A Drink on Doctor's Orders Who: Sirius and James (and baby Harry) What: Prongs the Candy Striper. When: 9 November Where: Potter's Cottage Rating: Language. Status: Complete
Dinner was in the oven and James had set not one, not two, but three alarms. By Godric, their evening meal would not be burned tonight. No owling for take-away or having Evans cook after a day at work. No, James was doing his best to be a good house husband. And nursemaid, considering their current guest who was taking up the couch in the front room.
"Oi, Padfoot!" James called out, as he started fixing Harry's next bottle, "Which potions are you supposed to have now?"
From his castle on the couch, Sirius gingerly turned his head to the left. Truthfully, ‘turned’ was a might overstated, and ‘left’ really more straight forward. And ‘head’, well... At least grey-stone eyes still rolled round his skull without too much pain from straining. Proper turning of his head was likely still days, if not weeks away, thanks to the muggle hacks that called themselves surgeons and the invasive - albeit life-saving - surgery which had left Sirius sliced stem to stern.
St. Mungos had blessedly been able to undo some of the savagery the NHS inadvertently inflicted upon Sirius, but puns excused, he was still rather the hurt puppy. And while Sirius Black planned never to admit, he was exceptionally grateful for James’ insistence that he lord over the kingdom that was the Potter’s living room for the foreseeable future.
Squinting at the schedules quick-fixed to the wall out of Harry’s inquisitorial grasp, Sirius read off the list.
“...Basically everything except the cocaine.”
Fuck, what he wouldn’t do for some cocaine right then.
"No cocaine in front of the baby." James walked into the room, the bottle in one hand and the tray of potions floating behind him. He'd help sort out the proper dosages soon enough, but his son was a right monster when he wasn't fed on schedule and James really wanted to sleep tonight. "Sorry, mate, you're going to have to suffer, but we could probably swing the heroin if push came to shove." Or something near about. He knew of at least a half dozen apothecaries that sold laudanum.
Settling into the chair that had once been his father's favorite, James began the chore of feeding his son. He'd been worried as fuck about Sirius and it didn't exactly ease his mind that he'd been in the well-meaning hands of muggle doctors. Even after asking Evans to explain to the best of her ability, the idea that he'd been further injured wouldn't leave him. At least the healers had been able to reverse some of the damage.
"Think you can handle solid foods today or am I going to have to get some of that tinned soup from the grocer's down the way?" Or rather, he'd have to ask Evans to pick some up before returning home. He wasn't about to leave Sirius for even a ten minute errand.
Clacking his teeth together in James’ direction ought to have been all the answer his best mate required. They spoke a language no one else could, not even Remus or Peter. But given Sirius had just spent near a week not talking to anyone thanks in part to his injuries - and in part to a very well-meaning but bossy mediwtich - the gesture came accompanied with pithy remarks.
“All my teeth have grown back, so, fuck it. yeah. Let’s try for some solid food tonight.”
Skinny to begin with, Sirius was now painfully underweight. Combination of the run-in with his cousin, subsequent surgery, and imprisonment at St. Mungos had seen to what little healthy fat he kept now merely skin stretched over mended bone and tired muscle. The whole experience had thrown his appetite out of whack. Eating was now a chore. One which set his cheeks ghostly white, and his stomach gurgling as if his bowels were preparing to go to war with the toilet.
“Honestly, anything to distinguish me from Harry. Starting to feel like an infant.”
James rolled his eyes and would have flapped a hand in addition, but both were currently occupied. It rather limited his ability to communicate. "I'm not hauling your sorry arse to the toilet because your eyes were bigger than your stomach." A blatant lie. James would absolutely do that and more. "There's jacket potatoes tonight, if you want. Or I can mash 'em if that's better." Oh what he wouldn't have done for his parents' elf right about now. She would have been able to feed Padfoot without a problem and make sure he gained sorely needed weight.
"Oh, I don't know, I think you and Harry have a lot in common. You both cry to get what you want, sleep a fuckton, and are full of shit." As if he understood that he was being discussed, Harry let the bottle's nipple fall from his mouth as he let out a gurgle and a coo. It could have been gas, but James knew that face well before the smell hit him. Fecking foul it was.
"Had to go about jinxing myself. You'll be good for a few?"
“You deserve it for the comment about my crying,” Sirius shot back, hand holding a couch cushion over his mouth. Did it hurt to strain himself so? Yes. Did it hurt less than that rancid smell coming from his godson’s nappy? Fuck yes.
“Go. Take care of it. Before we both die of fume inhalation.”
