And even though there was a voice in his head telling him to leave. 

And telling him that this, showing up unannounced and sweaty, was, perhaps, not the correct course of action, he swallowed it down. Because there was a chance this could be right. This could be it.

He had left his mirror at home in his bedside table on purpose, not wanting a call from his Dad to disrupt any of his plans, but he ignored those thoughts too. The ones where his Dad had found his bedroom empty and his mirror put away and then grounded him until he was a thousand years old for sneaking out and making a trip across London.

Harry drowned out the lecture already playing in his head with a knock on the door in front of him. 

Not quite sure what to expect, dancing on the balls of his feet to see if the door would even open. It took several moments, but it did.

Harry stood face to face with legendary Quidditch player, James Potter, all thoughts of a lecture quickly vanishing in favor of this. He had only ever seen him in magazines and of course, Quidditch game from afar. But it seemed silly, to expect James Potter to wear his Quidditch uniform around his own home. Of course he wouldn’t be in his uniform. And instead, a t-shirt and a pair of sweatpants, square glasses on his face and his hair stuck up at the back of his head.

The same way Harry’s did.

They had the same jaw shape too, though James’s had stubble on it, which filled Harry with some hope that maybe one day he’d be able to grow some semblance of a beard. He watched as James’s mouth fell slightly open, staring at Harry, hazel eyes scanning him from head to toe. Horrified or amazed at the eerie, uncanny resemblance. 

Harry cleared his throat and attempted to stand up straight, “Uh…hi. Hello. I know it’s late. You probably don’t get visitors, or I don’t know, maybe you do. But my names Harry. I’m a big fan. I play Quidditch too! I’m a seeker! At Hogwarts! So I’m a fan, but I think you also…might be my Dad.” 

On the other side of the door, James didn’t say anything, eyebrows slowly coming together in further confusion. Or concern. Harry couldn’t tell, but he could tell the longer James stared at him, the more he realized what a terrible, awful, hare-brained idea this had been.

The voice in his head was absolutely right.

But he had come all this way.

And he wasn’t going to go down without some kind of effort.

“Everyone at school says I look just like you,” Harry added, sticking his chin out a little, as if that tiny bit of information would help the situation. “And we do! You wear glasses! I wear glasses! And my hair, it's...like yours. Do you have a mole on your arse too?”

James slowly closed his eyes, mouth finally closing and twisting to fight a smile, “I don’t have a mole on my arse,” he said.

“So just the glasses then,” Harry nodded, “I’m adopted. Everyone’s said I look like you for ages. Did you give a baby up for adoption? I was adopted when I was a baby.”

James didn’t say anything but took a step outside of his door threshold, down the small drive, looking past Harry and around the bushes. 

“Did you lose something?” Harry asked.

“No, I’m looking to see where the rest of your friends are, or the cameras or your parents, because a kid just showed up at my door at nearly midnight and--”

“I’m almost fifteen, I’m not a kid.”

“You’re a kid,” James repeated, bending down to look underneath a shrub before turning back around to face Harry. “Are you alone?”

“Yes?”

“For Merlin’s sake…” James muttered walking past Harry and into his home once more. Harry half expected James to shut the door in  his face but instead James looked back at him expectantly, “Well? Come on in, kid.”

Harry smiled, practically skipping into James’s home, nervous heart beat quickly replaced with excited flutters because he was in James Potters home. He had seen it in a Quidditch magazine before, the inside of James’s home, and Harry pulled out the pictures, beggining his Dad to please change their kitchen table because James’s was built for athletes and if he wanted to be any good at Quidditch, he should try to do as much as he can.

His Dad didn’t buy a new kitchen table. And when Gryffindor won the Quidditch cup the second year in a row, his Dad had made a point to remind him that he didn’t need to be James Potter, and just Harry was more than enough.

“Take your shoes--” James started to say, but noticed Harry was already in process of untying his dirty trainers to leave them by the door. “Thanks.”

“You said in your Quidditch mag interview you were a shoes off household,” Harry told him excitedly, nearly stumbling over as he pulled off one of his shoes, standing on one leg, “I am too. Well…my house is, where I live. My Dad… the Dad I live with, not you, if you are my Dad, he says it's rude to leave your shoes on.”

