harry, “and there’s a specific way you’re supposed to sit, so that people can tell who plays what position. ”

Sirius reached for the photo, and Harry handed it to him without complaint. He looked closer at the photo and smiled sadly.

“This would’ve been his seventh year,” he said. “The Warrington girl wasn’t on the team when your father and I left school.”

“Was he …” Harry hesitated, like he wasn’t sure he ought to ask. “Was he already a Death Eater then?”

“Yes.”

It was hard to believe. He looked so young and innocent in the picture, so carefree, smiling and waving with his friends.

“I don’t know exactly when it happened, but I know he was sixteen at his initiation. One of the youngest ever. Bellatrix was very proud of that.”

Harry would be sixteen soon. It seemed impossibly young, much younger than when Sirius was that age himself.

Sirius shook his head and put the photo back down on the desk, unwilling to deal with that thought at the moment.

“Right,” he said. “Let’s get to work.”

When the dust and cobwebs were cleared away, they began going through the contents of the room. A wardrobe full of formal dress robes. A trunk filled with textbooks, old school uniforms, and Quidditch gear, never fully unpacked after seventh year. A desk stocked with spare parchment, and a quill with dried ink on its tip still lying on the desk beside an open inkwell, with a couple of drops of black ink dried on the desk nearby.

“That’s not like him,” Sirius muttered, picking it up and holding it carefully between his fingers. “He was very particular about keeping things neat and tidy.”

He wondered what sort of note his brother had been writing when he left, never to return. But, of course, they would probably never know.

They sorted everything into piles, with Sirius getting the absolute final say on what went where. A stack of old clothes to be given to charity. A couple of mildly Dark artifacts to be disposed of right away. They took the collage down from the wall and a placed it beside a small notebook filled with what appeared to be the minutes of old Death Eater meetings, to be passed along to the Order in case anything in there turned out to be useful. Sirius doubted it, as everything was now several decades out of date, it was better to be sure.

In a small box at the foot of the bed, Sirius packed up the chess set the two brothers used to play with, a tarnished prefect badge, an old copy of Tales of Beedle the Bard, and the photo of the Slytherin Quidditch team, along with a few other small mementos. Nobody challenged him on that. Nobody questioned why he might want to hold onto anything that reminded him of someone he supposedly hated.

“Your brother studied Ancient Runes?” Harry asked, standing beside the bookshelf and leafing through a leatherbound book.

“Yeah.”

“Do you mind if I take a few of these for Hermione?” he asked. “I’m sure she’d think they’re interesting.”

“Yeah - wait, no, I doubt she’d like that one,” said Sirius, frowning. “That’s a book on very Dark rune rituals. But sure, I think there’s some old runic poetry, and this one” - he lifted a heavy volume with a dark green cover from the shelf - “is all about using runes to create magical objects. We actually used the school’s copy when we were making the Marauders’ Map.”

Swapping Harry the green book for the Dark Arts one, he passed the latter to Kingsley.

“Here. Let’s get rid of this one. Or - actually, the Aurors could probably use it. I’m pretty sure there’s some stuff in here that’s not common knowledge.”

A few moments later, Harry was flipping through another book, with his brow furrowing more and more as he looked at it. Sirius couldn’t imagine why. There wasn’t much on these shelves more harmless than Quidditch Teams of Britain and Ireland. 

“My God, that’s horrifying,” Harry murmured.

Ah. Not a book about Quidditch, then, unless he was horrified by the Chudley Cannons’ losing streak.

“What is it?” asked Sirius in concern.

Harry held out the book silently, a look of disgust on his face. Sirius scanned the pages, and his eyes widened in horror.

“Shit.”

“You don’t think your brother made one, do you?” asked Harry.

“No.” Sirius’s voice was sharp and decisive. “Never. That’s … no, horcruxes are a whole other level of evil. The sort of thing the grown-ups in our family warned us about when they first gave us the ‘using the Dark Arts responsibly’ talk.”

Kingsley burst out laughing.

“Is that really something your family did?”

“Yeah. I was ten.”

“What is it, though?” asked Kingsley, glancing over Sirius’s shoulder at the book that was most definitely not about Quidditch. Sirius held it out for him to read.

“Oh.”

“Yeah.”

Kingsley frowned at the page for a moment, then met Sirius’s gaze.

“Are you thinking what I’m thinking?” he asked.

