Carrying Harry at arms length, as if he were diseased, into his bedroom, Sirius placed him on the changing table. Taped to its side was a note in Lily's familiar handwriting, explaining how to change a diaper. Thank you, Lily, he silently prayed as he read the instructions.
Removing Harry's blue jumper, he opened the diaper and nearly passed out. "Sweet, merciful Merlin!" he murmured, leaning against the changing table for support, grasping his chest and breathing heavily. He had battled with teachers, classmates, and ol' Snivellus, but this, he thought, was the worst by far.
As Harry cooed, an idea popped into Sirius' head. Reaching to his robe, he pulled out his wand, aiming it directly at the soiled diaper. "Deletrius!" he shouted. Nothing happened. "Scourgify!" The spell only partially worked and most of the mess still remained. Sirius was starting to grow impatient. He could only hold his breath for so long without passing out. He realized that he was going to have to do this the good ole Muggle way. Grabbing the soiled diaper between his fingers, he moved it out from under Harry, quickly tossed it into the garbage, and pointed his wand at it, yelling "Incendio!"
A small blaze shot up from the trash, signaling that the diaper was now nothing more than ashes. Diaper... zero, Black... one, he thought smugly as he turned to face Harry again.
After gently cleaning Harry off, he turned to start putting things back where they belonged when a delightful squeal from Harry startled him. Turning quickly, he saw that Harry had discovered a bottle of wizards' shampoo and was downing it eagerly, a grin on his happy face. "No!" yelped Sirius, bounding forward to jerk the bottle from baby Harry's hands and setting it aside.
Harry, shocked from such quick movements and his face holding the dawning comprehension of someone who had just had something taken from them, turned his large green eyes toward Sirius. His bottom lip trembled and he slowly began to wail. "Shh...sh...shhh," Sirius said quickly, trying to calm the distressed baby. He picked him up and bounced him gently until he began to quietly hiccup, large purple bubbles issuing from his mouth.
As soon as little Harry was no longer crying and only hiccuping an alarming amount of bubbles, Sirius picked up the shampoo bottle from the floor to see if it was dangerous when indigested. Wizards' shampoo, he discovered, wasn't quite the same as a Muggles'. Although most wizards did use Muggle shampoo, some preferred magical shampoo that could make the hair stay cleaner longer. And when swallowed, he read, only causes hiccups, bubbles, and maybe a bit of a stomachache. But apparently Harry wasn't suffering from a stomachache, because he had gone back to giggling and cooing whenever one of those big purple bubbles came from his mouth.
"You've got to be the happiest kid I've ever seen," said Sirius, shaking his head. "But you sure can cause trouble! You get that from your father, I suppose. Great prankster, he is! If only you could have seen some of the things he did at school..."
He wondered why on earth he was talking to Harry...after all, he really didn't understand any of what he was saying. Harry only goggled at him with those big green eyes.
Soon, Sirius and Harry found themselves in the living room, watching the jellyvision -- as Sirius called it -- and lying, relaxed, on the couch. The person on the television was trying to be a comedian, but Sirius only glared at him.
"What a loser," whispered Sirius, shaking his head with disappointment and holding out his hand with his thumb pointing down. "Booo..." Little Harry was leaning against him, sound asleep. Sirius was quickly bored with the man on the television, and was ecstatic when it finally went off (Sirius didn't know how to change channels) and began to watch a movie, but then he felt his eyes get heavy.
Sirius had drifted off, an arm around baby Harry, who was clutching the Animagus' index finger in his little hand.
And for about thirty minutes, a peaceful silence fell over the household.
Sirius rolled over to his side and snorted. Suddenly, he awoke with a start as he rolled onto something soft and lumpy. Fearing he may have accidently rolled onto Harry, he leapt off the couch and looked around, his heart beating like a hammer.
Harry, though, wasn't on the couch, in fact, he was no where to be found. "Harry?!" he called out nervously, though he realized that Harry couldn't answer so calling him would be useless.
