A/N: This was a drabble idea that sprung up from a conversation with the lovely JasperandGemma. The idea grew a bit, and I have cleaned up the original version posted on Tumblr to share here. Happy New Year!

Sirius Black had been called many things in his life. He had grown up in an affluent home but not a happy one. People had thought of him as privileged, spoiled, petty, pretty, argumentative, damaged and a hundred more things he wouldn't even like to know about. But he had never been labelled lucky. And given his life even before the age of thirty, he couldn't blame anyone. He certainly wouldn't have used that label himself. However, once the war had ended and he was pulled back through the veil, Sirius was beginning to believe in karma, and if the universe owed anyone a debt, it was him.

The one benefit of having weathered such dark times was that when good things started to come into his life, Sirius grabbed onto them with both hands and didn't let go, which was how he ended up with everything he had ever wanted, and so much more.

There were days when Sirius couldn't believe the happiness that he had finally been bestowed. To wake up every day next to his beautiful wife - and most mornings to his young son burrowing in with them - was the most protected dream of his heart realised. They were safe in his new home, far away from the dread of Grimmauld Place or the nightmare of the veil. He was allowed to be happy.

But not this morning. This morning he had woken up alone.

When Sirius opened his eyes, there were no cascading curls in either a black or brown hue. There were no warm limbs thrown about him haphazardly. The other side of the bed was already cold to the touch. Involuntarily Sirius felt fear frisson up his spine; it was the same twinge he got if they were ever out and he was not able to find them, his family.

Ever since he had got married Sirius had a recurring nightmare that he would wake up one day and be alone again, that it had all been a dream and he was still stuck in nothingness, or worse, in Azkaban.

Sirius forced himself to remain calm and practised some of the breathing exercises that Hermione had taught him, focusing on the quiet until he could think clearly. As soon as the panic induced fog lifted he remembered. "The park," he whispered aloud, sagging back against the covers. Bear loved the park.

Absentmindedly, Sirius lifted his hand to the top of his chest and brushed his warm fingers just under his collarbone to feel the spot where one of his more recent tattoos marked his skin. It was only a few tiny dots in comparison to some of his other work, but it was the most precious, and most meaningful by far.

Sirius had had it done as soon as they had decided on a name, he had even managed to drag Hermione along to the tattoo parlour, though he had baulked at the idea of anyone putting a needle to her skin, which had amused her no end. Hermione didn't think much of his idea of a celebration, but she had come along anyway which was just one of the things Sirius loved about her.

For two people that argued as much as they did, there hadn't been a crossed word about that, about their son. They may have agreed on nothing else on earth, but they always did on him. From the moment Hermione had pressed his rough hand to her abdomen and convinced him through a series of choked whispers that she was sure, really, really sure, they had been in complete alignment.

Sirius was quick to learn that pregnancy was a time of choices, decisions had to be made about almost everything, and most were questions that he had never even considered before. He had been determined to take it seriously, and so he had brought himself a baby book as soon as possible to keep up with Hermione, and all of her fears. He told her that when they set their mind to it, there was nothing they could not accomplish, together, and he was right, apart from deciding on a name.

Sirius had understood from his friends that the naming of a child could be difficult, a feeling that was further compounded in his mind by how much import had been placed on it during his lessons as a child. As a Black, he was expected to follow tradition, but that had never been his thing. A constellation name felt almost inappropriate somehow, though it had nagged away at the back of Sirius' mind. He might not have been proud of the family he had come from, but his name meant something to him, he had made it something. At some level, he wanted to pass on part of that legacy to his children.

After months of indecision, Luna intervened. Hermione's dearest friend visited with her own tiny baby in her arms and presented Hermione with a bound stack of 'Constellation Stories'. When Hermione mentioned that she didn't recognise the title, Luna had explained that it was a compendium of the mythological tales her mother, Pandora Lovegood, had told her as a child.

Unsurprisingly, the versions contained within were more colourful than Sirius remembered from his own grey upbringing. Luna had breathed new life into the stories, revitalising them, and giving them a meaning beyond what either of them had known before. Hermione had flicked through with a smile on her face as she told her friend that she could have easily published it, especially with the meticulous illustrations Rolf had included. Luna had sighed. 'They're too precious' she had explained, and Hermione handled the parchment even more reverentially after that.

Hermione fell in love with the tale of Ursa Major, 'The Great-Bear' and a compromise was reached. Bear Granger-Black being the result. Sirius had quietly confided to Hermione that he felt it was something Regulus might have approved of and she had nuzzled under his chin, wrapping her arms around his waist. 'Sky at night for the nursery?' she had whispered, and he had looked to the ceiling and thanked every deity there was that he had her and that she understood.

Harry had thought that the next generation of Marauders being called 'Teddy - Bear' was hilarious, but a boy that named one of his own brood Albus Severus, the poor sod, didn't get a vote.

