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Patria Potestas: Blood Ties	By : JBankai89 Category: Harry Potter > Slash - Male/Male > Harry/Sirius Views: 17607 -:- Recommendations : 4 -:- Currently Reading : 3
Disclaimer: JK Rowling owns Harry Potter, I gain nothing from this but a way to pass the time.

Chapter List
- 7
- 8
- 9
Chapter Eight – Over The Edge

12^th October, 2004

“Uncle Harry, watch me!” Teddy cried as he stood at the top of the metal slide.

“I am watching!”

“No you're not, you're looking at Sirius!” he called back, and Harry felt his face colour a little. Busted.

Next to him, Sirius chuckled and wrapped an arm around Harry's shoulders as he also turned his attention to Teddy. He shifted his weight on the park bench, just enough to cause their knees to brush together, though Harry genuinely could not tell whether or not the touch was deliberate.

“We're both watching now, Teddy!” Sirius called, “go on!”

Grinning broadly, Teddy sat down and shot down the slide, where he promptly crashed into the sand castle he'd erected at the base of it. The castle seemed to explode when Teddy made contact with it, sending sand positively everywhere.

Both Harry and Sirius applauded and cheered Teddy's display as the little boy promptly got up and rushed over to them, a huge grin painted across his face. To Harry's surprise, Teddy grabbed Sirius's hand and started pulling on him.

“Can you please push me on the shwing?” He asked, though despite the politeness of the request, he was still tugging insistently on Sirius's hand.

“Don't you want Harry to push you?” Sirius asked with a laugh as he got up.

“Uh-uh,” Teddy replied with a short shake of his head. “You're bigger, so you're better at it!”

Sirius looked back at Harry with a small smile, then with a helpless shrug he allowed the boy to half-drag him from the bench and to the swing set.

“It looks like someone's having fun,” Hermione observed as she joined him, her eyes straying to Andromeda, who had followed the pair to the swing set, and was shouting at Sirius to be careful.

Neither Sirius nor Teddy seemed to be listening to her, as the boy shrieked with delight with every push and called out, “higher!” to which Sirius would immediately oblige and pushed him harder. Harry felt as though it was a wonder that he hadn't swung around the top bar yet, given how high he was going.

“Yeah, I think Teddy's trying to make up for lost time with his antics today,” Harry remarked, and laughed a little when Hermione swatted him lightly on the shoulder.

“I meant you, you prat,” she said with a laugh. “I haven't seen you smile like that in a while.”

“Yeah, I haven't felt this good for...since before my birthday,” Harry replied, his voice trailing off to a mumble as his gaze dropped from his godfather and godson to the ring on his hand, and fiddled with it idly. So much had changed in such a short span of time, and all too soon, it would change even more. In some ways, it felt as though Harry's mind had yet to completely process everything that had happened, but as time went on, he felt himself becoming less and less nervous about the upcoming wedding.

“The negotiations are the last formality before the wedding,” Hermione said consolingly, “and you have six months to actually get married, so it's plenty of time to...er, prepare yourself.” Harry winced, and she smiled apologetically. “Sorry, bad phrasing.”

“No kidding,” Harry muttered as he lifted his gaze up once more. It amazed him how with a few words his good mood could be so completely burned out of him. Despite how he felt less and less nervous about the wedding itself, the same could not be said for the actual consummation. “I dunno Hermione,” he said with a heavy sigh, “I mean, things have been good—better than good. I can't say that I'm happy, exactly, just...”

“...content?”

“Yeah, content,” Harry agreed with a faint smile, “I just...Sirius has kept his promises, he's downright spoiled me, as far as I'm concerned, but then I remember what has to happen at some point over the next six months, and I freak out again.”

“I'm sure Sirius will...ah, make it good?” Hermione asked, flushing a deep scarlet at her own words. “I mean, I can't really see him taking advantage of you or anything. The way he looks at you now...” she trailed off with a faint smile, and Harry smiled sheepishly. Though she had claimed that Sirius was completely in love with him, Harry still had a hard time believing it.

