Song of The Sea by Hopeless Wanderer

“Please go to sleep.” James Potter pleaded for what seemed to be the umpteenth time in the past three days. The baby on his lap only gave him a grumpy glare and then returned to feverishly chewing on his thumb. James sighed.

They were in their kitchen—in the safe house the order provided for the couple four months prior to all this madness— with James seated in one of the chairs he had set by the sink and Harry on his lap.

He was so tired that his eyes were seeing double, his knees, in spite of having no responsibility in maintaining his weight in a seated position, felt weak, like noodles. James could say, with absolute conviction that the only part of him still holding on with strength, were his hands, which were firmly clasped around the baby's back, too afraid that the kid would flail and hurt himself, or worse, James would accidentally drop him out of exhaustion.

Never in his wildest moments, had James thought that keeping a baby alive would be so hard. Not that Harry was making it easy in the slightest. It seemed as if he had chosen James as his sworn nemesis.

He hated James, he cried for hours just because James was the only company he had around, and once the baby figured that no one was going to sweep in and save him from James, did he stop crying, and not a moment sooner.

He cried. He made James cry. He made Sirius curse a lot, which caused James to angry cry, and throw the man out of the house until he agreed to abide by the ‘no swearing’ rule.

Harry had refused to sleep for more than two days, and only managed to get enough rest when he cried himself to the point that he couldn't even open his mouth anymore, and James, having zero experience as a parent and little patience to deal with an uncooperative one-year-old had no idea how to fix it.

“Why don't you just sleep?” he rubbed Harry’s back in frantic circles. He distinctly remembered, hearing from Poppy, that babies liked physical comfort. Harry didn’t seem to be much of a fan of cuddling, but the back rubbing was somewhat working. It was a relief, but James’ palm was positively rubbed raw after constant days of just running over the back of the child’s shirt. It hurt and James couldn’t stop wishing someone would do the same for him.

“Come on, you're a baby. Babies sleep. You have to sleep,” his words slurred as he voiced his protests. It was a whine really. He probably sounded more like a baby than Harry did. James whimpered, wincing as a low throbbing pain pulsed in his temples and his glasses sorely dug into his nose. He couldn’t remember he slept. He skipped sleep. Or maybe he didn’t.

Harry whimpered back a bit more quietly and threw him another glossy look. James stifled a groan, feeling like he could cry at any given moment. He was gloriously past bashing his head against the counter or pulling at his messy, wild hair. He was so exhausted that all his given energy was focused on keeping the baby upright on his lap. Just holding the baby. Not falling asleep.

That was the only position that calmed Harry. That and the back rubs. James didn't dare as much as to recline the kid or keep him to his chest without setting Harry off to throw another tantrum.

He wanted this, he couldn’t complain, because James asked for this. When Albus reached out to him, informed him that the kid was orphaned, he didn’t even have to ask James whether he would take him in. He agreed without a second thought.

James wasn’t regretting that decision, what he did regret was knowing so little about keeping a baby alive, and making this so much harder on himself, and Harry.

He couldn’t call for any help, the news of Harry’s whereabouts was kept vague, and Poppy was off on some mission or the other, Sirius was leading Aurors to merlin knew where, and James was on the verge of a breakdown.

Extending one trembling hand towards the sink, James checked on the bottle he had carelessly dropped into the bowl earlier. Baby food was out of the question after Harry managed to ruin his favourite shirt with apple porridge puke, and soiled the other one with chicken broth as soon as he changed out of the first one.

Banana mash, potatoes in any form and carrots were also met with strong opposition.

It basically left nothing left but milk.

Poppy had told him the best way to cool a hot bottle was by holding it under running water for a minute or two, James was so spent that he doubted he could hold his hand up long enough to do as she said. He settled for a water bowl instead.

He would have done it with his wand, but he honestly had no idea where he had put it last, a disconcerting fact, and frankly, the last thing on his sleep-addled mind. It could be anywhere; by the conjured changing table in the guest room, or in the laundry basket with the ruined shirts or even in their own room on the nightstand. James didn’t have the slightest idea.

His hand dunked in the cold water and he pulled the bottle out, realizing with dismay that he had left it there for too long. The formula milk was positively freezing now. He sighed, rubbing the bottle dry on his rumpled shirt before holding it out to the pouting baby.