“Mmm,” James hummed, regarding Harry closely. Harry kept grinning, unable to contain his excitement, head looking around at everything in sight. 

“Do you have your cups here?” Harry asked, “Do you really have a whole room for all your cups and awards and stuff?”

James couldn’t help but laugh, reaching a hand up to mess up the hair at the back of his neck, “Not everything they put in there is true. They’re all at the Tornado’s training pitch, they only brought them to my house for the article.”

Harry’s tried to keep his face from falling, not wanting to let The James Potter know how badly he wanted to see the cups and his plaques up close. James had led them both into a living area, couches and chairs mismatched with brightly colored pillows, looking very different thant Harry’s living room, though exactly like he had imagined it. There was even a crocheted blanket folded on the armrest of the couch. If Harry remembered correctly, all handmade by James’s mother before she passed. James gestured for Harry to have a seat on the couch. 

“Do you--” Harry started, looking around at the pictures on the walls and the mantle. Unable to sit still or stop his mind from racing with questions.

“Look, kid--”

“My names Harry.”

“Harry,” James paused, taking in the new piece of information, “I’m not sure why you’re here.”

“I told you, I think you might be my Dad. I’m adopted.”

“Do you want…an autograph?”

“Really? That’d be brilliant, no one would--”

“Most kids who want an autograph don’t show up at my doorstep.”

“Well, no, that's not…I’m not here for an autograph.”

“So what is it? Do you…want money?”

Harry snorted, “I don’t need your money. I have plenty.”

“Do your parents know your here?”

“...Not exactly.” 

“Are you unhappy at your home? Is that what this is? Do you need to--"

Harry’s head immediately started shaking back and forth, almost laughing at the suggestion James had made, “No! No. Merlin, no. My Dad is brilliant. He’s the best! He takes me to Quidditch games loads, and I have a really nice house and space to fly and, he’s great.” James let out a breath and pinched the bridge of his nose behind his glasses, “I don’t…want anything from you. And I already have a Dad, so I don’t actually need one. If that's what you think I'm here for. I was just curious and thought maybe and if it wasn’t true and you didn’t give a baby up for adoption fifteen years ago then…maybe we do just look alike! Which is pretty cool. For me anyway. But…if you were…I dunno, if you’re my Dad…I wanted to meet you, and I thought you might…want to meet me too?”

“I can’t let you stay here, Harry.”

"Can you at least answer--"

"I have to get you home."

“But--”

"Your parents are probably worried sick and I can't let you stay here longer than you've already been gone."

Harry scowled, crossing his arms over his chest and slumping into the couch, “You’re being very uncool for a Quidditch player.”

“You can tell Witch Weekly all about it,” James told him. 

“Can I still get an autograph?”

“I’ll get you a jersey in exchange for your address. I'll sign it and then we are out of here. Deal?”

“Deal,” Harry grinned, sitting up again. “Number 12 Grimmauld Place.” And for a reason Harry didn’t quite understand, James Potters mouth fell open for the second time that evening.

--

It was supposed to be a quiet night. It was a by week. No games. Practice all week and Coach Fletscher had let them leave the pitch early. Ordinarily, James might have gone out with his teammates--it was Friday after all-- but something had compelled him to call it an early night. He was looking forward to an evening at home, by himself. A nice dinner. The wireless playing the Falcons-Canons game, while he made a pot of tea. All had gone according to plan until there was a knock on his door, and James answered it. In hindsight, terrible idea. James had been in the public eye long enough to know better and not answer doors after certain hours. But he did, and was met with none other than a younger version of himself.

The same glasses.

The same hair, sticking up at the back and curls falling over his ears. James could remember being a teenager and wanting to keep it long like the kid in front of him.

Do you have a mole on your arse?

James had said no.

But he did. On his left cheek. And he wasn’t about to ask this strange kid to pull down his pants to compare. He could see the headlines in his mind already, even as he welcome the kid into his home. 

It was supposed to be a quiet night.And getting the kid home was supposed to be a noble and responsible duty. 