“I know,” Harry muttered as he reclined against the pack bench and turned his gaze to Sirius and Teddy. “I trust him and everything, and...I mean, things have been going well, but then out of nowhere I remember that he's my godfather, was my dad's best mate, and then that wrongness comes back to me.”

“You're going to have to let it go, Harry,” Hermione said softly as she reached out to take one of his hands, and squeezed it gently. “If you don't, you'll be miserable.”

“I know,” Harry replied with a heavy sigh, “it's just...hard.”

At the end of the afternoon, Harry was almost knocked over by Teddy as he hugged him goodbye.

“Thanks, Uncle Harry, I wish we could do this every day!” he said, and Harry laughed a little.

“If we did this every day, wouldn't you get bored of it after a while?” Harry asked, and Teddy shook his head at once.

“No way, this was so fun!” he gushed, and Harry laughed again.

“Well...we'll see, all right?” he said, and the little boy's face instantly broke into a wide smile as he nodded, then went over to take Andromeda's hand.

Almost at once Sirius took Teddy's place, and Harry felt his heart stutter at the close proximity of the older man. He took one of Harry's hands in his own, and the other moved to rest lightly against the side of Harry's throat. His thumb brushed lightly over Harry's pulse point, eliciting a small shiver from him, and his breath hitched as Sirius leant in to kiss him lightly.

“See you soon, yeah?” he murmured, and Harry nodded. He could feel the heat radiating off his face, and passion behind the kiss seemed to have stolen his voice—Harry was certain that if he'd tried to speak, it would have come out as little more than a high squeak. Sirius smiled, and kissed him once more before he joined Andromeda, and the trio disappeared in a flash of blue Portkey light.

“You didn't look like you hated that,” Hermione commented, and Harry frowned, his warm flush shifting instantly to one of embarrassment. Hermione seemed to catch her mistake at once, and the amusement in her expression disappeared at once. “Oh Harry, I'm sorry, I didn't mean it like that, I just—”

“—no, it's okay, Hermione,” Harry said as he forced a small smile, “it's just...complicated. C'mon, let's get out of here.”

Hermione looked like she wanted to offer up more apologies, but nodded meekly and they both Disapparated—Hermione to the Burrow, and Harry to his flat.

22^nd October, 2004

Harry woke the morning he was due to begin the marital negotiations with a knot in his stomach. He felt as though after weeks of this nervous feeling following him around like a bad odour he'd be used to it by now; but if anything, as the end of the courtship's proceedings drew closer, his nerves got worse, instead of better.

He ate and dressed in a haze while he tried to remember everything that Hermione had told him about the negotiations, though instead of reassuring him, the memories of that discussion made him feel even more uneasy about what was to come.

“It's sort of a baseline to cover what your life will be like after you two get married,” Hermione had explained over tea and biscuits a week earlier. She pointedly ignored Harry's grimace at the word, 'married' as she pressed on, “when these courtships were still common practice, there were times when the Suitor's personality would change drastically the moment they were married, and the Intended would be stuck with someone abusive, and with no way out. The negotiations are sort of a way to avoid that happening—so if the Suitor breaks any of the agreements, the marriage will be nullified, and the Intended can leave.”

“Somehow, that doesn't exactly make me feel any better,” Harry muttered, staring down sullenly at the tabletop. “Will you and Andromeda still be there?”

“Yes—not really to protect your 'virtue', so much as to make sure the Suitor doesn't try to get you to agree to something wildly inappropriate.”

“Wildly inappropriate...like what?” Harry asked, but the sudden flush of her face was answer enough.

“Oh, you know...like, sex every day, or you have to walk around the house naked, or you have to produce a child every year...things like that.”

“Forget I asked,” Harry said with a soft groan, and he buried his face into his hands.

Her near-constant reassurances didn't make Harry feel any better. They were finally at the juncture Harry had been dreading, where they had to discuss their marital future. Imagining what would be expected of him had been bad enough, but talking about it made Harry feel infinitely worse.

