Chapter 37: A Meeting, and the Second Round
"Sir, please don't..."
Harry took a couple of steps back as Sirius moved towards him.
"Harry, it's me. Sirius. Uncle Siri. I used to put you on a toy broomstick when you were little..."
There was hurt and bewilderment in Sirius's voice.
"Sirius, I don't think Harry remembers you. You were old enough to remember; Harry was far too young. So my advice would be: don't rush. Take him somewhere to eat and talk."
"I'll go with them..."
Bella shook her head.
"...knowing Sirius, he'll pull something."
"Cousin, there's no need for that..."
Sirius pressed a hand to his heart, dramatically wounded.
"Oh, be quiet, Siri. You were an idiot then and you're an idiot now. You always have been, always acting on impulse. You simply cannot be trusted."
"Hey, I've changed!"
"If you had changed, then..."
Bella shook her head.
"...never mind. I'll just make sure you don't do anything stupid."
"Harry..."
I looked over at my friend, who was watching this godfather he knew nothing about with a lost expression.
"...give him a chance. He is a fool, and he was involved in plenty of unpleasant business at school, but he is not a bad person at heart. Not from what I know of him, at least."
"But he abandoned me..."
Harry was no longer the same cowed boy he had been. He had not shaken off every mark that his upbringing had left on him, but he was well on his way. Now he looked at me steadily.
"No, Harry. He did not abandon you. He had no choice. Yes, things could have gone differently if he had been less impulsive. But he is what he is, and he is the only person who's truly close to you."
"I... all right..."
Harry gave a nod and took a tentative step forward.
"Sir, I... I'll give you a chance."
"Harry, I... thank you. Call me Siri."
"I..."
"Or Sirius, if you prefer."
Sirius caught himself. He was pressing the boy, and he knew it. He stepped back and left space for Harry to cross on his own terms.
"All right, Sirius. Let's talk..."
Harry and his godfather left with Bella, and Fleur touched my shoulder lightly.
"Wasn't that... Sirius Black?"
"Yes."
"But he's a... a criminal. Why were you all speaking to him so calmly? And why haven't the local Aurors arrested him?"
"Because he was cleared, though the circumstances meant he was simply expelled from the country rather than properly exonerated. So he cannot set foot in Britain, but coming here to finally meet his godson..."
I shrugged.
"I see... Shall we celebrate?"
She looked at me.
"Of course. We'll head to a restaurant and celebrate both our wins. We just need to wait for your family; they fell a little behind."
"Well... what about just the two of us?"
I gave Fleur a thoughtful look.
"I wouldn't necessarily object, but let's save that for when the tournament is over. After we've all celebrated together as families first."
"Hmm..."
She gave me a long look.
"...just the two of us?"
"Well... we could, but I would want to invite Penny and Daphne as well."
"Pff!"
"Oh, come on. If everything goes to plan, we'll have a cat-girl at the party."
"Hey!"
"What do you mean?"
Fleur looked at me with interest, then turned to study Penny from head to foot, then looked back at me.
"Her? I thought she just meows..."
"She does, and there's a fair chance that after I win I can talk her into serving us dressed as a maid with cat ears, ending every sentence with a meow. She might even wear the tail."
"Don't hold your breath..."
Penny raised her chin.
"Hmm... all right, then."
Despite agreeing, Fleur did not look especially pleased.
"Fleur..."
I decided to be straightforward.
"...you are a lovely girl, clever, and as today's bout showed, more than capable of looking after yourself. Any wizard who married you would sleep easy on that score. But for all of that, we do not yet know each other well enough for a private dinner to be appropriate."
"Which is why you are inviting your mistress and your servant girl rather than your sister?"
"Well..."
I shrugged lightly.
"...Penny is not my mistress. She is a friend, a good acquaintance, possibly a business partner one day, or someone who works for me. But a mistress..."
I shook my head, making no effort to hide how little I liked that word applied to her.
"...I respect her far too much for that. A junior wife, yes, if my wife comes from another House, I would accept it, or a senior wife if the other girl were Muggle-born or half-blood."
"Are you saying I would not be your only wife?"
She seemed to have decided to skip over the question of whether she would become his wife at all.
"Well..."
I studied Fleur carefully.
"...if you are prepared to bear children year after year. I need to restore the House of Black, and I would like to leave behind several cadet branches, perhaps spread across different countries..."
"That is..."
Fleur took a step back. I shook my head.
"All right. Nobody is eavesdropping on us, but this is not the place for this conversation. Penny is already turning pink at the implications, and Daphne has gone off into her own head entirely, and she is quite the..."