But now James was in front of a doorstep that wasn’t quite unfamiliar. He remembered, he knew it from mistakes of years past. The welcome mat had been swapped out. The door had been painted a bright teal and the lawn was well maintained, white rose bushes lining the walkway. The kid, Harry, stood slumped at his side, head hanging even with the blue, signed, jersey hanging around his elbow.

“Are you sure?” Harry asked looking up at James as they stood in front of the door, “Isn’t this more trouble for you?”

“Sorry,” James shrugged, “Had to make sure you got home safe.”

“I’m here though! Can’t you just--”

“I’ll tell you this,” James said, “If I ever snuck out, after my curfew, and went to a strangers home at your age,” but James paused, thinking momentarily about his own parents, knowing that he would’ve never wanted to sneak out in the first place. His parents were his best friends. “Actually, I would’ve never had the nerve to leave in the first place, but if I did, my mother wouldn’t have let me out of her sight until I was thirty. I owe it to...I need to make sure you get in there."

Harry laughed a little, scuffing his shoe on the ground, and sighing, “Fine.” Harry hesitated only a few moments more before reaching forward and clicking the hinge to the door handle. The house was protected by magic, recognizing Harry’s signature immediately, and allow him to enter through the front door. 

Number 12 Grimmauld Place.

James would’ve recognized the black dragon hide boots and oxfords by the front door anywhere. Any time. Any space. It could’ve been at a fancy ministry gala, the shoes piled miles high and James would’ve been able to pick them out. 

The door shut behind them and before Harry could even say a word, footsteps were running down the hall.

“Harry, I swear on Merlin’s Beard if that is not you, I am going to--”

“It’s me, it’s me. Don’t call the aurors or whatever you were going to do,” Harry said plainly, holding his arms up in surrender as Sirius Black came into view, the end of his sentence cut off. 

James hadn’t seen Sirius since the night before his wedding.

James had actively avoided circles where Sirius Black might have been. Gringotts. St. Mungos. Diagon Alley. It was half the reason he became a Quidditch player, deciding that was the safest bet to stay far, far, far away from the man who had nearly ended his relationship (though it turns out James didn’t need anyones help to do that) and was the subject of every day-dream and night dream James ever had back in school. He was the chip on his shoulder. The thorn in his side. 

James had done an excellent job of building a life without giving Sirius a second thought.

Until this quiet night turned to dust and Sirius was in front of him, dark curls pulled back away from his face in a knot, except for one that fell across his eyebrows. 

Older.

Somehow more handsome than he had been all those years ago. 

James watched as Sirius pulled Harry into a fierce hug, hand at the back of Harry’s head, pulling him into his chest. 

“I’m fine,” Harry said, muffled by Sirius’s jacket. Sirius was fully dressed in muggle clothing, likely in preparation of starting a neighborhood search for his missing teenager.

“For now,” Sirius responded quickly, grey eyes fixed on James. 

His insides squirmed under the scrutiny.

But he was nearly thirty five. He wasn’t going to let a school-yard…crush turned lover turned Merlin knows set him off-kilter after all these years.

“James Potter,” Sirius said plainly, the corners of his mouth turning upward in a half smirk, while still holding Harry against his chest. 

“James signed a jersey for me, isn’t that cool?”

“Well, I’m certainly glad your little excursion led to something cool, Haz, because that will probably be the last cool moment of your summer. Any final wishes?”

Harry pulled away from Sirius’s chest, and turned to look back at James, “Do you have any extra tickets to next weeks game that you can--” James laughed as Harry’s sentence was cut off by Sirius’s hand coming over his mouth.

“I apologize for my very rude child, I don’t know who raised him,” Sirius said, keeping his hand over Harry’s mouth and pulling him closer to his chest again with his other arm.

It was strange.

It was…comforting.

To see Sirius Black with the kid that could’ve been his. To see Harry not in a hurry to leave Sirius’s embrace. How comfortable his kid was speaking and joking with his parent without a second thought. Entering a house after sneaking out without fear.

“We’ll…it seems to me, you might’ve.”

“Got me there.”