An hour later, Harry watched from his favourite armchair where he had been lounging, staring blankly up at the ceiling as Hermione tumbled out of his fireplace. She was dressed in normal muggle garb, and she offered him a reassuring smile as she stood up to dust herself off, but Harry found himself unable to return the gesture.

“You ready?”

“No,” Harry answered at once as he pulled himself off the armchair and followed her to the front door. “Let's just get this over with.”

Hermione looked for a moment as though she was going to respond with some sort of reprimand for his tone and attitude, but at the last minute she seemed to change her mind. She offered Harry a small, reassuring smile, then took his hand and led him out the door.

“So, where are we meeting them?” Harry asked conversationally as they made their way to the nearby Apparition spot, “Sirius's flat?”

“No, it needs to be neutral territory, so we're meeting them at the Burrow. Oh, don't worry,” Hermione added, presumably spotting the reluctant look in his eye, “Molly and Arthur won't be around, it'll be just the four of us in the parlour—no audience, I promise.”

“No audience,” Harry echoed, but even this promise did not help to bolster his spirits.

As Hermione had promised, when they stepped inside the Burrow it was completely silent. It was more than a little strange for Harry, especially given that almost every time he'd been there it was full to bursting with people and noise, and the silence seemed almost deafening to him.

“Sirius?” Hermione called, and Harry winced. Her voice sounded especially loud in the quiet house. “Andromeda?”

“In here!”

Andromeda's muffled voice sounded from the parlour, and Harry swallowed his nervousness behind a neutral mask as he and Hermione turned to follow her voice.

Inside, Sirius and Andromeda were seated upon the settee with a carafe of some kind of amber liquor on the table between them. Next to it was an official-looking scroll of parchment that rested flat upon the tabletop, with a small red quill next to it.

As they stepped inside Sirius met Harry's gaze and offered him a small, warm smile, and under the stare Harry felt his face flush crimson. He followed Hermione's lead over to the pair; Andromeda got up as they approached to take one of the armchairs opposite, clearly hinting that Harry should sit next to Sirius.

Harry sat down, and immediately Sirius laid a hand on his knee, offering it a small squeeze of reassurance. Andromeda pointedly cleared her throat, and Sirius quickly removed it.

“So today we're supposed to sort of write a guideline to our life together,” Sirius began, acting as though Hermione and Andromeda were invisible and focused his attention solely on Harry. “It's not as rigid as a magical contract, and allows for some wiggle room, but it's done to keep the Suitor from taking advantage of their Intended.”

“Yeah, I got that bit,” Harry replied, striving to keep his tone neutral, though there was still a faint tremor in his voice. “Er, Hermione explained it all...multiple times.”

Even from the three to four-foot distance, Harry could hear Hermione tsk of annoyance, and he bit the inside of his cheek to keep from laughing, a reaction he was certain was born of his nervousness, and not any actual amusement. When he caught Sirius's eye again, it seemed as though he was doing the same thing.

“All right then, let's get this over with, yeah?”

The phrasing more than anything else told Harry that Sirius was still sorry that this whole mess had happened, and that reassurance aided Harry in returning his faint smile with a small nod of agreement.

Sirius turned to the table and picked up the small quill. In a move unnervingly reminiscent of Rita Skeeter he sucked on the quill tip, then offered it to Harry. He took it, uncertain what Sirius wanted him to do with it, but at the man's encouraging nod he got the hint, and sucked on the tip too in a strange, almost indirect kiss. He handed the quill back to Sirius, and he balanced it on the parchment upon its tip, and at once it began to scribble across it of its own accord. When it jerked to a stop, Harry looked down to see the words, Living Arrangements written down neatly on the left hand side.

“So, I suppose the first order of business is deciding where we should live,” Sirius said, clearly aiming for nonchalance, but his voice carried an awkward note to it. He reached for the carafe and poured a generous measure of liquor for each of them, and pressed one of the crystal glasses into Harry's hand before he continued. “You could move into my flat, if you want, or I into yours...or we could go somewhere else.”

“Somewhere else like where?” Harry asked, and took a small sip of his drink, and recognized it at once as Arthur's good fairy-distilled brandy.