Cold milk couldn’t be that bad for babies, could it? But then again, if it weren’t, then who would go to the trouble to warm them up?

If Snivellus could do it then so could he, James thought. He was a marauder, he would sooner die than lose to a one-year-old.

“Do you want something yummy?” he tried to sound soft, holding out the cold bottle towards the baby with an ashen face. “Maybe some milk? No?” Harry gnawed harder on his thumb, promptly ignoring the escalating way in which James was shaking the bottle to make it look remotely appealing.

James nodded to himself, breathing out slowly and flexing his hands on Harry's back. “Alright,” he told himself. “It’s okay, it’s okay.” he looked down at the baby. “How about we just go to sleep then?” the bottle fell and rolled on the ground as his pleas went ignored. James didn’t care.

He just wanted Harry to stop fucking starving himself. If only he could tell James what he really needed and James would go to the ends of this earth to get it for him. God knew that he would. The problem, was that Harry didn’t articulate a single fucking word.

He heard shuffling from the living room, and felt his shoulders drop a notch. Sirius was home. That was good. It wasn’t fantastic, it wasn’t Harry finally eating something, or sleeping a little. But it was something.

“He's not sleeping yet?” Sirius's voice washed over him like a cold balm and James twisted his face. ‘Good god,’ James mused in relief. ‘He’s back. Finally, he’s back.’

That intense fear that gripped them both when the other was out on a mission or a simple patrol was earth-shatteringly real. Some days James didn’t see Sirius for days to no end until the man finally showed up exhausted, injured or royally pissed off.

James wasn’t usually the man they used for fieldwork, his talent made it absurdly hard to focus during a battle with dozens of different curses of all origins being spewed on all sides all at once. His only use in the Order was his funds and his uncanny talent to tell one magical trace from the other.

But the fear remained; the terror of not seeing the other when they’re being sent off to the battlefield with nothing but a wand and a goodbye kiss, or forced to navigate the ruins and corpses after the fight to cross names off a long list of potential people to add to the death eaters’ ranks.

Sirius killed and put them behind bars, he was in action. He could get killed at any given time and leave James behind. James searched and examined the bodies of the other people who left their beloved behind in order to find the unknown Death eaters that still weren’t in their data base.

Funnily enough, James was the one who got more death threats at the end of the day.

Sirius repeated his question as he got closer to the duo.

“No,” he whined back with closed eyes, feeling Sirius’s soft lips land a gentle kiss on his sweat-coated forehead. He felt disgusting, not able to remember the last time he had the time to shower. He had not left Harry’s side since the moment Snape dropped him on his lap. So that was…three days? Four?

The other man winced loudly at James’s state and flopped down on the other chair, he faintly smelled of smoke, he leaned his forehead against James’ pulsing temple, and sighed, “Alright, I know this is going to sound horrible,” he whispered against his skin, “but, on a scale of one to ten, how bad would it be to give him a bit of dreamless sleep potion?” James's head snapped up in a flash and he glared.

“Ten. Way over ten, Sirius.” He gritted out. “We're not giving the kid anything. Especially not an addictive—” he trailed off and then shook his head to clear the muddling thoughts, “—Substance.”

His partner ran a hand in James’s hair and rubbed at his own stubble with the other. “You need to rest, and so does he. Look at the kid, James.”

Harry sniffled on his partner’s lap, his thumb quivering with his trembling chin. Sirius cringed upon seeing the scene; they might need to replace that thumb with a pacifier soon, he recoiled at the thought of chewed up baby skin. They already had so much to deal with without having to worry about the baby’s fingers too.

“What do you suggest I do?” James’s hand felt scrubbed raw from the amount of back rubbing he had been doing. “I cannot get him to sleep, I can barely make him eat. The kid's too stubborn. I feel terrible and guilty... He's going to hurt himself like this.”

As if on cue Harry let out a pathetic whimper, sitting as rigid as a wooden plank. Sirius crouched down to pick up the fallen bottle that had rolled away under the table, then momentarily flinched back as he realized just how cold the bottle felt in his hand. He risked another glance at his exhausted, and thoroughly frustrated partner and cleared his throat. James’s eyes glimmered with gratitude when Sirius reheated the formula with a quick flick of his wand and handed it to him.

