Dark Synesthesia | Sirius Black ͛

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"It's me, Uncle Sirius. You're gonna stay here with me, Aunt Hera, and your Nana. This is your home — has been for two weeks already, I guess, but it's especially yours now. You're our boy now, and we'll take good care of you. But we're about to do a lot of learning together. I haven't done this before, and Hera knows a bit more than I do, but this is new for both of us. So, we might make some mistakes with you along the way. Lucky for you, me and your aunt were also the eldest of our siblings. The Guinea pigs, right? So we know what it's like. But we love you, and you'll always know it. I just hope that's enough. "

Sirius shook his head, inwardly laughing at his monologue to a baby.

He picked up Teddy gently. Sirius still felt as though he didn't know the safest way to hold the baby, so he nestled him between his arms, still feeling as though he might break him.

"Let's leave Hera to sleep. " he whispered faintly, pulling the duvet over her in the baby's absence.
"We'll go enjoy the outside, how's that? You haven't seen much of it yet. "

Sirius debated taking Teddy to the shops, but he had no Muggle carriers and didn't want to stand out.
So he returned downstairs with Teddy, suddenly aware of their isolation, but not being upset by it.

He was glad to have this piece of his late best friend with him, to watch Remus' son grow up and make the world his own in ways Remus couldn't in his life.

Sirius and the baby lay on their backs on the damp grass in one of his long coats, staring up at the skies and the heavens above them.
They stayed like that until Teddy needed to be changed and then fed again. At that point, they returned indoors, where Sirius cooked himself a small breakfast of tea and eggs on toast with the baby slung against his chest the entire time.

Hera did not wake until the evening, and by the time she came to consciousness, Sirius gave her a kiss and a small dose of sleeping potion in her tea so that she would sleep through the night.
She accepted it gratefully.
Waking up the next morning and getting back to a regular sleeping routine would be good for her, he thought. Night and day were just about the only things in this world that never changed.

Holding Teddy in his numb arms that night, Sirius couldn't help but cry as the boy slept, oblivious to the pain and destruction everyone was trying to overcome in that short period after the battle.
The news seemingly wouldn't stop.

His daughter would be born around Christmas, a mere six months' wait until their lives changed again.

No matter what, he knew they would make it work. They would learn how to devote their time equally between the two babies; they'd have the hang of the newborn thing by then.
They'd survive as they had so many times before.

Teddy came into this world just two weeks before Voldemort's fall. At the same time, his daughter would enter a world where Voldemort was recent history — that sweet transient phase between regimes where everyone swore 'never again', only for another, maybe in a different country or in a different form, to occur some short years later — and by the time Teddy and their daughter reached their toddler years, the war would be behind them all.

Rebuilding would've gone on, the dead buried, and the living moved on. Neither children would know a life with war.
Wasn't that all they'd asked for?

When she finally woke, the space in the bed beside her was all encompassing. She tried to walk and was glad to find that she could, though she felt wobbly and awkward.

She descended slowly, knowing that Sirius was downstairs and not wanting to worry him by walking alone.
On the final step, she halted, staring at Sirius as he rocked his head to the sound of the CD player, sat with his legs across the length of the sofa and Teddy's small form resting on his thighs.

'And I wonder when I sing along with you
If everything could ever feel this real forever
If anything could ever be this good again'

The song quietened at this point, the guitar riff playing with a distant voice recording as the drums slowly returned.

She came up behind Sirius's head, covering her eyes exaggeratedly and then placing her hands over his eyes.

"Good morning, baby, " Sirius said gently, his voice uncharacteristically smooth.

She attributed this to the infant lying on him.

"Hi. " she said quietly, her voice still dry and her words strained.

"You look better, " he said, giving a small smile, lifting Teddy and moving further down the sofa so that she could sit beside him. "How are you feeling?"

She nodded, facing him and pointing at her throat.

"Does it feel like we won?" He asked quietly.

She shook her head.

"I know, " he frowned and passed the baby into her arms, "but we're going to live through this. We always do. "

She stared intently at him, kissing his cheek as he smoothed Teddy's hair.

"Why don't we go to the shops together?"
He suggested, kissing her in return, "We need some baby stuff, don't we?"

And so they went, Hera keeping hold of Teddy the entire time as they traipsed through the supermarket in their town. It grounded her, steadied her steps.

"We'll need a car and a car seat. In that order, we'll have to leave him with Dromeda and drive the car back. " Sirius rambled, "We'll get a swanky family car, or just a wanky sports car. I'd do well with either. You're gonna have to learn to drive now, so that'll be exciting... "

"How are you ok?" She asked slowly.

"I'm not, " he said firmly, staring at her curiously. "But I want you to allow yourself to fall apart, to feel the emotions you're feeling. Because if not now, when?"

She frowned, "And you?"

"I don't think I've ever mattered more in my life. "
he said simply. "I've got a purpose now — I've got to be there for you, but I've also got to lead and be a father now. I can feel the grief alongside it. I can work through this knowing we have so much to look forward to now that the war is over. "

She paused, turning to press her head against Sirius's chest.

His arms wrapped around her and the baby, and they remained in that embrace for a small, tender stretch of time.

"Hard to believe there's four of us here, isn't it?" Sirius smiled, patting Teddy's head and then her stomach as he pulled away, turning back to the aisle of baby wipes and formula in the town's pharmacy.