“Wherever you like,” Sirius replied with a faint smile. “We could look at flats in London, or we could look for a house somewhere—Hogsmeade, the Cotswolds, Glasgow...it's up to you.”

“It hardly seems fair that I get to pick were we live,” Harry commented, and struggled to ignore the way his insides squirmed uncomfortably at his words. “But...I like the idea of a house, though not in Surrey.” Harry grinned when Sirius laughed out loud.

“Fair enough, we'll talk about it later.” At Sirius's words, Harry's eyes dropped to the parchment, and he watched the quill zip across it as it wrote a short sentence:

Living Arrangements

House, location TBD.

“Okay, the next thing would be things like in-home responsibilities and living arrangements,” Sirius continued, “I think it'd only be fair that we share in the cooking and clearing up and things, unless you want to get a house el—” Sirius broke off abruptly, though Harry didn't need to ask why. He could also feel the icy glare that Hermione was shooting at Sirius for daring to suggest such a thing.

“I think sharing the chores would be best,” Harry said quickly in an effort to keep Hermione from interrupting the proceedings. “How d'you mean living arrangements? Like which room will be the office and which will be the den or something?”

“Erm, not exactly,” Sirius replied, though his tone had taken on an apprehensive edge to it. “It means more...” he paused, clearly trying to think of how to answer the question, and his hesitancy was making Harry nervous. “You see, Harry, back when these rites were more common, it was a time when it was believed that the Intended stayed at home with the children, and the Suitor earned the family income. This point discusses whether you want to be an at-home dad, or if you want to work as well.”

Harry opened his mouth angrily, intent on protesting the idea of being a housewife—or househusband as the case may be—but at the same time, it wasn't as though he had a lot of job prospects to begin with, considering he'd spent the better part of the last six and a half years living off his inheritance.

“I don't really relish the idea of being at home all the time,” Harry began awkwardly, “I think I'd go mental if I had to do that, but, I don't really know what I want to do with my life, either...”

“You don't need to decide right this second,” Sirius replied consolingly, “I can easily move my business to home if you'd rather work in an office—I can repair motorbikes out of a home garage as easily as at a shop—but don't feel obligated to stay at home if you really don't want to, Harry.”

“Yeah, okay,” Harry agreed, and Sirius reached for his hand. He accepted it readily, and their fingers twined together almost at once.

They continued, and gradually the parchment began to fill up. It amazed Harry how they needed to go over everything from when to go to the market to who does the laundry, and most of the points were easy enough to discuss and answer—both Harry and Sirius agreed to share the various household tasks—but when they reached the second-to-last point, they stuttered to a stop.

Sexual Conduct

Harry looked up from the parchment to Sirius, and was relieved to see that he looked as reluctant to discuss it as Harry did. After nearly a full minute of silence, Hermione cleared her throat, and the sudden sound seemed to snap Sirius out of his daze.

“At first, the magic of the bloodline curse will monitor our sexual conduct...to a point,” Sirius said, but did not meet Harry's eye as he spoke, “after the consummation, we'll need to have sex at least every fortnight or so to keep the bloodline magic in check.”

“For how long?” Harry asked, and winced when his voice escaped him as little more than a weak whisper. He cleared his throat and tried again. “I mean, do we have to follow some sort of...I dunno, schedule for the rest of our lives?” Harry shifted uncomfortably in his seat as he spoke. Imagining sex with his godfather once had been nerve-wracking enough, but twice a month was more than he had expected.

“Until we produce a child, and then the bloodline magic will consider the oath fulfilled, and everything will more or less go back to normal.” Sirius paused, and reached his free hand up to rake it through his hair as he pushed forward before Harry could react to his last statement. “In this section, it also covers our sexual fidelity. I know this isn't ideal for you, so we can leave it open if you'd rather pursue—”

“—no,” Harry interrupted, and frowned at Sirius's look of complete shock—did he seriously think that Harry would cheat on him at the first opportunity? “I don't want to go into this as some sort of...sham marriage. If we're to be married I want...” Harry trailed off when he felt the now-familiar flush rise in his cheeks. He clenched his hands into fists in his lap, and he chewed on the edge of his lip thoughtfully. “If we have to do this, I want it to feel real...to be real.”

