The night hummed.
London slept restlessly, but Grimmauld Place was wide awake — a living, breathing secret between lamplight and shadow. Its wards whispered like an old song, ancient runes faintly pulsing along the stone facade.
Inside, Cassian sat in the library, a fire crackling low. Sirius was half-asleep in the armchair beside him, his features softened by the flickering light. The house was calm — peaceful, even. For the first time, it didn't feel haunted.
Until the front door knocked.
Once. Twice. Then again, louder.
Cassian frowned, setting down his quill. No one knocked at Number Twelve.
Another thud — and then, faintly through the layers of enchantment, came a voice.
"ROMAN, IT'S NOT OPENING!"
Cassian froze.That was Shya.
He blinked, looked toward Sirius — but his father was already stirring, grey eyes snapping open, alert.
"What was that?" Sirius rasped.
"Trouble," Cassian muttered, pushing to his feet. "Or my friends."
The night air buzzed faintly around Grimmauld place's hidden turn. The three of them stood facing what looked like blank brick, shivering under London's streetlight haze.
Shya was glaring at the space between houses like it personally offended her. "You said it was here!"
"It is here," Roman insisted, running a hand through his hair. "It's between eleven and thirteen. You have to think about it right."
Talora squinted at the empty air. "You mean wishful thinking?"
"More like… directional conviction," Roman said weakly.
Shya groaned. "Okay, so how do we get in? Knock on the void?"
Haneera, nestled in her arms, gave a low rumbling growl. Pando, beside Talora, whined softly — ears twitching, eyes glowing faintly silver.
The air around them shimmered, just barely.
Talora blinked. "Wait. Pando feels— weird."
"Same with Haneera," Shya murmured, tightening her grip as the little black pup's tail began to flicker with faint light. "What are you two doing—"
Before she could finish, the ground under their feet pulsed. The air rippled — not violently, but like water being parted. A soft golden shimmer expanded outward, swallowing them whole.
Roman yelped. "Okay— okay, that's new!"
Light flared — and then, just as suddenly, they stumbled forward, straight through the threshold of Number Twelve.
The door creaked open, admitting them with a long, reluctant sigh.
The hallway felt like a throat.
Black marble floors, dark wood paneling, portraits half-asleep in their frames. The air was thick with old magic, the kind that tasted metallic on the tongue.
Shya adjusted her grip on Haneera, whose little body was warm and limp against her chest. Pando's head lolled sleepily in Talora's arms. Both pups had practically passed out the moment they crossed the threshold, spent from brute-forcing their way through ancient wards.
"Okay," Shya whispered. "We are officially in. Phase one accomplished. Phase two: find Cassian before his house notices we broke in and eats us."
Roman snorted under his breath. "The house definitely noticed."
As if in answer, a distant door creaked. Somewhere upstairs, something thumped softly — old wood shifting under the strain of new life.
Talora's eyes were wide, but steady. "Do we… knock? Call out? What's the etiquette for invading your almost-sort-of best friend's ancestral fortress?"
Shya cupped a hand around her mouth. "Cassian Black," she hissed, not quite shouting, "if you are alive, you have five seconds to appear before I start rattling doors."
Roman winced. "You realize the portraits will wake up if you—"
Too late. A frame to their left muttered, "Who's making all that racket at this hour—"
Footsteps on the stairs.
They all turned at once, three wands half-drawn on instinct, two puppies still flopped and useless in their arms.
Cassian appeared at the curve of the staircase, wand in hand, hair rumpled, wearing a black T-shirt and joggers. He froze.
They froze.
"Hi," he said intelligently.
Shya's eyes narrowed. "You."
Roman threw up his free hand. "Finally."
Talora exhaled like she'd been holding her breath for days. "Thank God."
And then the anger hit.
Shya stormed forward, only barely resisting the urge to stomp. "Do you have any idea how insane it is to disappear for two weeks, ignore every owl, letter, and text, and then just—" she gestured wildly at all of him "—exist?!"
Cassian blinked, a half step down from the landing. "You broke into my house."
"We penetrated your wards," she corrected. "With puppies. That's how worried we were."
Talora hugged Pando closer, expression soft but firm. "We thought something happened. You don't get to vanish like that, Cassian. Not with everything going on."
Roman leaned on the newel post. "Also you owe me hazard pay. Do you know what a gamble it is to throw Muggle-borns at Black family wards?"