“Okay, Harry.” The man said, tilting the bottle down toward the baby’s face. “We're going to make a deal, you could drink this yummy milk now, and I promise we'll do something fun tomorrow... We go to the zoo, or you can have ice cream... Merlin,” he dropped his hand out of exhaustion, “I don't know.”

Harry looked away, unimpressed.

“He's not going to sleep.” Padfoot quietly stated. With a heavy sigh, James set the bottle away, narrowing his eyes. Maybe he had missed something, maybe there was still some magical damage left. Maybe he was a terrible parent and he should just send Harry back to someone who could take care of him adequately.

He bore his eyes on the small child.

Seeing magical traces wasn’t something he had to force himself to do. It came as naturally as knowing that a banana was yellow and the sky blue, and right now, all he could see around Harry’s halo was nothing besides normal. A blank slate. A white shimmering halo that proved that young Harry hasn’t done a single ounce of magic by himself or accident.

Unlike Snape’s black murky halo that tinged brown at the edges, or Sirius’s that faded into a stormy grey. Halos, or rather, magical traces, rarely had a specific colour, unless the magic was dark or morbid in nature. The baby had a vivid bubble of dark surrendering his head that night in Albus’s office, and a bit of Poppy’s fizzy trace after the medical procedure was done.

But he was fine now.

“We didn't do anything to him.” He muttered, tilting his head. “I tried everything. There's no trace of magical damage to his body either, I can see that he's healthy but... Why isn't he doing anything?”

Sirius intently watched the pupil dilation in his eyes. He shrugged, gazing at the back of Harry’s head.

“Maybe he's in shock?”

“Sirius,” James patiently drew his hands away from Harry’s back and moved to the baby’s temples, swiftly covering the small, perfect shaped ears on the baby’s head. His voice was still hushed when he spoke. “It's been three days, this is a one-year-old whose mind was wiped. He couldn't possibly be in shock.”

He also would not recollect an ounce of the words James spoke, so covering his ears, was mostly done out of habit than necessity.

“I don't know James... I know next to nothing about babies, especially Snape’s.” his eyes fixated on the dark rings under his beloved’s eyes and the drooping baby. He frowned. “But I know that you need to sleep at some point, love. Put him in his crib, he's bound to sleep on his own sometime.”

James’s eyes were suddenly blown wide as he bared his teeth at Sirius. “We just swore not to neglect him, we made an oath on our magic.” James sputtered. “I can't just leave him by himself!”

Padfoot resisted the urge to roll his eyes. “We're not neglecting him, parents do that all the time.” At least, his nanny did. Sirius shook his head, and crouched over James again.

“It's normal, okay? James, you work every day, you're an active member of the order, if anything, your toll is twice more than everyone else’s, and you're falling off your feet,” his fingers brush against James’s wrists, “Come here love, let's go sleep.”

After a bit of silent persuasion, James finally yielded, but just as he reluctantly moved to stand, Harry’s dam broke and the baby started wailing in earnest, causing James’s face to crumple too.

“Great, now he's crying.” James felt like crying too. He felt like he should be curled on the floor and wait for it to open up. Parenting was so hard, and exhaustive, and so much work and effort and it hadn't even been three days. James craved death in a way he never had before. He just wanted some rest. Not for himself. For Harry.

It had only been three days and Harry just kept on wailing his displeasure with James every waking moment. If they didn't adjust him soon, then they might take Harry away. James did not want that to happen, because if it did…then he would never get a chance like this again. It made him feel like a horrible person, but it was true.

There were just so many things that were going wrong, and so little time for him to try to fix them.

Sirius warily reached out to steady his jelly-kneed partner. “Why don't you hand him over to me for a bit?” he asked hesitantly, mulling his lips at the pathetic wails that rose from the small child.

Yawning widely, James deftly kept the crying boy at arms-length as to not cause further agitation- and shook his head, “Sirius, didn't you see what happened last time?”

“Fair point.” They both winced. Harry kept on sniffing.

“Alright how about this, buddy; you're coming with me and...” Sirius awkwardly gestured at James but still cringed as he continued. “Your daddy, and we all sleep on our bed. Does that sound good?”

A faint smile formed on the other man’s relieved face. “Yeah, see?” he propped the baby in his arms. “That's a great idea, huh? Come on Harry... Do you want something to eat before we go?”