“Harry, are you so sure about that?” Sirius asked, the look of concern in his eyes becoming more pronounced as he stared at Harry, though he also looked shocked, as though Harry's choice was the last thing he'd expected to hear. “Because I know you didn't want this, I don't want to trap you by this...this...thing.”

Harry understood the concern, and he appreciated the way that Sirius had selflessly put Harry's desires above his own; especially when it was quite clear that Sirius's feelings for him had grown and changed drastically over the course of the courtship. Sirius loved him, but not in the same way that he had before. Harry knew that he couldn't reciprocate that love, and he wasn't sure if he ever could.

Nevertheless, the idea of going into a marriage with someone, and raising children with that someone, all while seeking out sexual encounters with other people didn't seem right to him. Harry looked up to meet Sirius's eyes and leant up to kiss him gently, barely the faintest brush of lips. Harry could feel Sirius's breath hitch in shock at his bold move.

“I'm sure.”

The quill wrote it down, and the final point of the negotiations was immediately added just below it:

Heirs.

“Technically, either of us could undergo the procedure,” Sirius said, his face a little flushed, and Harry could see a faint smile tugging at the corners of his mouth, what Harry assumed to be a byproduct of the unexpected kiss he had given him, and not the topic they now had to discuss. “It's not restricted to the Intended having to do it, but I think it this case it might be best if you do. You're younger, and so it will be less risky for you compared to me...” Sirius trailed off as he withdrew a leaflet from the inside pocket of his blazer that read, Everything You Wanted To Know About Male Pregnancy But Were Afraid To Ask. “It's still considered a risky procedure, but less so because you're younger and healthy, and you'll be indisposed for at least two years...”

“Hang on,” Harry interrupted as he mechanically accepted the leaflet from Sirius, albeit reluctantly. “Two years? I figured it'd be the same as a normal baby...you know, nine months?”

“It takes two years because it takes some time for you to grow the necessary...er, attributes to carry a child to term, and be able to nourish it after it's born.”

“Nourish?” Harry asked, his eyes wide and his voice escaping him as little more than a mildly horrified whisper, “you don't mean...” His gaze dropped down to the leaflet in his hand. The glossy cover displayed a number of gay couples—with men sporting full, feminine breasts, both hanging freely and supported by lacy or simple cotton bras. Harry felt the bottom drop out of his stomach as he dropped the leaflet.

“I...Sirius, I...you can't ask me to—to...turn into a girl for two years!! I can't do that, I—”

“You won't be a girl, Harry,” Sirius said gently, but firmly. “All the effects are temporary, and it will leave no lasting damage on your body—”

“—but you're still asking me to...to grow breasts and pop out a fucking kid!” Harry burst out as he jumped up and began to pace and he raked his fingers through his hair in his panic.

“I'm not asking you to do anything, Harry!” Sirius shot back as he jumped up and grabbed hold of Harry's shoulders, stopping his pacing and forcing Harry to look up at the older man. “It's our damn ancestors and the bloodline magic that is demanding this, not me. If I had my way, none of this would be happening, but we're both stuck, and we need to make the best of it—”

“—we!” Harry cut in, his voice now carrying a slightly hysterical note, “all you need to do is knock me up, you're asking me to go through hell for two fucking years for this, I...Sirius, I...no. I can't. I can't do this. I...I need to go.” Without another word, Harry wrenched himself out of Sirius's hold, and hurried towards the door.

“Harry, wait!”

Harry ignored to call.

It was too much—far too much. Harry felt as though his mind was on the edge of collapse, and as he heard Sirius (and by extension, likely Hermione and Andromeda too) chase after him, Harry cast one final look back at the Burrow as he cleared its gates, caught Sirius's gaze, his concerned and horrified expression plain upon his face before Harry willed himself away.

Away from Sirius.

Away from the demands of the courtship.

Away from everything
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Patria Potestas: Blood Ties