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It starts with the broom. A Firebolt to be precise, the top-of-the-line racing broom that responds to Harry like it was crafted with him in mind. The grain of wood smooth, the straw never out of place. After each practice and game, Harry is sure to take care of it. He feels he can’t possibly deserve a broomstick so fine.
Once he meets his gifter for the first time, he says so to Sirius, that, “You shouldn’t have spent all that money on me. It was dangerous for you, wasn’t it?”
“It needed to be done,” Sirius replies, waving away Harry’s concerns. “Couldn’t have you using one of the school brooms. I bet they haven’t updated them since I was a student myself.”
Harry can’t disagree, but, “Still.”
“I’m not taking it back, so you’ll have to live with that gorgeous broom,” Sirius says with some amusement.
Harry nods.
“Even worse, I’ll be giving you more gifts now that I can.” Sirius laughs at the heat that suddenly rushes to Harry’s cheeks. “How about this: I’ve missed twelve of your birthdays. You get to ask me for twelve gifts. No matter what the price is, you’ll get them.”
“Can I ask for twelve sugar quills?”
“Only if you want me to buy out all of Honeydukes for you. I won’t be cheap with my presents. I refuse. Only the best for my godson.”
Harry ducks his head, but he can’t hide his smile. No point in it, not when Sirius returns it. They’re all but strangers now, and yet Harry imagines that one day they won’t be. Sirius promised him a home. One day, Harry will find a way to claim that promise. He doesn’t know what a godfather is, what one is supposed to do, but he wants this one in his life.
Twelve gifts. “The Firebolt counts as one of the twelve,” Harry tells him firmly.
“Alright,” Sirius yields. There’s too much cheer in his voice. “Think about the other eleven for me.”
Harry does.
He and Sirius are parted by the whims of fate and the spite of Severus Snape, so there’s quite a lot of time to think. His third year finishes up. The summer is long. The Dursleys haven’t forgiven him for what happened with Aunt Marge and Harry hasn’t forgiven the universe for not being able to live with Sirius.
I want a home. A house, Harry writes to Sirius. One where I can eat when I like and I don’t have to do chores all day and there’s no Dursleys allowed.
These aren’t things that Harry is allowed to say, to wish for. There’s nothing that Sirius can do to fix them. But it’s what Harry wants, so he says it and lets the paper fly away into the night clasped in Hedwig’s claws.
I’m working on it. I promise, Sirius says in reply.
In early August, Harry gets an invitation to stay at Grimmauld Place for the rest of the summer. After Sirius tells him the Fidelius phrase, he shoves a piece of paper into Harry’s hands.
“Here it is: the deed to the place. It took some doing to get it transferred all lawfully. Hope you don’t mind that I named myself steward until your seventeenth. Legal reasons, you know.”
“This is mine?” Harry asks, flabbergasted. He steps onto the front porch.
“You won’t be so thrilled when you step inside,” Sirius warns.
“I can change how it looks?” Harry asks, glancing at Sirius for permission.
“You can knock down every wall and floor. Make it all one room and fly around like it’s a quidditch pitch. It’s yours.”
Harry steps inside.
Sirius is right: he’s less thrilled by the screaming painting and the surly house-elf. His spirits lift again when Sirius tells him the wards are too strong for the ministry to know he’s casting underage magic, so Harry goes to town on the portrait.
It’s a fantastic present. Too much, really, considering he’s putting Sirius out of his own home, but Sirius won’t let him give it back.
“You’ll always have a place with me,” Harry tells him, just so he knows. “No matter where I am.”
“That should be my line to you,” Sirius replies, ruffling his hair.
In the end, Harry does knock down some walls. He and Sirius spend the month re-painting, re-tiling, owl-ordering, and generally making the place livable. By the time September rolls around, Harry is proud to call the place home.
He thinks about it a lot during the hellish Triwizard Tournament. He thinks about the renovations he still has planned, about his long game of winning Kreacher’s affection, about Sirius, who is only a letter away.
When the time rolls around, Harry writes, I could use some dress robes.
Mister Malkin, who is both Madam Malkin’s cousin and her biggest competitor, arrives at Hogwarts and makes a fuss until he’s allowed to see Harry. The poking and prodding is worse than for his school robes; the trunk of clothing that arrives two weeks later is far better. It’s not just dress robes. Harry knew it wouldn’t be when he asked, remembering what Sirius said about Honeydukes. So he only laughs in delight as he throws out Dudley’s castoffs and improperly fitting old Hogwarts robes.
He takes Parvati to the Yule Ball, but it’s not her he thinks about as they spin around the dance floor.
For the first time, Harry makes sure to have a photo taken by Colin: himself in the robes, smiling widely. He sends it to Sirius.
Harry spends a while thinking about his next request. In his defense, he’s quite busy, what with the tournament and Voldemort’s return and the crushing grief of Cedric’s death. It’s hard, for a while.
He spends a month with the Dursleys, the absolute minimum according to Dumbledore, and jumps into Sirius’ arms when his godfather arrives to pick him up.
“I want a pet,” Harry tells him. “Another one. Hedwig is wonderful, but she’s happier in owleries and in the clouds, I want one that will stay with me.”