Sirius blinked. “Are you expecting him to answer?” James looked startled at the question. Sirius frantically waved his hands as he tried to explain. “I mean he's been quiet these past few days, so can he really like…talk?”

Time stopped. James’s face paled further, a few shades lighter than chalk, looking as if this earthshattering issue hadn’t occurred to him before. His eyes comically bulged behind his round glasses and his mouth dropped open, staring at the tiny, but a quiet baby in his arms like he was a grenade.

‘Oh damn,’ Sirius cursed himself under his breath as his spouse’s face morphed into one of utter mortification. Like it was their fault that the baby had gone mute somehow.

“But he could talk,” James blurted out more to himself than Sirius. “He’s fifteen months old. He talked in the office. Lily told me that he had a very impressive vocabulary for someone his age, and now he hasn't uttered a word in four days. We have to fix this. Let's try this, Harry...”

Sirius interrupted the ranting with concern. “Oh, merlin. We should seriously get you to a bed. Come on.”

“No Sirius, I'm fine.”

Sirius grabbed his elbow, “No, you're not. You’re rambling like a mad man. Give me the kid, or you'll drop him.”

The chair next to the sink clattered and fell to the ground as James hastily drew back from the extended hands. “It's...”

Sirius cut him off with a dark scowl. “It’s not fine, James. You’re on a verge of a mental breakdown, and in case you don’t remember how that one ends…it sucks. It does. So before we let that happen, let’s just take small baby steps, okay?” James nodded slowly and Sirius gently coaxed the fussy baby out of his arms and circled his own other arm around James. His body sagged into the embrace.

“Let’s just get him to sleep.”

James had never been so glad to hear Sirius mention sleep before in his entire life.

***

“Severus.” A rich melodic voice called him from behind.

The man didn’t turn to face the voice, he kept on staring out of the arched window into the storm that was barreling outside. There was barely anything to see, just raindrops madly pattering against the charmed glass as if holding on for dear life before being blasted sideways by the wind. The fight of the weak against god.

Still, Severus found the darkness and the howling of the wind rather more pleasant than the blood-soaked walls and the disgruntled heap of corpses in the other room.

He felt Lucius closing upon him from behind, two other Death Eaters took their positions by the door as guards. Severus assumed that they were there in case he wanted to assassinate Malfoy. Not likely, he drawled bitterly in his head, not after seeing the brutal slaughter that had just died down with the last scream. The fight of the weak against god. Well, not exactly god, but his replacement.

“Lucius…or shall I call you ‘my lord’ now?” he was too distraught to care about the sardonic tone of his voice, and frankly, he wasn’t fazed at all by all of the gore and Bellatrix’s remains strewn about in the hall downstairs. For all he cared, he would gladly be the one joining her.

“Come off it.” The other man waved him off, the smell of bourbon came off him in unpleasant waves as small ice cubes crinkled in the tiny shot glass in his raised hand.

“I suppose my congratulation is not warranted either,” Severus said, his narrowed eyes tightening as the sky lightened up. An earsplitting thunder tore itself from the clouds.

“You know, as well as I, that this arrangement is only temporary. Until our Lord can come back to us.”

What a bunch of bullshit. They both knew it. Power had a beguiling way of ensnaring people, and Lucius was deep down in the mud, entangled in it, really, if the power move tonight was anything to go by.

Severus couldn’t stop himself, he chortled. “Of course, I would never doubt your intentions.” Both were lying through their teeth, and they both knew it. He idly wondered if the guards standing by the library’s door were somehow charmed to be excluded from this conversation, because surely not a single soul, aside from himself, could keep a straight face through Lucius’s fibs.

Even behind masks, their faces remained stoic and their shoulders broadened. Not in the slightest bothered by the way Severus addressed their new ‘lord’. Conclusion; either they were brutes and not so bright in the head, or excluded from the conversation somehow. Lucius wanted this conversation to be private, but not obviously seem so…why?

Severus quickly occluded the confusion in his eyes and turned his head away.

Lucius was arrogant, but not careless, and if there was anyone who could see right through his ploy it was Severus.

Well, there was Bella too…what had remained of her anyways.

“You were late tonight, I expected you by my side the moment you received the news, Severus,” Lucius said as he placed a hand— the one with the bourbon— on Snape’s shoulder.