“What?” asked Sirius warily.

“That if your family didn’t support using this kind of magic and you’re sure your brother wouldn’t have done it, there’s got to be a reason he had the book,” said Kingsley. “And why he hid it behind a false cover.”

Sirius nodded, considering Kingsley’s words.

“What exactly are you getting at?”

“That we do know of someone who appeared to be dead - probably should’ve been dead - and yet returned last June.”

Sirius’s blood ran cold as he stared back at Kingsley, the full implication of his words sinking in.

“Voldemort?” Harry asked. “You think Voldemort made one of these horcrux things?”

“I’ve got no idea,” said Sirius, “but I think I know who would.”

Kreacher glowered at them. It was obvious he was incredibly displeased that Sirius had survived, let alone that he was finally going through the contents of his younger brother’s bedroom. Sirius wasn’t doing himself any favors, either, standing there with his arms crossed and demanding answers.

“Kreacher cannot say.”

“I’m ordering you, Kreacher.”

“Kreacher cannot say.”

The elf glared at Sirius in defiance. There was only one way, Kingsley thought, that he would even be able to do that.

“Did someone else in the family order you not to?” he asked.

Kreacher didn’t bother turning to look at Kingsley, but he nodded.

“Yes.”

“What were their exact words?”

“Tell no one in the family what happens tonight.”

Kingsley exchanged a glance with Sirius, who nodded.

“Alright, fine,” he said, slumping down on the floor against the leg of his brother’s desk. “Don’t tell me. Tell them” - he gestured at Kingsley and Harry - “and I’ll just be over here minding my own business.”

Kreacher hesitated a moment longer, and Sirius rolled his eyes.

“That’s an order, Kreacher. Start talking.”

So Kreacher did. It was a garbled, painful story that was clearly agony for the poor elf to relive, and by the time he got to the end, he was sobbing. Harry, apparently moved by such a pathetic sight, tried to comfort him, but he was having none of it.

“Kreacher is a bad elf,” he groaned. “Kreacher failed in his orders.”

“You couldn’t destroy the locket?” Kingsley asked. “Where is it now?”

Sirius let out a groan and shook his head.

“We threw it away, I think. When we cleaned out the drawing room.”

Kingsley smiled. Sirius looked at him like he had lost his mind.

“What?”

“I don’t think that’s what happened at all,” he said, glancing at Kreacher. “If he couldn’t let your cousins’ old photos be thrown out, I doubt he’d let you get rid of the locket he was under orders to destroy.”

Lowering himself to the ground beside the elf, he smiled gently.

“If you bring it to us, we’ll do what we can to destroy it. You have my word.”

Sirius didn’t quite understand why Kingsley was so insistent, but he begrudgingly allowed Kreacher to keep the rest of the family trinkets he had stowed away in his den and to choose something of Regulus’s to hold onto alongside the rest. It didn't occur to him until later that in a room full of clothes, the instruction of “choose anything you want” could be construed as an offer of freedom. But it was one that Kreacher didn't seem to even consider, instead walking away hugging a plush dragon that they had found on a shelf at the back of the closet. That, along with the promise to destroy the locket, seemed to put the house-elf in marginally better spirits, although he continued to watch Sirius with distrustful eyes and mutter unpleasant words under his breath.

They sent an owl to Dumbledore that night, and he soon arrived to examine the locket and hear the story behind it.

“Is it a horcrux?” Sirius asked.

“Yes,” said Dumbledore. “I believe it is. The third that I’ve encountered thus far.”

“The third?” asked Kingsley in alarm. “How many people are making these things?”

“As for that, I cannot say,” said Dumbledore, “but all three of the ones I have seen belonged to the same wizard.”

The thought was almost impossible to conceive of, but if anyone was capable of such atrocities, it was Voldemort.

“Fortunately, there is a way to destroy it,” Dumbledore said.

And so he took the locket, returning the next day with it broken and empty, no longer a vessel for a fragment of Lord Voldemort’s soul.

The next day, they returned to the top floor, turning this time toward the bedroom that bore Sirius’s name on the door. Sirius was almost more terrified to enter this one than the other, even though he knew what they would find there and knew perfectly well it would be nothing as horrifying as that locket.

Still, he hadn’t brought anyone here since his teenage years, and he couldn’t help feeling nervous as his lover and his godson followed him into the room. The posters of Muggle women in bikinis smiled blankly down at them, and Sirius cringed.

