Beta: Cloudy

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Severus Snape was the first to come to us.

It was... awkward to watch him break down over Lily's corpse. Out of respect, I covered Harry's eyes, and politely looked away. My dear little brother was exhausted from crying hysterically for the past couple of hours after the whole... Thing That Happened.

Snape wasn't there for long. He knew others would be coming soon, and he collected himself after having his solid cry fest before leaving. Barely three minutes later Sirius bounded into the home, panicked, then he hoarsely cried out for Lily and James.

I heard him find James.

The choked back sob was ragged, and he stumbled up the steps finding Lily next.

It was not a loud breakdown like Snape.

Sirius fell to his knees, tears spilling over his eyes. Color washed out of him, dark waves of grief pulling him down and forcing the young man to crumple under its weight. It was not an explosion of pain, but a silent cascade of misery that drowned him.

It was—it was impossible not to cry beside him, causing Harry to wake up and start crying all over again. Snape was overwhelming, and I was still fresh from the shock of it all that I could numbly ignore it, but seeing a man I had come to care for as family fall apart was—

As soon as he noticed us he jerked forward, limbs springing to life as he incredulously stared at us in shock.

"You're alive?" he whispered, voice cracking as he picked both of us. "Merlin's balls you're both alive?"

Harry couldn't stop whimpering or crying, and I clung onto Sirius.

He held us tightly as minutes dragged on and on. Shock must have prevented him from doing much else. Harry lost his energy after enough time and slipped into an exhausted slumber, while I forced myself to stay awake.

I had to.

I could not allow my guard to drop, what happened next that night had to be changed from the canonical story.

A solid hour must have passed before Sirius started to slowly, slowly, begin to carry us out of the house. His motorcycle was parked outside, and rushing up to us was an out of breath Hagrid.

"S—Sirius!" Hagrid bellowed. "Oh—Oh Bloo'y 'ell, is tha—?"

"Dead," Sirius whispered. "James and Lily they're both—but—"

"Sirius we gotta get 'Arry and Rosie to Dumbledore," Hagrid said hurriedly.

"Take them. I have to go. I have to find—"

"NO!" I screamed, flailing my magic around as I clung onto Sirius with all my might. "DON'T LEAVE US! NO, PADDY, NO!"

Sirius let out a shout of surprise as my magic lashed out, waking Harry up who started to profusely cry again. My outburst startled him dearly enough that he was a fish out of water gaping at me in disbelief. "R-Rosie?"

"NO!" I shouted as loudly as I could, wrapping my tiny fingers around the collar of his shirt. "NO LEAVE!"

"I—I think yeh shoul' come," Hagrid said, carefully taking Harry out of Sirius's other arm so Sirius could try to console me.

"Rosie I have to go," Sirius insisted, trying to unstick me from him. My magic must have been in a good mood that day because it clung onto him, making it nearly impossible for him to remove me without pulling out his wand. "Rosie!"

"NO!"

Hagrid placed a massive hand on Sirius's back. "C'mon. Tyke ain't lettin' go."

"You don't understand. He's going to get away with it now!" Sirius snapped, pulling harder on me. He was trying not to hurt me, but he was having to use more strength to try to remove me. Although compared to the torture he would face in Azkaban if I let him go, this level of embarrassment and pain was nothing.

"NO!"

It took a solid ten minutes of me screaming, kicking, sobbing, and clinging onto Sirius but eventually, the hot-headed man relented and came along with us to Dumbledore.

A good thing, too.

Since he didn't chase after Pettigrew, Dumbledore was able to learn about the Secret Keeper switch immediately.

Sirius Black was never blamed for their deaths, and so Sirius Black was never sentenced to Azkaban and instead inherited legal guardianship over Harry and Rosaline Potter.

(≖‿‿≖)ノ⌒●~*

Dumbledore was a quiet, and kindly old man. He was not a perfect man, but he tried to do what he thought was right. He was a character that you either loved, or hated.

I admired him.

He made mistakes. There were issues in the story that could have been better handled, but they were perfectly human flaws. He was not so arrogant as to claim to be the one with all the answers, but he tried to help where he could.

The biggest flaw he had was that he was human.

Truly, a flaw many of us struggled with.

Contrary to what some fans would guess, he did not encourage Sirius to give up guardianship to Petunia. He was visibly relieved that Sirius accepted his role without fuss (well, okay, there was some crying involved behind closed doors when both men thought I was asleep like Harry). Both agreed Harry and I should still live in relative seclusion while growing up for our own safety.

They also vehemently agreed that using a secret keeper was not an option again.