“You know why I was late.” He resisted the urge to flinch away from the cold bony grasp Lucius’s fingers had on his flesh and the icy cold bottom of the bourbon glass that was digging into his shoulder. The touch was so aggravating that for less than a second Severus even considered scrubbing his skin off with acid. Alas, even the strongest of poisons could not burn off the filth his kind carried.

“I do.” The blonde admitted. “What did Dumbledore have to say about this?”

This isn’t the Dark Lord, Severus reminded himself as he steeled his thoughts. Lucius, as pompous and arrogant as he was, didn’t have mind-reading abilities.

“The same thing that our inner people are spewing about.” He sneered as another lighting struck.

“Either the sources are the same or it’s the truth.” He concluded, clasping both hands behind his back and subtly brushing off Lucius’s stronghold on his shoulder.

“Beaten by a bastard child.” Lucius shook his head in disappointment. The glass of bourbon crinkled in his hand as he took a small swing. “How utterly…inconvenient.”

Severus swallowed the bile rising his throat. “What came of the brat?” Lucius asked. Severus was a trained double agent and still struggled to keep his face devoid of any response or emotion.

His son was far away, being cared for by Potter and Black. The two people he would get to call father one day. The one thing Severus salvaged and now had lost. He kept deleting these thoughts as soon as they formed. He deleted the ache and devastation and the unfairness. He had a job to do. He was keeping Harry safe.

“Classified information, I’m afraid.” He replied without a hitch. “Dumbledore doesn’t trust me that much.”

“You’re lying.” Lucius easily waved him off.

Severus rolled his eyes, “All I know is that he was taken in by one of the order members.” Enough truth, but not too many details. Lying was almost like second nature to Severus, even before he started working as a spy.

“Names?” the aristocrat man required coldly.

“One of the Blacks was on the list of candidates. Albus Dumbledore is surely too smart to even consider them. For his own sake more than the…kid.”

He unclasped his hands and finally turned his back to the window, threading his mind to the sound of rain as a way to keep his personal thoughts locked away. Rain was always his favourite anchor for Occlumency.

“Are you orchestrating an ambush?” his voice sounded nonchalant, blank, devoid of care. Exactly the way he wanted it to. In his head, however, he was raging, he was raving the palace in his mind at the thought of Lucius hurting a hair on his son’s head. The two sides of him fought nail and tooth over dominance, but of course, the cold, heartless bastard always won.

“They’re better off dead, especially for defaming our lord and slandering our ways.” Severus itched to grab the smug, slightly drunk man by his throat and throttle the life out of him, but he resisted the urge. One day, Lucius, he vowed to the man inwardly. One day.

Lucius flicked an eyebrow, “However, the ranks are a bit too turbulent for ordered attacks. I might decide to just set them loose…fight it out themselves until they’re a bit worn out.”

Severus hummed, his eyes fixated on the bourbon in Lucius’s hand. He should change the subject, the current one hit too close to home for his comfort. He needed at least five more hours to successfully file Harry away in a corner in his mind. It was still too raw, like a stab wound that was just sprinkled with salt.

“Killing Bellatrix was a mistake, Lucius,” he started, letting a touch of disapproving castigation sip through his voice. “She was one of his most fanatic followers in the inner circle. Insane but promising. The number of people who followed her in return was quite disconcerting…she would have been a great asset by our side.”

Lucius let his fingers go slack around the bourbon glass. It fell and sloshed on the carpeted floor with a subdued thud. The man shook off his fingers as he angrily stared into Severus’s eyes.

“She was deranged and she dared to question my loyalty. Our Lord wouldn’t have perished her either.”

Severus smirked viciously, he crossed his arms. “You were terrified of her. Scared that she would overthrow you first. I wasn’t born yesterday, Lucius. You just weren’t good enough to recruit her. Give her a bone to gnaw on,”

“Our Lord only kept her around to do his dirty work for him. Even he was disgusted by her sometimes, I couldn’t let her-” Severus, feeling too comfortable in his skin now, started to pace around the rigid man. He interrupted the rant as he came to a stop behind Lucius.

