All Hail the Dark Lord, Or Something Idiotic Like That

The Talk pt4

A/N: Not my story! Original available on ao3

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Harry sighed and moved Sephie off his lap to pull his new wand out of the holster on his leg. Sephie stretched really big before wandering over to Sirius to paw at his pants leg. "Go ahead, pick her up," Harry waved at the cat. "Maybe holding her will calm you down when I do what I'm about to do."

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"You're scaring me, Harry," Sirius didn't pick up the cat who shook herself and just plopped down on the rug in a bit of a huff.

Harry cast a few auror-grade wards at the door to the sitting room, followed by a ward he really shouldn't (legally) know but which Percy had taught him. "Merlin...you aren't fifteen, are you?" Sirius gasped in shock, his eyes wide and his breaths coming short. He looked very close to losing it.

"I just cast a few wards. I haven't even removed my glamour yet. Are you going to be ok with all this? Remember, obliviate is still an option. We can just go back to how things were half an hour ago," he offered, his wand pausing before he removed the glamour.

Sirius held up a hand to stop him and visibly seemed to force himself to calm down. "You're wearing some kind of glamour. That's why you don't look fifteen? How do you even know a glamour that strong? I didn't know one existed! Merlin, Moody has been around you for a week now!"

"Let's take a minute," Harry put his wand down on his lap and mimed deep breaths for the man. "Just breathe, Siri. Everything's fine. I'm only a bit older than you think. As for the glamour, my partner was an unspeakable before we came back in time. One of his coworkers in the future developed it, so no, it doesn't exist yet."

Sirius nodded and was clearly still trying to calm himself and take come deep breaths. "How old are you? I just want to prepare myself before seeing it, you know."

Harry did actually understand. Hearing about it and seeing it were very different things. "I'm twenty-seven, so still younger than you. I should warn you that I do look very different than now though, and it's more than just my age. I've gotten into a bit of body modification over the years...nothing super drastic, but well...you'll see."

Sirius shook his head and closed his eyes. He seemed to be spiraling into a dark place. "My pup is twenty-seven...he's all grown up and I missed it...was I at least a better godfather to you in the future? Was I ever able to be there for you?"

Harry frowned and wrinkled his nose in thought. "I really don't want to tell you a whole lot about the future all at once. I think it'll be best to just slowly slip things in. Like now, just get used to me being back in time and being a little older, then we can slowly add events and other revelations."

The animagus opened his eyes and gave a short bark of a laugh. "Right, so I'm definitely dead," he chuckled wryly. "Great...I hope I at least died epically in a blaze of glory. You wouldn't dance around something as simple as how I disapproved of you dyeing your hair or took you to get your first tattoo or something like that if I were still alive when you decided to come back in time and...what did you call it? Fuck up the timeline? Merlin, if I were alive, I'd have come with you. That was a very marauder move at the very least."

Harry was extremely impressed. Sirius was smarter than he'd given the man credit for over the years since he'd last seen him. "Well, er...yeah, it was actually a pretty epic death overall. You saved my life, so I'd call it a blaze of glory at least."

Sirius nodded in agreement. "It was a good death then. The way I'd want to go...ok...I think I'm calm enough now. Take off the glamour and give me a minute to freak out again."

Harry slowly picked up his wand again and waved it over himself, removing his glamour. Sirius took a sharp breath in and looked very close to passing out. "Er...what do you think? Too many piercings?" Harry tried to joke as he nervously fiddled with the end of his braid, something he couldn't do when he had his glamour on.

Sirius didn't seem to be able to process anything at the moment. He just stared until he slowly started to nod absently. "Right, so...I can still see you, around the eyes...it's still you...it's still you..." he tried to reassure himself.

"Yeah, Siri, it's still me," Harry assured him with a little smile. "I'm just a bit older."

"And got into runes at some point," Sirius raised an eyebrow at the lines of different magic runes up Harry's neck and around his arms.

Harry shrugged. "They have purposes. Mostly, they help with my focus, some chronic pain from things that have happened to me over the years, some are to help with memory, and various other things. I have one for you too," he pulled up his shirt to show the grim, stag, and wolf on his ribcage.

Sirius did actually smile at that and Harry let out a breath of relief. "That's really well done, Pup. The stag looks almost exactly like Prongs."

Harry fixed his shirt and waved his wand again to reapply the glamour. "How about we call it there, Siri? I don't want to overload you. You should take some time to get used to all this."

"Wait, do you and your boyfr...wait, you've been calling him your partner, this is more serious than just a new relationship isn't it?" Sirius frowned at that new revelation.

"Er...well, we haven't really felt the need to define anything," he shrugged. "But yeah, we're really serious. He's it for me. I wouldn't be as arguably sane as I am without him. I love him."