Cassian opened his mouth, then shut it again. They were all here. In his house. With their dogs.
Something in his chest unclenched.
"I'm—" he started.
And that was when another voice drifted down the stairs.
"Cassian? What's all the… noise…?"
A man stepped into view at the landing above Cassian — tall, lean, dark hair falling around a familiar face.
Familiar because it was on every wanted poster in the magical world.
Sirius Black.
He wasn't in Azkaban rags now — just an old Black dressing gown tied loosely at the waist, bare feet, hair still a little wild, but his eyes… his eyes were alive. Clearer than any Daily Prophet sketch.
Shya, Talora, and Roman all reacted at once.
Roman swore under his breath, wand hand tightening.
Talora inhaled sharply, hugging Pando so close the pup grunted. "Is that—"
Shya's brain short-circuited. "Holy shit."
Sirius stopped a few stairs up, taking in the scene: three teenagers with wands half-drawn, two exhausted magical pups, his son somewhere between exasperated and resigned.
"Well," he said slowly. "This is… new."
Shya's wand hand twitched. Every poster she'd ever seen, every whispered story — Sirius Black, escaped convict, mass murderer, killed thirteen Muggles with one curse, betrayed the Potters—
Cassian stepped neatly between them.
"It's okay," he said, steady, looking right at her first. "Put your wands down. He's not going to hurt you."
The certainty in his voice knocked the sharp edge off her panic. Shya swallowed, breathing hard, fingers still tight around her wand.
"That's Sirius Black," she whispered. "Like, that Sirius Black. The one from the Prophet. The Muggle news. Azkaban. Thirteen years. That's not— that's not a little thing, Cassian."
Talora's voice was quiet but clear. "Is he… supposed to be here?"
Roman didn't lower his wand, but he shifted, slotting himself subtly between the girls and the stairs. Protective instinct, half-conscious.
Sirius raised both hands, palms open, more amused than offended. "In my defense, this is technically my house."
"That does not make this less terrifying!" Shya snapped.
Cassian turned, keeping one hand slightly out like he could physically hold all the chaos back.
"He's innocent."
Three sets of eyes flicked to him.
Cassian's jaw clenched. "He didn't do what they said. It was Pettigrew. The Ministry locked up the wrong man. My mother died protecting me from the right ones. And no one bothered to fix that."
Silence punched through the hallway.
Sirius watched his son, something like pain and pride twisting together in his expression.
Shya breathed out slowly, the Ravenclaw part of her already shoving feelings aside to run simple math:
Cassian's never lied to us.
Andromeda never called him a traitor.
He looks at his dad like the ground finally showed up under him.
She gritted her teeth, slid her wand back into her pocket.
"Okay," she said. "Then we'll get back to screaming about you instead."
Cassian blinked. "Me?"
"You ghosted us, Cassian," Talora said, her voice shaking with the after-surge of fear and relief. "No letters. No calls. Nothing. We had to drag ourselves through half of hidden London, nearly burn out our dogs on your wards, and Roman had to remember actual etiquette—"
"I didn't remember etiquette," Roman interjected. "I winged it and hoped not to die."
"—just to find out you've been here, in your fancy haunted house, bonding with your very not-dead, very wanted father while we've been wondering if you were dumped in the Thames."
Cassian winced. "That's… a fair summary."
Haneera shifted, gave a tired little huff, then nudged her nose against his chest like she agreed with the girls.
Sirius cleared his throat. "For what it's worth," he said, "most of that was my fault. I asked him not to tell anyone. The fewer people who know I'm here, the safer he is."
Shya's eyes softened for half a second — then narrowed again.
"Okay," she said. "Valid. But we are 'people who need to know.'" She pointed between herself and Talora. "You don't get to take our boy and just keep him."
Talora nodded firmly, Pando's ears flopping. "We would never betray him. Or you, if we understand what's really going on. We're not idiots."
Roman finally lowered his wand with a long sigh. "Also, if the Ministry tries anything, they'll have to go through the Bobs. No offense, sir, but I've seen them on a sugar high. I'm more afraid of them than the Auror Office."
Sirius huffed a surprised laugh. The lines at the corners of his eyes eased. "You have very dramatic friends," he murmured to Cassian.
Cassian looked at them — all three of them, disheveled and angry and worried and standing in his hallway like they belonged there.
"Yeah," he said quietly. "I know."