For one month Harry and I stayed with Dumbledore at Hogwarts. Dumbledore had private quarters in his office where the two of us slept under Fawkes' watchful eye. McGonagall was the only other professor to know about us there, and she visited us while Dumbledore had to attend to other duties.

From what I could understand, Sirius and Dumbledore were rapidly working on setting up a new safe house for us.

Frustratingly enough, the adults didn't speak about the specifics of what was going on to the two toddlers. I couldn't blame them, but I still wished they would tell me.

I knew there was a lot of celebration going on, and I knew the press was howling to meet us. We were given an award—McGonagall had asked Dumbledore why it was given to both of us when the prophecy spoke of one. Dumbledore told her very plainly he did not want something as silly as fame to come between two siblings, and that it was better if the world had two saviors, instead of one.

Which, hello, yes. Thank you for not putting all that fame onto only one sibling. Very good! Someone read a parenting book at least once. I was mature enough not to get jealous when Harry would inevitably take the spotlight, but it was good common sense not to show blatant favoritism for twins.

At the end of the month inside Dumbledore's quarters, we were whisked away and placed in our new home. It was a very large two-story cottage-style home with a massive yard that was surrounded by thick pine trees.

A new home for us, and Sirius Black as our new guardian. Remus was, thankfully, a new common visitor and helped us move in. I overheard Sirius repeatedly asking Remus to move in, but the werewolf was concerned about the potential danger of being around children on the full moon.

Didn't stop him from visiting us nearly every day for the following months, though. A good thing, too, as it looked like Remus was now Sirius's only consistent contact with the outside world.

(Although to be noted: Sirius was fully capable of leaving the home, but it was agreed upon that if he did so, Dumbledore should come over to essentially babysit us, and confirm that when Sirius did return he was not compromised. Again, this genuinely surprised me by how logical it was. I was fully prepared to deal with little common sense in this world, but I am so pleasantly surprised to be wrong.)

(Also to be noted in hindsight: This did not always happen because Sirius was at loathe to bother Dumbledore during the school years and would instead call for Remus.)

(≖‿‿≖)ノ⌒●~*

Rosie, age three

It was very late into the evening. Harry and I had been tucked into bed hours ago, but I crawled out of bed when I heard Sirius get out the alcohol. The upstairs consisted of four bedrooms and three bathrooms. Harry and I shared a bathroom that connected our rooms. Sirius had the master bedroom with a private bathroom and Remus would occasionally crash in one of the other rooms. The old-styled cottage creaked with every harsh wind, so sneaking out of my room was a piece of cake on windy nights.

I heard Sirius sigh quietly. From the hallway, I peeked down the stairs and into the living room where I saw Remus pour each of them a glass of firewhiskey. I hugged my blanket around me, as I sat on the top step and peered through the railing into the living room below. The two friends sat on the couch, Sirius looking over an official-looking parchment and muttering. "Why? Why would she do this?"

"Who can say," Remus murmured, taking a shot. "What are you going to do?"

"What can be done? I'm Lord Black now, now that that bitch died," Sirius grumbled, then snorted. "The family I tried so desperately to escape, and now that title is bonded to me until death. That spiteful bitch."

Remus patted Sirius on the shoulder as Sirius took another shot - that was his four that I had seen. "Is there anything I can do?"

"Not a lot can be done. Want an estate?"

Remus gave Sirius a weary look. "No, thanks."

Sirius winced. "If I leave it to rot, as an official Lord, I'll be charged fees for abandoning a Noble and Ancient home. I can't move the kids there, shit's filled with dark magic."

"Won't Kreacher be able to maintain it?"

"That bastard is too old. I would have to purchase another House Elf to help him, at the very least."

An idea popped into my head. "Paddy? Moony?"

Both adults turned up towards the staircase, and Remus stood up. "Rosie? What are you doing up?"

"I don' sleep good somey-times," I said, intentionally lowering my vocabulary use to not draw suspicion. I squeezed through the bars on the stairs and tumbled into the air. Sirius immediately cast a slow-falling charm on me and then levitated me over to them. He caught me and placed me in his lap.

"We should get you to bed, though."

"But, I ha' an idea," I protested.

The adults chuckled at the idea of a three-year-old having an idea that would be prudent to their predicament.

"Bring Kreacher here," I said.

Sirius shook his head. "He's not someone to have around kids."

"Bring Kreacher here," I repeated stubbornly, "'nother elf clean the old place. It's filled with stuff, right? We migh' nee' some of tha' later."

Sirius grimaced. "I don't know—"

"Paddy, please?"

"He's not right in the head, Rosie," Sirius insisted, his tone softening.

"Just for a little bit? If he's really that bad you can send him away again," I pleaded.

There was a sigh, and an exchange between glances.