I caught myself. I'd been about to call her a pervert, because I knew perfectly well what novels she read and what manga she bought under the impression that nobody in the house was any wiser, but I had no desire to give that away. I had already given her enough hints that certain details had not gone unnoticed.
Though honestly, I still had no idea where she had found manga at this point in time. It could not yet be widely distributed outside Japan.
"...hmm. Fair enough. This is genuinely not the right place or time for this conversation..."
Fleur gave a nod, and we moved on.
The following morning.
"So, how did it go?"
"Fine..."
Sirius shot me a mildly irritable look. I had no idea what I had done to earn it, but it was plain he had taken a dislike to me from the start.
"Well... good?"
Harry sounded less certain than Sirius.
"Mr. Black told me all about my parents, and I honestly never imagined they were such extraordinary people!"
I gave Sirius a flat look.
"Extraordinary? Sirius, are you sure you told him everything?"
"Of course!"
"Well, regarding Lily Evans, Potter by marriage, I have no doubts. Everything I know about her points to extraordinary talent, extraordinary intelligence, and by all accounts, she was very beautiful."
"By all accounts?!"
Sirius looked at me with undisguised displeasure.
"She's not my type..."
I shrugged.
"...I have seen portraits of her, and while she was certainly attractive, she is not someone I would have pursued. To James Potter, she may well have been the most beautiful and desirable girl in the world. But that is beside the point. Did you tell Harry everything? Including the parts about the two of you regularly losing all sense of proportion?"
"We never lost any sense of proportion."
His voice was flat with disagreement.
"Seriously?"
I looked at Sirius steadily, making no effort to conceal what I thought of that.
"Shall I list the specific occasions when you crossed a line? Or would you prefer to tell Harry the truth yourself?"
"And why didn't you tell him yourself, if you know so much?"
"Because I am his friend, not his keeper. He never asked, and I never offered it. If he had asked, I would have shown him the portrait album and told him everything I know..."
Harry was staring at me.
"...Then again, what else would you expect from a child? He celebrates Halloween, after all."
"What's wrong with that?!"
Harry and Sirius both looked at me, baffled.
"Really? Fine. The boy's mind is only now beginning to work properly, but you..."
I looked at Sirius, and then a cold realization of exactly what I was about to say stopped me mid-thought.
"James and Lily..."
"Precisely."
I gave a quiet nod.
"It is the anniversary of his parents' deaths."
Harry's eyes went wide.
"Honestly, I didn't want to be the one to say it. I wanted him to realize it on his own. But since even his closest living relative, his godfather, would rather not disturb his peace of mind, it falls to me to open his eyes."
"I..."
Harry stared at me in shock, unable to find words. Sirius stared back with even more disapproval than before.
"It's not the place of Lucius Malfoy's son to lecture Harry about where to draw the line! Shall I tell you what your own father did at school?!"
"I already know..."
I held Sirius's gaze steadily.
"...all of it. Before school, at school, after school. Everything Mother Cissy and Mother Bella knew, I know. And they knew a great deal. So you have nothing to show me that would be new."
Fortunately, we were in a private family setting with an hour to spare before the tournament, rather than somewhere less suited to this conversation.
"And you know what he did when he was in power?"
A nasty smile touched Sirius's lips.
"I do..."
I nodded calmly.
"...and I am not proud of it. On the other hand, I know what the Order of the Phoenix did, too..."
I held Sirius's gaze until he looked away.
"...yes, the Dark Lord's side was more brutal, more open about it. But you weren't exactly holding back, either. Both sides had blood on their hands, and your sins were forgotten only because you were the victors. Had things gone the other way, the Dark Lord would have been Supreme Mugwump and Minister, those who supported him would be considered the forces of good, and you would be..."
I shrugged.
"That does not make what he did any less..."
"This isn't what we were talking about. If you want to discuss the actions of the Dark Lord and Dumbledore, we can find another time and place for it. The only reason I asked you here was to make sure you didn't leave Harry with a false impression of his parents."
"And what am I supposed to tell him?!"
Sirius nearly shouted it, glaring at me.
"The truth. What drove you, and whether you think those actions were right. Whether you regret any of it. Sirius, the past is the past, and Harry's parents will always be his parents. He doesn't truly know them beyond the bare fact that they are his parents, strange as that is to say. But he needs to know what kind of people they actually were."
"They were good people..."
"I'm not arguing with that. It's just that everyone has their skeletons, and it would be better if at least some came from you. Because if they come from someone else..."
I shook my head.
"...framed a different way..."
"I understand... Yes, I'll tell him. I'll tell him everything..."
Sirius dropped his gaze to the table. He understood that a good many of the things they had done might not sit well with Harry, but he also understood that I was right. And that was precisely why he found it so difficult to like me.
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