“Take your rightful place.” He finished. He lowered his head next to Lucius’s ear. “After all, it’s such an honour to follow the Dark Lord’s footsteps in his untimely absence.” He whispered in the man’s ear. “Only the most loyal are fit for the position.”

Lucius whirled around in a flash, wand in hand and his grey eyes narrowed into snake slits.

“Are you questioning me?” he hissed, threateningly raising his wand.

Severus stepped back, rolling his shoulders. Mentally praising himself for getting one on Lucius Malfoy. “I’m not,” he said frankly. “Are you ? Something tells me that you aren’t too keen to let go of this,” he gestured around the room. “Whenever our lord comes back asking for it.”

The other man snorted, the wand slackening in his hand. “I’d be foolish to refuse.” His eyes stayed narrowed on Severus. “You should be more careful, Severus. I’m starting to wonder about your loyalties.”

“I’m here by your side, aren’t I?”

This time, it was Lucius who loomed over Severus with a triumphant smirk. “It’d better remain this way, my friend, otherwise, if our lord-"

Severus loudly cut him off and took a wide step back, his back almost colliding with the cold, rain plastered window. “ When our lord is resurrected. I will be the first one in line.”

In line to finish him once and for all.

“I must prepare for the speech now.” Lucius abruptly declared and pocketed his wand, turning and striding to his guards. “I’m glad we chatted, Severus.” He threw a smirk at the potion master over his shoulder. “You wouldn’t mind taking care of the bodies in the hall on your way, would you? The house-elves are regrettably squeamish about it.”

**

Only two hours after Sirius had forcibly dragged James to bed, he was rudely awakened by a wet, slobbery hand repeatedly smacking his cheek. He groaned, batting at the chubby hand.

A tiny whine answered him and another smack landed on his chin. Black sighed, grudgingly peeling an eye open to catch the kid giving him the stink eye with his drool covered hand ready to strike again.

Sirius warily fumbled his hand to shake James awake but stopped dead in his tracks as he heard the deep snores filling the room and saw his partner’s mouth hanging loose in the dark, a shiny line of drool dripping down his chin.

James was, by all definition, dead to the world. Sirius was not about to intrude on that. Not that he could blame him, his partner had been left alone with a tiny, uncooperative human being for more than three days, and as sleep-addled as Sirius’s own brain was, the task of duelling Death Eaters had apparently taken less toll than parenting Snape’s kid.

“Okay, what do you want?” he asked the kid quietly, rubbing the sleep from his eyes. Harold narrowed his eyes, and just as quietly smacked his cheek again, almost as if he also didn’t want to wake James.

Sirius clicked his tongue and reached out to restrain Harry’s raised hand. “Stop that, kid.” He grimaced at the drool but then almost choked as the smell hit him. He almost turned over in their bed.

“Oh, Merlin.” He wrinkled his nose in disgust, coughing and choking quietly as he suddenly understood the dire need of the freshening charms James had hastily reapplied to the changing table earlier; how could something so small be the source of that smell. Merlin.

He winced as he pushed himself up into a sitting position. He threw a desperate glance over at his James and selfishly wished that the man would wake up on his own in a few moments if the smell got bad enough.

Harry scowled at him and pouted, his eyes glazing over with tears as the smell got worse and James remained peacefully asleep.

“Alright. Fine.” He scooped up the demanding baby with a held breath and hastily jumped off their bed, stilling immediately as the bed loudly screeched under their weight. Sirius’s widened eyes met Harry’s and then they both glanced at James’s snoring figure.

Still asleep then, the curly-haired man thought in relief and stood on the tip of his toes. Harry remained blissfully silent as they made their way out of the darkened room and didn’t spare James a second glance. It was uncanny, the way the child seemed to settle down in James’s absence. As if the kid himself was relieved by the fact that he was finally away from the crazy man he had spent three days with.

“Come on, he couldn’t have been that bad kid.” He mumbled to the grumpy baby as he padded to their guest room, where James had set up the changing table before. He kept his chin up and breathed mostly through his mouth to avoid the smell. He had never spent much time around kids, but he had no idea they smelled so profoundly awful.

Unlike the first time he had attempted holding Harold, the kid was either too spent or desperate enough that he didn’t put up a fight even as Sirius set him down on the changing table.

