Title: Two-Thirds Wanting

Author: Zimquist

Summary: Sirius is Harry's father, in everything but the technicality of shared genes. One-shot, OotP spoilers, implied SB/JP/LEP.

Rating: PG-15, and a whole lot of angst

Disclaimer: Not mine, but J.K. Rowling's. I'm just borrowing the characters, setting, and world.

"He's not your son," said Sirius quietly.

"He's as good as," said Mrs. Weasley fiercely. "Who else has he got?"

"He's got me!" Sirius

--Chapter Five: The Order of the Phoenix, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix by JK Rowling

What Molly doesn't know, what Remus doesn't even know, is how much I was there for Harry, how much I want to be there for him. I was there in the early part of his life, when he was in nappies, when Lily was in labor—in all likelihood, I was there when he was conceived.

When Lily told James and I that she was pregnant, and she wasn't sure whose the baby was, which she was most definitely keeping, and yes she knew there was a war on, but she'd be damned if she'd let that dictate how she'd run her life, I'd prayed that the baby wouldn't be mine. I wanted Mother's precious Black family line to end with me, however fitting the idea of the Black heir tainted with 'impure' blood. Thankfully for Harry, he turned out to be a Potter. He wouldn't have enjoyed being a Black; the good hair is not worth the other inbred qualities.

When I told Lily that, she'd cocked her head, and got that look in her eye, opaque and hiding a world of thought, and said in a deceptively casual voice, "It's just as well. I think you'd love the child more if it was James', than if it had been your own."

James had laughed. "Of course. Who wouldn't want another me running about?"

Sometimes it is like James is still running around: the likeness is uncanny, and in the gloom of Grimmauld Place, James is there, and we're fifteen again, planning our next big prank. Even when there's enough light to see by, it's easy to mistake Harry for James; they have the same way of speaking, that same mocking tone that turns the mildest words into vitriol, when in a foul temper.

But oh, when he loses his temper, he's all Lily, broadcasting his displeasure for all the world to hear, uncaring of time or circumstance. I find it ironic that the Order members compare his temper to mine.

"I'm almost glad to be going on duty. That way I don't have to watch Black and Potter scowling the place down around our ears."

"Whose dulcet tones are we hearing from two floors down now?"

"That Sirius—he's a bad influence on poor Harry. Oh, Arthur, you know it's true. I never heard him say a cross word when he spent summers with us at the Burrow. He was never this surly and moody until he stepped foot into this place."

I half agree with Molly, as much as I hate to admit it, even to myself. Harry should, under no circumstances, have stepped foot in Grimmauld Place, nor had the misfortune of knowing my Mother. The first grandparent he met should have been warm, giving, and sane with homes full of sunshine, crammed full of friendly portraits and harmless furniture. Or perhaps, having only met them once, the Evans would have been better—polite folk, home full of strange Muggle devices, bursting with curiousity over our world.

But what does a teenage boy need of grandparents? Better to have a house in the country, with a backyard big enough to double as a quidditch pitch, and a proper house elf that's respectful and unobtrusive. We'd stay up all hours of the night exploring, planning ways for Harry to prank Snape without losing house points, talking about everything and nothing, playing midnight games of Flash on broomsticks. The house would always be warm, bursting with people, and untainted by darkness.

When I catch Harry in the wee hours, brooding by a filthy window, sneaking down to the kitchen for a snack, attempting to brew a Dreamless Sleep Potion, I want to tell him—"This is only temporary," but I will never lie to him. Or, "Nightmares are only figments of your mind. They're less substantial than air," but Azkaban has taught me how your mind can be the deadliest weapon against you. Or, "Everything's all right. I'm here," but I'm impotent, stuck in this useless house. Or, "Just wait till I get my freedom. I'll rescue you from your foul family just like James rescued me from mine, we'll have a house in the country, and you can finally live with me..." but I don't wish to be cruel to either of us.

So I tell him, "Things will be better in the morning, if you can have a night of uninterrupted sleep."

He nods and says nothing, because both of us know how unattainable that can be, that the peaceful sleep that accompanies a peaceful life is a luxury that neither of us know.