“Wow,” murmured Harry, glancing around and looking rather impressed.

“Interesting choice of decor,” said Kingsley.

Sirius turned to him and raised an eyebrow. The other man’s voice was gently teasing, but Sirius didn’t want to be teased. He wanted to be accepted - every bit of him, even his cringe-worthy teenage self.

“The motorcycles are nice,” Kingsley said, his amusement melting into affection. “And I like that you made it your own.”

He didn’t have to contrast this room with the one next door, all draped in green and silver with the family crest painted above the bed. He didn’t have to say that he was glad Sirius had broken away, or to acknowledge that the Gryffindor banners and photos of motorcycles - and, yes, even the bikini-clad Muggles - were an act of bravery. All that went without saying, and Sirius could hear it even if it remained unspoken.

In some ways, this room was easier to go through than Regulus’s had been. At least there were no surprises. But there were far more things here that Sirius was reluctant to part with, and - if he was never to return - reluctant to leave behind. He had departed in a hurry at the age of sixteen. Now, he could take his time rather than simply tossing some clothes into a trunk and hastily throwing a handful of floo powder into the fireplace.

Now, there were faded Gryffindor scarves and school textbooks from the seventies, childhood toys and old photographs. Not everything would come with him, but he filled up several boxes with things he had no intention of letting go of.

Harry, though, seemed very distracted by something else.

“I guess I don’t understand,” he admitted, frowning at the posters on the walls, then looking at Sirius with an earnest expression. “You and Kingsley are - you know - together, right?”

There wasn’t any judgment in his voice, just confusion. Sirius nodded.

“Yeah. We’re together.”

“So … the Muggle girls …”

Sirius looked away in embarrassment. Glancing up from a stack of old textbooks, Kingsley smiled at him.

“Bisexuality does exist, you know,” he said. “I had a wife, once, who I was very much in love with. But I’ve always found men attractive, too.”

Harry looked a bit startled. Sirius shrugged.

“Yeah, that’s true. But I’m not actually bi.”

“Oh.” Harry frowned at the posters again. “Then why …?”

“Because my parents’ worst fear was having half-blood grandkids,” said Sirius bluntly. “They wouldn’t have cared if I married a pure-blood woman and took a male lover on the side, but they were terrified I might - ah - taint the purity of the family line. I took great pleasure in reminding them that they couldn’t actually stop me from doing that if I wanted to.”

The look on Harry’s face was priceless.

“That’s horrible,” he murmured. “I mean - your family.”

“Yeah.” Sirius glanced again at the pictures on the walls. “Permanent sticking charm, so it’s not worth trying to take them down. Couldn’t do it if I wanted to. But I wonder …”

He fell silent, approaching the one magical photograph affixed to the wall. His teenage self grinned back at him, arm-in-arm with his closest friends.

“Is that …”

“Your father, Remus, and me,” Sirius said, turning to smile sadly at Harry. “And Pettigrew.”

He would always be there, a blemish on the happy memories of those childhood days. There was no changing that.

“I can’t get it down,” said Sirius, “but I should be able to duplicate it.”

It had been a long time since he used the spell, but he drew his wand and pointed it at the photograph.

“Geminio.”

Where there had been one photograph, there were now two, one still stuck to the wall and the other falling into the palm of Sirius’s outstretched hand. He repeated the spell again and offered one of the two copies to Harry.

“I know you don’t have many pictures of your parents,” he said.

Harry stared at him, looking totally astonished by such a small act of kindness, and hugged Sirius so tightly it hurt. Embracing him, Sirius met Kingsley’s eyes, and they exchanged a meaningful look.

It was a look that said: this kid deserves so much better.

The realization that he had found a partner who understood that was almost enough to make Sirius cry in relief.

The very next day, Sirius left Grimmauld Place for good, departing with Harry and Kingsley for the latter’s house in the country. As they made their way up the cobblestone path to the front door, Sirius’s heart felt lighter than it had in a very long time.

The only thing that could make this day any better would have been a trip to the beach. In Sirius’s fantasies about freedom, there were vast expanses of ocean and sand under a warm, tropical sun, the smell of salt in the air, and the sound of waves gently lapping at the shore mingled with the cries of sea birds.