“No wonder it smells awful, it’s like a dung bomb exploded in there,” Sirius tells the quiet wriggling child as he clumsily taped the clean diaper. Harry was too busy giving him the cold shoulder and munching on his drool covered fist to reply.

He scooped Harry up and headed downstairs to their kitchen instead of the bedroom; he had barely eaten a thing in the past three days on a mission, and he felt too guilty to ask James for anything when he arrived. He decided that a simple midnight sandwich would have to do if he wanted to stave off starvation.

As he set Harry on the table and moved about their kitchen he noticed the kid quietly babbling to his fist and paused, listening to the kid. He didn’t know why, but the fact that Snape’s spawn hadn’t uttered a single word must have had more to it than the kid’s natural giving-the-cold-shoulder attitude.

Maybe James’s concerns weren’t that far off the point. Sirius hummed to himself.

He took the bread out of the pantry and set the knife on the furthest counter away from the babbling child as he wrestled a bit with the pickle jar; they had some leftover ham, some roast beef, and a bit of ketchup. Not his favourite choice for a meal, as he abhorred ketchup with pickles in general, but he was hungry enough to include both and suck it up.

“You see, kid?” Sirius turned to Harry, ketchup in hand. “You’ve worn him out so much that I might get poisoned now. You’re to blame if I died tonight, so keep up the good act.”

Harry pretended—or at least, Sirius thought—that he didn’t notice nor heard the grumpy man as he moved around him to fetch a plate.

He put all of the ingredients in front of Harry and collapsed in a nearby chair, cringing as the plate clattered on the table. Harry paused momentarily to give him an unimpressed glare and went back to zoning out.

“Well sorry for being a human being, kid.” He bitterly mumbled under his breath, reaching for the bread. “Not all of us can go on hunger strikes and act badass about it.”

The kid grunted but didn’t turn to face the man. Sirius rolled his eyes and fetched a tablespoon to sort out the ketchup. He eyed his options with a careful eye.

He hummed. “Ham and roast beef could be two separate sandwiches…but meh.” He shrugged. “Let’s get creative tonight.” He was never a cook, to begin with, and he never had much to do with sandwiches while growing up, seeing as pureblood etiquette whirred its ugly nose away at anything less than a graceful meal that required at least three forks and a carving knife.

If Sirius was being brutally honest with himself, without James’s all thumbs cooking, he would have probably starved to death in a dark alley somewhere. Not many people could be trusted to handle food these days. For one reason or another, for either spiking food intentionally, or otherwise.

“Never, ever, eat what I give you, kiddo,” Sirius said as he mashed his collapsing sandwich together, and grimaced at the unappetizing sight. “We don’t want our saviour dying of food poisoning.” Harry’s head snapped to his face as he said this and Sirius raised both eyebrows at the sudden rapt attention he was receiving.

“Okay…” he said slowly and brought the harrowing-looking sandwich close to take a bite. Harry complained loudly as he opened his mouth.

Sirius lowered the sandwich with a sigh. “What?”

Harry whined loudly, his eyes solely on Sirius’s hands, or rather, the bulging sandwich in them. Padfoot’s eyebrows shot higher.

“Is…anything wrong with it?”

Harry ignored him altogether but smacked his lips as his eyes remained on Sirius’s hands. Realization dawned on the exhausted man; he might not have spent much time with kids, but he knew a hungry baby when he saw one. The look he could bet James hadn’t seen on Harry ever since he offered him food.

“You’re hungry, aren’t you, little fella?” Sirius asked, warily extending one hand in his pocket to grab his wand. Harry brought his fist back in his mouth as a response and not even once took his eyes off the sandwich.

Flicking his wrist and muttering a quick ‘Accio’, Sirius retrieved the cold milk bottle James had left near the sink. He warmed it up and scooted closer to the drooling child.

“Hey there, champ,” he held the bottle close to Harry’s face. “Do you want that milk now?”

But Harry’s eyes didn’t budge away from the sandwich even when Sirius handed the bottle to him.

“Don’t tell me you want that .” Sirius grimaced as he gestured at the dismantled mess that was once a sandwich. Harry’s eyes glossed over and his bottom lip quivered as he tore his gaze away and met Sirius’s eyes.

The man’s heart melted on the spot as his eyes widened. Frantically setting the bottle away, he risked a glance at the ceiling to ensure that James was still asleep and then stared back at the baby.