"Would it hurt to try?" Remus asked Sirius. "She has a good point—we don't want Kreacher going to the Malfoys, and doing nothing won't help us."

"Fine."

(≖‿‿≖)ノ⌒●~*

The following night

"Kreacher?" I called out, sitting up in my bed.

My bedroom was... well, you could tell Sirius literally just went to a girl's section in a store and bought everything. Surprisingly it wasn't overly pink—apparently Lily hated that color—but there was a lot of pastels. I had shelves lined with children's books, and stuffed animals. My walls were covered in moving pictures of flowers, or meadows, or very cute animals wearing bow ties. My bed cover was checkered pastels.

It looked like a unicorn threw up in here, basically.

Actually—

Since every Christmas as Rosie Sirius had made it a point to get me a stuffed unicorn. I had three so far, and they were all rather soft.

Endearing that he tried so hard, but boy did he miss the mark for my personal preferences.

Oh, well.

Kreacher appeared in my room with a snap, tired yellow eyes glaring hatefully at me. "How can I help the young child?"

"Regulus's locket."

The elf froze, his eyes widening. "What?"

"The locket he told you to destroy—it's very special. It can only be destroyed through basilisk venom, a dementor's kiss, or fiendfyre. Understand?"

Kreacher gaped at me. "Y-Yes."

"Will you be able to destroy it now?" I asked him. "Give me an honest answer."

"Yes," Kreacher said.

"Good. Go do it."

And he was gone.

(≖‿‿≖)ノ⌒●~*

The next time I saw Kreacher, the elf didn't glare quite so hatefully at me. He looked healthier, too. There was a glow to his skin, and he wasn't as hunched down. It boggled my mind that being unable to complete command would be so detrimental to an elf, but that was magic, I supposed.

In between the ages of three to four, as I worked on controlling my magic and researching for my list, I sought Kreacher out again and again. The grizzled elf was gruff, but no longer so discourteous.

And when I reached out with kindness, he did not snuff it away.

It took nine months, two weeks, and three days, but in the end Kreacher began to call me young mistress.

The first thing I asked of him when he did so?

"Kreacher, Paddy hid something of my father's. The Cloak of Invisibility," I told him. "Can you bring it to me when I need it, and put it back without him noticing?"

After all, I had seen Dumbledore return it to Sirius when we moved into our new home. Surely Sirius had kept it.

Kreacher nodded his head, yellow eyes glinting in malicious glee at the thought of deceiving Sirius. "Yes, young mistress, Kreacher can. Kreacher can glamour the hidden spot, as well, so bad master will never knows."

I beamed at him, reaching forward to gently touch the top of his head. "Thank you, Kreacher."

The House Elf smiled crookedly, bursting with inward joy at the simple praise.

Note to self, work on Kreacher's self-esteem, and read up on survivors of long term extensive domestic abuse.

With the cloak down, it was time to go back to line three, which could either be the hardest, or the easiest.

(≖‿‿≖)ノ⌒●~*

Rosie, age four

"Paddy!" I greeted him early the next morning, Harry right behind me and holding onto my hand. "Paddy, we wanna learn to fly!"

Sirius Black lowered his weekly subscription to Quidditch Quest on the dark table where our breakfast sat. Sirius never liked the idea of eating food made by Kreacher, so he learned at a young age how to cook his own meals. Perhaps out of love for James, or in memory of him, Sirius became exceptionally fond of baking. Soufflé pancakes were a regular breakfast item in the household on the good mornings.

I didn't like to talk about the bad mornings. Sirius did his best to raise us, but he had days when he couldn't even bring himself to get out of bed, let alone make food for us. Grief was a terrible, awful, cruel thing, and I understood it well enough to not raise a fuss on those days. I would watch Kreacher make us food, and I would tend to Harry if Remus didn't arrive. I doubted Sirius noticed any of it, and I was glad it had never been brought up. I didn't think I could explain my odd maturity without arousing more suspicion.

"That true?" Sirius asked, looking Harry and I directly in the eye.

"Broom, vroom!" Harry said cheerfully, shuffling behind me in such an adorable fashion.

Sirius stared at us for another minute, and then he let out an elated whoop and swooped us both up, one under each of his arms. "WOOOOOOOOOO! LET'S GO FLY, PUPPIES!"

(≖‿‿≖)ノ⌒●~*

Bucket List Completed:

1. Save Sirius

2. Destroy the locket (recruit Kreacher)

3. Learn to fly

4. Find the cloak of invisibility

ƪ(˘⌣˘)ʃ

See you October 8th!

Answer: Trying all the food.

Question: Who would you wish to be your magical guardian?

Reviews are love!