They migrated to the library the way water finds the lowest point — all tumbling in together, a mess of limbs and overlapping voices.
Someone (Sirius) made tea that tasted aggressively like someone had panicked and poured sugar until they felt safe.
Shya sat cross-legged on the rug with Haneera sprawled across her thighs, fingers absently scratching dark fur.
Talora claimed the corner of a long velvet sofa, Pando tucked against her hip like a small moon. Roman took the arm of an armchair, one leg hanging off the side.
Cassian sat on the floor, back against the sofa between the girls, mug cupped between both hands.
"So," Roman said finally, breaking the hum of the fire. "Just to catalogue the last month of our lives: basilisk, leyline king of the under-dungeons, Hogwarts nearly eaten, Ministry idiots, summer of museums and Disneyland, magical sanctuary, puppies that bend wards—"
"—and now," Shya added, "we're casually harboring the wizarding world's most famous political scapegoat."
Talora took a sip of tea, expression wry. "Feels about right."
Sirius watched them with a strange, quiet fondness. "You're all second-years?"
"Going into third," Talora corrected automatically. "Top of our year for most subjects."
"Except not dying," Shya said dryly. "We nearly failed that one."
Cassian nudged her knee with his. "We passed."
"Barely," she muttered, but she smiled.
Sirius's gaze softened, taking them in — rich Muggle-born girls who breathed chaos, a Nott heir who laughed too loud, his own son sitting in the middle of all of them like he'd always had this.
He looked at Cassian. "You didn't tell me they were like this."
"Like what?" Cassian asked.
Sirius gestured vaguely. "Loud. Bright. Terrifying. Loyal."
Roman grinned. "We're a lot."
"We're worth it," Talora added, serene.
Shya leaned back, head tipping against the sofa. "You're stuck with us now, Black. No more disappearing. If something like this happens again, you tell us."
Cassian's voice was quieter when he answered. "I'm sorry."
Three sets of eyes swung to him.
He didn't squirm away from it. "I didn't know how to explain. I didn't know if telling you would put you in danger. I didn't… I didn't want to drag you into this."
"Too late," Shya said. "You don't get to decide that alone. You're in our lives. That's the deal. When things go to shit, we show up. That's what friendship is."
"It's also what extremely poor impulse control is," Roman muttered, but there was no heat in it.
Talora's voice softened. "We're scared for you, not of you. Or your father." She glanced at Sirius, then back at Cassian. "Next time, give us the chance to choose."
Cassian swallowed. "Okay."
"Okay, you promise," Shya pressed.
He huffed. "I promise."
Talora held out her pinky.
He stared at it. "We're thirteen."
She raised an eyebrow. "Do you want the binding oath version instead?"
"…Pinky's fine," he muttered.
He hooked his finger around hers. Shya slapped her hand on top. Roman sighed like a man resigned to fate and added his.
Sirius watched, and for a heartbeat his eyes went glassy. Olivia would have adored this, he thought. She would have adored them.
Haneera chose that moment to wriggle upright and lick Cassian's cheek.
"Traitor," Shya told the dog fondly.
The night stretched on.
They didn't go into the whole story — not yet. Sirius gave them only the bare bones: Pettigrew. No trial. Escape. Azkaban left mostly in the unsaid space between sentences.
But there was laughter — the kind that slipped out between fear and exhaustion. Little things: Roman trying not to swear in front of someone's dad and failing, Talora calmly asking if the House of Black had any guest rooms that weren't "emotionally cursed," Shya judging Sirius's tea like she'd been born to critique adults.
Haneera and Pando eventually wriggled their way into a soft dog bed near the fire (summoned by Sirius with an offhand, "We always used to spoil the dogs in this family").
At some point, Shya's head slid sideways until it bumped Cassian's shoulder. A little later, Talora's ankles stretched out to rest near Roman's leg. They didn't really notice when the library's night lamps dimmed themselves.
Sirius sat in the armchair for a long while, watching them drift.
Teenagers, sprawled across ancient rugs and antique upholstery like they owned the place. Laughter echoes still caught in the wood. Two small magical puppies snoring softly.
For the first time in years, Number Twelve, Grimmauld Place did not feel like a mausoleum.
It felt like a house waiting for morning.
And upstairs, on a wall that had been empty for decades, a new moving photograph waited to be hung — five children in Mickey ears, two pups, all of them laughing under fake fireworks — a future, quietly insisting on itself.