"How bout you? What are you doing up?" he says instead, too quick by half, and I wish for James, or for Lily.

I wasn't supposed to be the one who primarily raised a child, but only a third. Lily was supposed to teach him moral values, and give him practical advice and vitamins. James was supposed to have taught him the lines between bravery and recklessness, when to follow a rule and when to break them, between going beyond the limits people placed on you and respecting your own limitations. I was to be the indulgent one who spoiled him rotten, and his confidant who kept all his secrets of mischief and revelry, and the one he came to when in trouble.

When Remus and Peter found out about Lily's pregnancy, they'd laughed, and Remus had said, "He'll be spoiled by his Uncles Padfoot, Moony, and Wormtail."

Peter made an offhand comment that I didn't catch for my plummeting mood. When they'd left, James had turned to me, and said, "You won't just be his uncle, you know."

"I don't mind. I never expected more—after all, it's you two that are the married couple that's expecting, not the married couple plus good friend they secretly shag on the side," I'd said in my most casual voice.

Lily'd frowned, and smacked my shoulder. "Quit sulking. You're impossible when you're like this."

"I don't sulk! I brood. There's a difference."

"Mere semantics, Padfoot." James'd laughed, and kissed Lily in front of me, before turning to me. "We'll start without you," but his hands undoing my robes gave away the lie, "if you don't quit your sulk and thank us for appointing you the guardian and godfather of our child."

But in the end, I was even less than his Uncle Padfoot. I never got to see him growing up. Now sitting in Buckbeak's room, while the silence blankets us I can feel the weight of all the things I want to say to him, and all the things he wants to ask me. I have plenty of stories about James and Lily, but they're incomplete, the joyous ones eaten up by Azkaban, and the ones I have left...the only ones left...

"James, Lily, and I once lost you in St. Mungo's," I say in a soft voice, unwilling to break Buckbeak's slumber, or shatter the peace of the night.

"Really?"

"During a Death Eater attack. They'd targeted the pediatrics ward." I then fall silent, because if I say anymore, I will end up telling him about the prophecy.

"I never knew things were that bad back then."

"We put a locator spell on you afterwards." I hold out the smallest finger of my left hand. "Our littlest fingers act like a sort of compass to where you are. Mostly, it feels like an itch that won't go away."

"So you can find me anywhere?"

"Almost anywhere. If you're somewhere unplottable, or hidden by a spell such as the Fidelius or the Disillusionment, I can't. But your mother's charm was still good enough to let me find you in that Muggle neighborhood."

"Oh...so that's how you found me at Magnolia Crescent. I'd never thought about it."

The silence falls again, before he breaks it, saying in a small and vulnerable voice too young for his years, "Sirius? Can you tell me something about my parents?"

So I fumble for the happiest memory left me by the Dementors, and begin telling him. My words stumble and stutter, before dying.

"That's okay," he says, jittering in his seat, eyes too old for his years, "I'm sort of tired, I don't think I'd be able to stay awake to hear all of it. Perhaps next time?" But I know he'll never ask me again, this is his gift to me, the lie of my sound mind.

I don't have anything of equal worth to give. James gave him his image and the untainted Potter name, Lily gave him his eyes and blood protection, and the only thing of mine he's got is the haunted look of a life hard lived.

He deserves better. I want to give him more than a Firebolt, or a permission slip, or a ranting madman in a cave, or a moldering house with a nasty house elf slavering over the portrait of his raving grandmum, or tattered incomplete memories, or the protection of a broken man. I want to give him James and Lily back, give him the sort of home every child trapped in a bad childhood dreams of, give him protection from the forces that would harm him, give him one good night's sleep unhaunted by his inner demons.

But the only thing I have left to give is me.

He's got me.

0000000000000000000000000000

Author's Notes: I'd originally attempted to write about how Sirius was Harry's biological father, but this was the closest I could come and stay canonically accurate. Plausibility would be stretched too thin, what with Harry being the spitting image of James. Thus, the ménage a trios sprung about.