He had to admit, though, that traveling abroad just for the sake of standing on a beach was not a good idea at the moment. There was still a war on, and Harry could neither be left alone nor taken along on a vacation now that Lily’s blood protection was no longer active. So the getaway to somewhere warm and remote would have to wait a little longer.

That was alright. The rolling green hills of the countryside seemed just as open and endless as the ocean. The sky above was dotted with fluffy white clouds, and the summer sun was bright and warm. Sirius felt his heart soar like a bird as he stood there beside Kingsley and Harry, knowing that this time, he didn’t have to stay hidden or return to Grimmauld Place.

The house was small and rather modest by the standards of elite pure-blood families, but three bedrooms would leave them with one to spare, seeing as Sirius and Kingsley had no intention of sleeping separately. Why should they need five sitting rooms when one would do just fine? And so what if Sirius’s mother would have sneered at the idea of a two story house? He had long since decided that her opinion didn’t matter.

There would be time later to unpack and settle in. Time to eat lunch around the kitchen table and help Harry with his summer homework. Time to find their way upstairs and collapse into bed together.

And there would be time, too, for the war that was still going on. Time to return to number twelve, Grimmauld Place for Order meetings. Time to find out whether the discovery of the locket horcrux would help to turn the tide of the war.

There would be time for everything now. That was still so hard to believe. After years without hope, desperately clinging to his sense of self as dark-cloaked monsters tried to drain it away, and even more time spent on the run, in survival mode, it was hard to think of the future as something that had any likelihood of happening.

Maybe it still wouldn’t. They were still at war, after all. But for the first time in far too long, things were looking up.

Protective spells shimmered in the air around the boundaries of Kingsley’s countryside home. Harry flew past on his Firebolt, finally able to practice his favorite sport during the summer holidays. The two men watched from below, resting side-by-side beneath the shade of a sturdy oak tree.

Already, Sirius was beginning to think of this place as home.

Chapter Text

Sitting in the kitchen with a cup of hot tea, Sirius would have liked to say he was perusing the morning paper, but in reality, he was too busy staring at the front-page headline. A moving photograph showed Kingsley behind a podium at an official Ministry function, making a speech. The words in all capital letters above gave no doubt as to what he was saying:

MINISTER OF MAGIC ANNOUNCES PLAN TO SHUT DOWN AZKABAN

He glanced at the byline and breathed a sigh of relief when he saw that the article was written by Emmeline. Good. She wouldn’t be too biased, or if she was, it would be in their favor.

He didn’t bother to do more than briefly skim the article itself. He already knew what it would say. He had been the first audience for the speech. He had heard it back when it was just a vague notion with no plan or timeline, something they had spoken of to each other but had no idea how to implement.

He took another sip of his tea and studied the photo again. Kingsley stood with his head held high, bold and confident, refusing to apologize for what he was proposing. It might be the death knell of his political career. It certainly wouldn’t make him universally popular. But he had long since proven he would rather do what he believed to be right than what would advance his own interests, something that made him a far better Minister of Magic than Fudge could ever have hoped to be.

Footsteps in the hallway told Sirius he was not alone, and he looked up in time to see Kingsley walk in, still dressed in his pajamas, with a smug smile on his face and a still-slightly-sleepy look in his eyes.

“You’re an early riser today,” he murmured.

“Well, I have to admit, I was eager to see the story in print,” said Sirius. “Here. Want to read it?”

Kingsley shook his head.

“It can wait until after breakfast.”

“Thank you,” said Sirius. “I don’t know if I’ve said that before, but thank you.”

Because although they hadn’t discussed it, they both knew perfectly well why Kingsley had made such a radical decision. The same reason he had gotten rid of the dementors during his first month in office. The same reason he had pushed for alternatives for low-level, non-violent crimes that would once have resulted in a few months or years at the infamous prison fortress. The same reason he had worked so hard to ensure that no one, no matter how obvious their guilt, was denied a fair trial.

It was hard to be “tough on crime” when your partner still had nightmares about Azkaban.

Kingsley, though, was shaking his head.

“My moral compass is not purely a result of who I fell in love with,” he said, looking more amused than offended.

“No. I do realize that,” said Sirius. “You’re an amazing person and always have been, even when you were putting James and me in detention for sneaking out at night.”

“That sounds like it comes with a ‘but,’” Kingsley observed.

“But shutting down Azkaban is radical,” said Sirius. “So was getting rid of the dementors. Only one other Minister in history has ever proposed such a thing, and he didn’t get a lot of support for it. So - I don’t think you’d be a Barty Crouch type even if we’d never met, but …”

He hesitated, frowning slightly.