Sirius dashed into the kitchen, but no Harry. He frantically ran into the bathroom and still, no Harry. Anxiety filled him as thoughts of what could have happened to him. Lily is going to KILL me! he thought. After he checked all
of downstairs, Sirius sat down on the couch again and tried to think of where a little baby could have gone. Surely he wouldn't have gone upstairs, it would simply be too much for Harry to climb the steps. As he sat there, a flash of pink light beamed out from the hallway. Curious, he got up and went to check it out.
"Aha!" Sirius exclaimed as he found Harry sitting on the floor next to the closet with Sirius' wand in hand.
"Blaablu," giggled Harry as another pink shot emitted from Sirius' wand. "No!" he exclaimed. "Wand is not for baby to play with," he scolded softly. But Harry looked up into Sirius' brown eyes, an innocent look on his face. "Blaablu!"
He gently pried the wand away from Harry's little fingers and stuffed it into his back pocket. "What do you say we go to bed now?" he asked, picking up the little boy. Harry smiled at him, and before Sirius could react, he spit up on him for the third time that day. "You know, I think you enjoy doing that WAY too much!"
Upon cleaning his robes again, he took Harry into his room and changed him from his blue jumper into a pair of green pajamas.
As Sirius gently lay Harry down into his crib, he looked up at Sirius, his green eyes getting smaller... and smaller... until Harry was fast asleep. Sirius tip-toed out of the room and into the guest bedroom that James and Lily had set up for him.
Yawning, Sirius glanced at the clock (which read 9:45pm) and sat down on the bed. No sooner had he done so, he too, was fast asleep. He slowly drifted away into a marvelous dream. He, James, Remus, and Peter were back at Hogwarts, and they were pelting Severus Snape with rotten food. Or more likey, he and James were the ones doing the pelting, Remus and Peter were refereeing and stocking up the crate with an endless supply of rotten food.
"What's wrong, Snivellus?" taunted Sirius. "Can't take it?"
James laughed. "Oh, look! Snivelly is starting to snivel!"
"I AM NOT SNIVELING!" Snape shouted.
"Eat fruit, Snivelly!" Sirius yelled, throwing a particularly rotten watermelon at Snape's head. The fruit sailed in slow motion as it traveled toward Severus, but the fruit never made it to his head. Instead, a long "WAAAHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!" sounded.
Sirius sat bolt upright in his bed, the living daylights having been nearly scared out of him. "What the bloody hell was that?" he grumbled. As Harry screamed again, he remembered that he was in James and Lily's house watching his godson and not pelting his mortal enemy with rotten fruit. Just my luck, he thought as he looked at the clock through sleepy eyes. 3:30 A.M., he sighed as he slowly got up and stumbled his way out of his bedroom. By Merlin, he thought, I'm staggering more now than when James and I had that all night binge at the Leaky Cauldron.
Finding his way around in the dark, he managed to get into Harry's room where the screams seemed louder than before.
"It's okay," Sirius mumbled sleepily, but Harry wouldn't stop crying. Sirius tried racking his brain as to why he would be crying. "What's wrong? Please tell me you don't need your diaper changed..." As fate would have it, taped to the crib was a note that he hadn't seen before. "If Harry cries during the night, then he is most likey hungry," intoned Sirius as he read the note. "Oookay," he said, lifting Harry out of the crib. "Let's go make you something to eat so I can go back to sleep."
Taking Harry downstairs and into the kitchen, he opened one of the cabinets and found a shelf of baby bottles. He took one down and filled it with the formula he found sitting in the fridge. Taped to the formula was another one of Lily's infamous notes on how to feed Harry. Lily and her notes, Sirius thought, a smile creeping onto his face. Following the instructions, he fed Harry, who was cradled in his arms, sucking on the bottle. This isn't so bad. When Harry finished his bottle, Sirius turned him over to burp him. "Blaaaaaaah!" Sirius scruched up his face. He knew he should have seen that one coming. He turned to look at his shoulder and sighed. Harry had spit up on him for the fourth time that day.