“Alright, so you want it. That’s cool, kid, please don’t cry!” in a desperate attempt to quieten the increasing sobs Sirius reached out and tickled Harry’s tummy.

Harry went rigid and stared at Sirius with an open mouth. His face morphing into shock as the tears were kept at bay.

Sirius cautiously tickled the baby’s tummy again and cocked his head with a grin as Harry gave out a small giggle that seemed more because of the unexpectedness than genuine mirth.

“So you like that, don’t you?” Harry grabbed his fingers with his drool covered hand, but Black couldn’t find it in himself to be mad and did the next best thing he could come up with. He pressed his lips together and blew a raspberry. Again, Harry drew back in shock, before smacking his lips together, trying to imitate Sirius.

Glad that the kid was distracted, he picked up Harry and put the small baby on his lap before tearing off a small piece of his sandwich, keeping his other hand firmly around the boy’s stomach. The child whimpered but opened his mouth obediently.

“Can you even chew that?” he asked worriedly as he tore another piece, he dipped it in the ketchup jar and held it up to the baby.

Harry sniffled as he ate, but as far as Sirius could tell, he didn’t seem to have any problems with chomping the food. Now, he only had to hope that he hadn’t poisoned the kid for real, or James would kill him. He blew another raspberry at the thought, causing Harold to look up at him with wonder shining in his eyes.

The first real expression Sirius had seen on the boy ever since they brought him home. As little as it was, it still progressed, he supposed.
“I had one rule, kid,” he muttered to Harry as he held up a small chunk of ham. Harry turned his head away and Sirius instinctively raised his wand to empty the bottle, filling it up with some water.

Harry drank and ate as if it was his first time, and the older man had to slow him down several times so the child wouldn’t get sick. His own stomach coiled and groaned out in hunger, but Sirius ignored it in favour to feed Harry as much as he could.

“That’s a good boy.” He praised Harry as he gave him some more water. “There we go, drink it all then. Good boy.” He mopped up Harry’s chin with a handkerchief.

“What are you doing?” a shocked voice exclaimed from the doorway, causing both heads to snap up.

Sirius gave his partner a sheepish grin. “Midnight snack?” James rubbed his eyes and fixed his skew glasses as he stumbled into the kitchen.

James stalked into the kitchen, looking as if he was walking in on a hallucination. “Is he…Sirius is he actually eating?” he rammed his glasses firmly to his eyes as he slumped down in front of them. Harry barely paused his pace and graced James’s presence with a whine.

“It seems like it, yeah. He drank quite a bit too.” Sirius nodded at the empty water bottle with his chin. James looked back and forth between the bottle and the baby. If Sirius wasn’t busy looking just as bewildered, he would’ve laughed his ass off at James’s comical expression.

Harry reached his hand for the pickle in Sirius’s hand with a small sound. James snapped out of his trance and raised both eyebrows at the pickle.

“Are you giving him ham and pickles?” he asked indignantly, but there was no real heat behind his voice. “You do know that this is a one-year-old…his digestive system-”

Before he could work himself into a complete panic attack Sirius hushed him down with a wave of his hand.

“He’s fine James, calm down, baby.”

Harry stopped like a deer caught in a headlight, with his ketchup smeared lips open and his hand halfway showing pickle in his mouth. Sirius rolled his eyes at the kid. “Not you Harry, I meant baby as in…oh this is going to get confusing.”

“We’re giving him junk food.” James sounded so overly devastated. Sirius couldn’t see what the big deal was, as long the kid was fed, then it was all good.

“He’s eating, James. That’s all that matters.” Sirius firmly corrected him.

James lowered his head in his hands. “Other parents give their kids veggies and chicken broth and milk…here we are, after three days, feeding a one-year-old ham and pickles coated in expired ketchup,” Sirius winced as James sank down in the chair next to them.

The ketchup was expired? Well, fuck.

“I shudder to think what Lily has to say right now.”

Sirius scratched his chin as he looked down at Harry, looking fed and truly content since that night in the office.

“We’re terrific parents, James. See? The kid is already self-sufficient.”

James blankly stared as Harry cleaned off his mouth with Sirius’s nightshirt and then emptied the remaining water in his bottle on the man’s lap.

“Yeah.” James nodded faintly. “Self-sufficient.”