“Freaks Should Neither Be Seen Nor Heard.”

didn’t realise it was sirius & harry saturday already but uh. lucky i had this eh?

“Freaks should neither be seen nor heard.”

Sirius goes deathly still. Surely he didn’t—?

One look at his godson, who was pouring himself a glass of milk without having quite realised what he’d just said, and it was clear he did.

He did hear that correct. His godson did just refer to himself as a freak, without batting an eyelid.

It was a simple question. Sirius was slumped over the kitchen table, eyes half-shut. Caught up in thoughts of what was, what could’ve been—as he was wont to do these. It was a bloody miserable morning, but he was used to that by now.

Well, used to is a bit optimistic. He’s resigned to it.

He kept thinking about that—how the mighty fall. Used to be that he’d never bowed down to anyone, ever (except james. but james was different. james was his, he was home, and it was never like that with him) and look at him now. Can’t step out of the room without logging it in.

Bloody. Miserable.

Until he heard the clang of a glass and the thud of a jug being set down on the table and jerks himself out of his thoughts and his chair.

He stared, wide eyed, at Harry who was calmly standing on the other end of the table from him.

“When did you get in here?” Sirius croaked, throat exceptionally dry.

“It’s been a couple minutes,” Harry shrugged. But how is that—Surely, Sirius would’ve heard him? He wasn’t that out of it, and his senses had always been sharp regardless of where his thoughts were wandering. They’d had to be.

“How did I not hear that?” Sirius said, half to himself. “Teenage boys are notoriously loud.”

That’s when he’d said it. That- that freaks shouldn’t be heard or seen.

And now Sirius is here, frozen in his half slumped position, eyes stuck on the lithe form of his godson. Harry was now humming to himself, an old Muggle number he’d heard on the radio before.

It was incongruent—his words from a second ago were still ringing in Sirius’ ears, but it was slowly being drowned out by the sound of Harry’s humming, the feel of blood rushing in his ears, his magic swirling around him in the beginnings of outrage.

“Harry,” Sirius says, voice carefully controlled. James had called it the ‘Black Siren’ because he thought himself funny. That, and it was a distinctive tone, spread out across generations of Blacks. For all that Sirius professed to be different, at the end of the day, he was cut from the same cloth, was he not?

“Hm?” is the absent response. His godson has moved on to mixing in a scoop of chocolate malt into his glass of milk.

“What was that?”

“What was what?” The clink of spoon against glass. Harry’s face looks unusually well rested, and his hair is in some form of order for once. He looks good—healthy. There’s a small smile on his face as he looks down at his drink. Sirius almost doesn’t want to bring this up. He knows it will ruin the mood, possibly even distance Harry from him (Sirius was the one adult in this place who hadn’t gotten the grumpy teen attitude until now. He quite wanted to keep it that way), but he couldn’t let that stop him either.

Not when his hands were clenched tight enough to draw blood. Not when a dull throb had started behind his eyes, one that hadn’t been there until now.

“Freak should neither be seen nor heard,” he repeats slowly. His gaze is intent on his godson and he can pinpoint the exact second the penny drops. Harry’s fingers spasm around the glass in his hand, and his eyes widen in—fear? panic? horror? A combination of all three?

Sirius wouldn’t be surprised. But he also can’t dwell on it—doesn’t want to think about his godson looking at him with such abject terror. He needs answers now, and he knows if he let himself get swept away by wide, green eyes then he would never get them.

Harry’s mouth opened and closed in rapid succession—Sirius can see the whirlwind of thoughts in his eyes and before Harry can try and doge this, make an excuse to leave or find the words to rage at him, all very plausible options, Sirius cuts in.

“Please Harry, you can’t—how could I let something like go?” His voice is desperate, close to breaking, and in any other instance he’d be mortified.

Harry’s head was bowed, fingers pressed white against his mug. Sirius fought the urge to keep babbling, say something—anything to fill the horrible silence.

“If I said I don’t want to talk about it?” Harry said, voice shaky, like he was trying his best to hold on.

Sirius inhaled. This was—he had to tread carefully here. Trampling all over Harry’s agency, especially after a question like that—where he sounded resigned, like he wasn’t expecting a proper answer—wasn’t something he wanted to do, not even in his quest to find out what had happened to his godson and who had the audacity to say something like that to him. Not just say, no, but make him believe it because that kind of instinctive reply—not even realising what came out of his mouth, that wasn’t an accident. That spoke to something deeper than words thrown around. It was continued conditioning.

“I would…try my best to respect that,” is what Sirius said, though it’s forcefully pulled out of him. “But Harry, you’re…you’re my kid, I don’t know how I can just let it go like that. That came from somewhere.”

“Well, of course it did,” Harry said, mouth twisting in a farce of a smile. “Just because I didn’t realise I slipped doesn’t mean it was a mistake.”

“What—“

“That’s what happens when you’re taught one thing for most of your life, Sirius.”

Sirius deliberately unclenched his hands and stretched his fingers out on the table, ignoring the sting from the reddened, torn skin in the center of his palm.

“The Dursleys?” he asked in a tone that could pass for casual, like he was asking after the weather. It was everything else about him that gave him away. The taut back, the rigid shoulders, the crackling of ozone.

“You’re still a fugitive, you know, Sirius,” Harry said, leaning forward to look at his face. Interestingly, he didn’t sound reproving, merely stating a fact.

“Maybe it’s time I earned that title?”