James' answer to that was to kick the side of the couch. Normally it would have been the git's shin, but he had a thing about kicking a bloke when he was down. Plus, he didn't want to hear Padfoot whine anymore than he had to. A few minutes later the pair of Potters were back, though Harry was sporting a new outfit. Who knew such small things went through so many clothes? Little fucking monsters.
"You still alive? Pretty sure Vance will have my balls if I let you expire on my watch." And he was rather attached to his balls. Despite being more tired than he could ever remember, he wanted more kids. Eventually. Rather than his usual flop, James gently settled back down to pop the bottle back in Harry's mouth. He was all about staving off the screaming if he could. Harry liked to sleep after being fed and James wouldn't mind a nap himself.
“Better now I’m no longer gagging,” Sirius shot back. He was currently at battle with one of his potion bottles. Nerve damage from his cousin’s dagger through the soft tissues of his shoulder was still on the mend, making fiddly action more difficult than it had any right being. “At least we know he’s your son...”
Some of James’ farts - and frankly shits - through the years could fell a mountain troll; at the tender age of three months, Harry was already taking after his father.
“Fuck it- I ca- Fuck!” Sirius groused as his right hand dissolved into tiny tremors. The vial slipped from his hand and landed on the blankets over his lap, sealing invalid status.
"As if there was any doubt. With his hair." The boy was going to be just as bad as him. James ran a protective hand across his son's head and watched Sirius struggle. He wanted to reach out, swipe the potion vial and open it for his brother, but in doing so he knew he would just make the situation worse. Though Sirius would need an outlet for his frustration sooner or later. James could take it.
"Want a hand?" James kept his voice even as Harry finished the rest of his bottle and began to make impatient noises. His son would have to wait a moment, unfortunately. "Just tell me which ones to grab. Or point. Doesn't matter."
“Are you making bad puns about my tremor?”
Externally, it was fodder for some brilliant jokes. Internally, and in the moment, Sirius bloody hated everything and everyone.
Well, not everyone. Just one someone.
Bella.
Taking a deep breath and exhaling slowly - a technique learned from years of being Moony’s friend - Sirius jiggled his head. The movement smarted, from his impaled shoulder down to his newly knitted ribs, and he hissed despite his stubbornness. “Poor form, Potter,” he deadpanned, hiding his pain in humor. Grabbing the vial with his left hand, he brought it to his lips and used his teeth to unscrew it, spatting the cap out onto the floor.
“Can your son do that?” he winked, before downing the contents.
"All puns are bad puns. They're the lowest form of humor, Padfoot."
James didn't take the words personally. Or the manners. He was used to Sirius' disregard for his personal property for nearly a decade now. "Don't let Evans see you acting like an uncivilized troll. She might not let you back on the couch." She'd probably wait until Sirius was all healed up, but it was better safe than sorry.
"And of course not. Because he's not a troll." James grinned down at the infant as he summoned a tea towel for the inevitable spit up. He'd lost a few good shirts to baby vomit before figuring things out. "Do you want a chaser with that or does that go against healer's orders?"
“Scotch?” Which was to say Sirius didn’t give a doxy’s wet teat what the healers said. The blue gack he’d just downed tasted like hippogriff dung smelt, and he still had three more vials to go. Reaching for the tray, he fetched the putrid green one next, unstopping it in the same fashion. This time, however, he managed to spit the topper back onto the tray, a victory for which he lamely cheered.
“... Yaaaay.... See? Not uncivilised, just... fifty-fifty shite aim? Lily can’t fault me for that.” She might, and Sirius would feel internally awful. He already did, for all the imposition, but until he could feed himself, and take his positions entirely without assistance, he didn’t have much of a choice.
No one felt more sorry about that than Sirius.
James wasn't a healer and while he was inclined to follow healer's instructions when it was anyone but himself, he also knew his friend was sorely in need of a drink after all he'd been through. "No scotch, but I have a bottle of Ogden's Reserve that's begging to be opened." Was it a bad idea to drink prime liquor while one of them was hopped up on potions. Maybe. But was there really a better time or reason? James didn't think so.
When Harry finally let out all the gas stored in that tiny little body, from both ends, and James could clear away any spit up with the tea towel, he was already standing. There was a rocker in the corner, so the babe wouldn't be too far. Settling the infant only took a few moments, thankfully. It was like Harry knew his father and godfather were in sore need of a restorative drink.
Pouring two fingers for Sirius, James poured a little less for himself and added some soda along with it. One of them needed to be at least partially sober. And considering Sirius' current state it wasn't going to be him.