“You want a companion. Nothing wrong with that. When I was your age, I had a kneazle.” Harry almost asks what happened to her, but manages to stop himself just in time. Sirius must see it in him anyway, and says, “She went to live with your mum and dad for a while—liked having a kid around, I think—and then after, your next door neighbors the Booths took her in. She was an old girl by then, passed away a few years later. I had Mundungus find it out for me. Had to know.”
“I wish I remembered her,” Harry says.
“I have some old photos lying around. Your parents are in them, too.”
It’s a round-about trip to the menagerie, after photos and a few tears and a disguise for Sirius.
Harry settles on a lovely young bearded dragon, who he can even talk to once they figure out some differences in dialect. “It’s okay?”
“Perfect,” Sirius says, and adds, “Would’ve said the same about any animal here, even though I reserve the right to be happy you didn’t choose a snake. Your choice, Harry. Always.”
Harry thinks it will take a while before he asks for his next gift, but it’s later that summer when Harry finds Sirius alone. They’ve got guests here, half the mysterious Order of the Phoenix running around. It’s been a week since Harry has spent time with Sirius alone. He misses it, especially since school is starting again soon.
Sirius steps aside and lets Harry into the room.
It’s not quite private, but Harry doesn’t think Buckbeak will tell on them.
“I want you to tell me what they’re keeping from me,” Harry tells him, not mincing his words. “As a gift.”
Sirius has never said no yet, but at this he hesitates. “It would be a cheap gift. Wouldn’t have to spend a knut.”
Harry isn’t dissuaded. “Maybe it’s expensive in other ways. Emotionally expensive.”
Sirius huffs. “You’re on to something there.” He sighs, sits down on the bed and directs Harry to the armchair. “Well, it’s not like there’s an oath preventing me from doing it, even though Dumbledore would kill me if he knew. You’re sure?”
“I’m sure.”
“It’s a long story. Kreacher, some tea?”
Kreacher grumbles about it, but he does it, especially once Harry gets Sirius to say please and compliment Kreacher’s culinary skills. It’s a work in progress, his relationship with Kreacher, but Harry never wants to be like the Dursleys were with him.
By the time Sirius finishes telling Harry everything Harry needs to know, the sun has long set and Harry’s brain hurts from all the information.
“The gift goes toward the future, too,” Harry says. “If something happens, you’ll tell me?”
“Fine, fine,” Sirius grumbles, but he’s not complaining. “I’ll be your spy in the Order. Everyone knows where my loyalties lie anyway.”
To you is unspoken.
Harry feels too warm.
He wants... He doesn’t know what he wants, but it’s not to leave, so they play a few games of exploding snap before Harry forces himself to leave. He creeps through the halls and lets himself into the room he shares with Ron. When he closes his eyes, it’s not the mysterious prophecy that he’s thinking of.
Sirius is right. Just about everyone knows how much Sirius adores him, how much Harry cares for him in turn.
“You’re spoiling him,” Snape sneers, once.
Harry looks up from his textbook, finding his godfather and his professor at it again, as though arguing in the halls of Grimmauld Place is their favorite hobby.
“So what if I am?”
“All this for precious Potter.”
“I—” Sirius stops, looks toward Harry, who’s not trying to hide his eavesdropping. “You’ve got me there, Snivellus. He’s precious. Do you want some help with that, Harry?”
“Please,” Harry says, and finds that Sirius does remember quite a bit about Charms.
Harry thinks about it a lot, the way that Sirius calls him precious.
Thinks about a lot of things, really.
There’s a lot of time for that once the war truly gets going. Fewer gifts, although Sirius is able to get small ones to him anyway, and less action than Harry would have expected. Just a lot of downtime and stress, and if Harry’s thoughts linger on the good things in his life occasionally, then it’s what he needs to stay sane.
Survive the war for me, Harry thinks and even says, but he doesn’t make it a proper request.
There are some things that even Sirius can’t promise him.
To Harry’s surprise, they both survive it anyway. He manages to fight and claw his way to his sixteenth, seventeenth, eighteenth birthdays. Voldemort is dead two months by his eighteenth, though a part of Harry can still barely believe it.
“You haven’t asked me for anything in a while,” Sirius says, a week after his birthday.
“You gave me half a dozen birthday gifts,” Harry replies with a huff. “Shouldn’t you be satisfied with that?”
“Hardly. Come on, Harry. Make a request of me.” Sirius takes a few steps closer. Harry’s always felt light when Sirius is around, but now it’s worse, better. “What do you want?”
If he’s honest, Harry doesn’t have to think for long. He found something in Grimmauld Place ages ago that he’s wanted, but never asked for. It’s in his pocket now, which maybe makes him a thief.
Harry pulls it out, but can’t bring himself to unclench his fist. “I want this.”
His heart is pounding in his chest.
Sirius carefully pries Harry’s fingers open, finds the ring inside. Before Harry can worry more, Sirius slips the ring onto Harry’s ring finger.
“I’ve never said no to you,” Sirius says. He doesn’t step away. “I won’t start now. You’ve got me as long as you want me.”
“That’s always,” Harry tells him, just to make sure they’re on the same page.
But there’s a ring on his finger and Sirius is leaning in for a kiss, so he’s sure that they are.