“You’re welcome,” said Kingsley, reaching out across the breakfast table to squeeze his hand.

When he arrived at work, Sirius had barely made it through the front door before people began pestering him about the morning’s news. Which was fair enough, he figured, because Granger & Black was, after all, a law firm, and the newly-announced change would undoubtedly have an impact on their work.

Still, when a recently-hired paralegal fearfully demanded to know how the public would be kept safe from the likes of the Lestrange brothers now, Sirius couldn’t help but roll his eyes.

“They’ll still be in prison,” he said.

“But -”

“Shutting down Azkaban doesn’t mean they’re letting murderers go free. They’ll be moved somewhere else. Somewhere more humane, because even without the dementors, that place is still a Medieval hellscape. All of which you’d know if you’d read the article and not just the headline, so I can only say I hope you’re more thorough in your work than in how you read the news.”

The young woman’s face flushed pink, and she muttered an apology.

“Back to work, everyone,” said Sirius. “I know you all want to talk about my fiancé and his amazing ideas, but we’ve got a job to do.”

Grimmauld Place stood empty now, aside from the elf who still lurked in the shadows, devoted to the memory of the family that once lived there, and the few people who visited from time to time, doing their best to keep him company and ensure that he wasn’t forgotten. Sirius himself was not among them. As far as he was concerned, the kindest thing he could do for Kreacher was keep his distance. There was simply too much bad blood.

Instead, after a long day’s work at the law firm, he returned to the house in the countryside that he shared with Kingsley. There was a garden in the backyard and a vast blue sky overhead. At night, the stars burned bright and clear, far away from the lights of the city. Sirius was still reminded of his family when he looked up at the familiar constellations, but he no longer minded as much. The night sky was beautiful, and it was easier to appreciate it so far away from Grimmauld Place.

On the mantle above the fireplace, five framed photos stood, displayed proudly for all the world to see. Or, at least, anyone who got an invitation into their living room.

Sirius, best man at the Potters’ wedding, side-by-side with Lily and James, young and carefree and full of life.

Kingsley, sixteen years old, squeezed into the frame with about a dozen kids in Hogwarts robes, a prefect badge gleaming on his chest.

The two of them in fancy dress robes at a Ministry gala, on the second anniversary of the battle that ended the war, the photo capturing the moment when Rita Skeeter had asked one too many questions and they had responded by turning to each other, kissing on the mouth just as the camera flashed.

Harry in an Auror uniform, taken just after he finished his training and officially joined their ranks.

But Sirius’s favorite was the photo on the far end: palm trees bending over a sandy beach, the sun shining down overhead, and two men walking barefoot along the shoreline, hand-in-hand, the waves gently lapping at their ankles.

This was the future they had fought for. Sometimes it was still hard to believe they were actually living in it.

Sirius worked long hours from time to time, but Kingsley worked basically twenty-four seven, even when he was off. Minister of Magic wasn’t the sort of job you could clock out of. Still, they found time for each other. They always had.

That night, they shared a quiet dinner and a game of chess that ended in a drawn-out stalemate before making their way upstairs and falling asleep in each other’s arms.

The feeling of warmth and safety faded into muddled dreams of cold and fear, creatures in dark cloaks floating past on the other side of a barred door, a damaged tapestry on the wall and a screaming portrait in a dark hallway. He woke with his heart racing and his body drenched in sweat, sitting up in a panic before he remembered where he was.

“Nightmare?” asked Kingsley softly, propping himself up on an elbow and looking at Sirius with concern.

The panic faded.

He wasn’t in Azkaban.

He wasn’t at Grimmauld Place.

He was here. He was safe.

“Yeah,” he murmured, falling back down against the pillow.

“Do you want to talk about it?”

“No.” Sirius shook his head. “It was just … let’s just go back to sleep.”

There was no need to dredge up the bad memories again, not when they had already done it so many times before. Just reminding himself of where he was and who he was with was enough to make the panic in his chest and the tension in his body ease away.

He closed his eyes again and drifted back off to sleep. Maybe, this time, he would dream of watching Harry graduate from Auror training, walking with Kingsley on the beach, or kissing him right in front of Rita Skeeter and her cameraman. After all, those memories were just as much a part of him now as the bad ones.