“Thanks.” Sirius accepted the glass, swapping it out for the third and final vial of potion he’d just downed. They all tasted of chalky goblin spunk - or what Sirius imagined chalky goblin spunk might taste like - and the Ogden’s was deeply appreciated. He took a quick sip, sloshing it round his mouth before swallowing, just to chase the flavor of the potions.
“What are we toasting to?” Sirius asked after. “I’ve got about twenty minutes till my brain goes mushy and I’m drooling out the side of my cracked mouth.”
Truthfully, Sirius was grateful for the mind-numbing potions. They rendered his insomnia moot, and ensured a dreamless, fretless sleep. And for someone who’s mother and cousin had done a number on mind and body, Sirius appreciated the supplemental help.
James looked down at his drink, swirling it slightly. There was something he did need to discuss with Sirius. With Evans. With everyone. But Padfoot was here and the sooner he mentioned the matter the less it would weigh on him. "I met the mysterious Dudley Porter." It didn't answer the question, but they had spent enough time with one another that generally non-sequiturs weren't too difficult to parse out. And if they were, it was just something to accept and move on.
"I don't know what to make of him."
Having witnessed this shadow player from afar, Sirius could understand James’ concern. Despite the potions beginning their tell tale tingling of his brain stem, he sobered a little, gently sipping his Ogden’s in thought.
“There’s a lot of weirdness happening of late,” he stated. Obvious though the assessment was, it needed to be acknowledged. Dudley Porter. The Wizeagamont’s illegal use of Veritaserum. The Order’s new unknown fledglings. Bellatrix’s timely accuracy.
Walburga Black...
A lot of things didn’t add up, including Bones’ secretive warning to mind Peter Pettigrew.
Why hadn’t Sirius been included in that warded message? Why would Bones have left him in the dark? More importantly: why wasn’t Bones smart enough to assume Remus and James would have filled Sirius in? Or was it that he’d been testing their secret keeping skills? Or worse yet, was it that he’d expected them to spill the beans?
Nothing added up, and the larger the maths problem, the less Sirius trusted anyone outside the Marauders, Lily, and Em.
“Tell me.”
So James did. The meeting days before the Halloween attack. The assurances that Bones gave him that this Dudley Porter was legitimate. Credentials from Durmstrang, no less. But there were too many unanswered questions, though James couldn't yet ask the questions himself. That's why Sirius was there, even in his potions-altered state. "The bloke has Evans' eyes." James said finally. "I don't know what to make of it."
James just wanted his family safe. Thus far, he couldn't be sure that Dudley Porter wasn't a threat, despite what Bones might assure him. "The four of us should talk. Evans too. Em. Marlene, if Peter insists. Keeping secrets from one another… That's not going to end well for anyone."
James Subtle-as-a-Blast-Ended-Skrewt Potter, that’s what they should have named the bespectacled young father.
“Em’s not my girlfriend,” Sirius reminded with a snap, narrowing dark eyes at James from behind another sip of Ogden’s. “We’re just friends.”
The pair had been friends since Em’s fifth year, and just friends since she’d begun helping Sirius study for his N.E.W.T.s. To lump her in with Evans and Marlene crossed a line that stubbornness and blindness could not allow to exist. Sirius and Emmeline were friends, and they were always going to be just friends who occasionally took the edge off by sleeping together. And by occasionally, one meant frequently. A perfect, symbiotic relationship that no outside influence, societal label, or peer pressuring could degrade by adding an official degree of complexity and emotion.
“But.... I agree,” Sirius added after staring James down long enough he felt his point well hammered. “We can’t keep secrets from each other. How soon can we get everyone together?”
"I didn't say anything otherwise." But one of these days Sirius was going to wake up and see that he had been wasting a colossal amount of time. And James was going to get some of Honeyduke's finest and watch the show. That, however, was an argument for another time. "You trust her, hence her inclusion." The matter was settled, at least in James' mind.
He looked over to where his son lay. They were making the world a better place for him, James reminded himself. A life free of power-hungry mad wizards. A society where muggleborns as brilliant as his mum could shine without prejudice. It was for Harry that James was tolerating all of this bullshit. "Friday," he said finally. "I can go get curry so we don't have to suffer my cooking."
“Thank fuck for that,” Sirius cheered, downing the rest of his Ogden’s. He jiggled the glass between two fingers as if at the bar, ordering another round from Emmeline. One thing for certain, she made a far superior bar tender over James based off the tits alone.
“I’m just out of hospital. Wouldn’t want to die of food poisoning so soon.”