Sirius rolled over and stretched out his aching limbs. It had been a full moon the night before, and he had dutifully taken his Padfoot form to guard his oldest friend. After hours of roughhousing - that he regularly protested he wasn't getting far too old for - he had crawled into bed amongst his sleeping family just after dawn.

Bear always insisted on sleeping with Hermione when Sirius wasn't there. At nearly four years old, his first bit of magic had been to open the latch on his crib alone. Hermione had been terrified, but as the little man only ever used the advantage to creep in with them, Sirius couldn't see the harm in it.

Sirius glanced over at the clock and was surprised to see it was almost ten; he knew he must have been exhausted if he hadn't woken up when they left. The little man wasn't quiet at the best of times let alone when he was excited.

Sirius was beginning to debate breakfast when he heard a door slam below and a smile lit up his face. Dragging on a pair of cleanish jeans he flew down the stairs in anticipation of a proper good morning, hoping for admonishment from Hermione for 'forgetting' his shirt. He had been married to the woman for five years, and yet he could still get the same scandalised reactions from her as he had enjoyed when they had first started dating. Only a week before she had violently blushed when he had deliberately worn leather trousers that were a little too small for him.

Sirius rubbed his hands together as he followed the familiar sounds of raucousness coming from the kitchen. He opened the door with a broad grin stretching across his mouth until his eyes settled on the scene before him and his easy smile fell away into a vacant expression. Hermione was positioned in front of the stove chatting away to Bear. His son was crawling on the floor, giggling like mad, and petting a dog. A large, black dog.

"Hi love," Hermione greeted over her shoulder. "Look who we found in the park. Poor mite didn't have any tags or anything. I wasn't sure what to do, but Bear was insistent that 'dog' came back with us." She said with a laugh in her voice and a roll of her eyes. She was using that distinctive tone Hermione had when she made an 'only our child' reference though at that moment Sirius didn't feel much like laughing. He couldn't take his eyes off the little tableau on the floor.

Hermione, apparently sensing his sudden deflation turned from her place and looked at him, her head falling to the side sending her windswept hair everywhere. "That's okay isn't it?"

"Of course it is," Sirius quickly replied, finding his voice and stepping forward to ruffle his boy's hair before pushing his hands into the front pockets of his jeans. "It's just... well... you have to be worried about the diseases these strays are carrying."

"Diseases?" Hermione repeated as one of her eyebrows rose.

"Yeah," he answered. "Come to think of it, I don't think Bear should go near him until we know it's safe."

"Until we know it's safe," Hermione repeated again, her mouth pressed into a small smile.

"You know me poppet, safety first and all that," Sirius assured her before sweeping forward to grip his son around the waist and throw him over his shoulder almost deafening himself as Bear screamed in his ear. "Come on little man, off to get washed up; Mummy's nearly got breakfast ready."

Her eyes hadn't even flicked towards his chest, he grumbled to himself.

The next day Sirius woke up alone, again. Once more he heard noises downstairs, and so he dragged himself out of bed and rushed about until he made it to the first-floor corridor and then suddenly stilled. The sounds were more precise now, and if he pricked his ears - a hangover from his animagus form - below the boisterous chuckles, he was sure he could detect the occasional wet splash. Sirius shook his head. Bear's baths were something they did as a family, Hermione and him, always together. At first, the arrangement had been for purely practical reasons; it frequently took both of them to bargain with Bear for him to willingly submit to washing. Then once they had tricked him, not that Hermione called it that, they both needed to be there to make sure he was distracted enough to stay in. But it had long since become one of their things, one of those surface-level trivial things that Hermione taught him how to enjoy. One of those things that healthy families did.

Sirius felt a pang in his chest as he continued down the corridor. Feeling increasingly put out he forcefully pushed the bathroom door open and stood in the doorway trying not to clench his fists. There was a bath in process alright, but it was for the dog.

"What are you doing?" he asked crisply.

Hermione looked up, and Sirius felt his ire crumble entirely. He hated that Hermione always looked so fucking adorable; it was incredibly difficult to stay suitable angry at someone when they had suds layered over the bridge of their perfect, freckled nose.

"Well, you warned us about the diseases," she replied, her eyes far too innocent. "We thought we had better wash him."

"It's a him!" he shouted enraged beyond belief.

"It's a him," Hermione confirmed, as she pulled Bear's sopping wet t-shirt off. The little man might as well have been in the bath given the puddle that was forming on the tiles under his small feet.

"Oh, of course, it bloody is!" Sirius mumbled as he walked back into the corridor.

Sirius left the house for a few hours after that. He decided that voluntary exile was better than lingering in the shadows and not so silently fuming. He chose instead to spend a bit of time on his bike. Sirius didn't get out on it as much anymore, and while he missed it, he didn't have the same longing for freedom that had seemed irrepressible in his youth. Hermione had been cajoled into going out on it a few times, but she still didn't like it much, and she worried whenever he intended to use it for long distances. Sirius supposed that once upon a time that would have irked him. Now the apprehension felt rather lovely.

Of late he had been spending most of his free time customising a toy version of his beloved machine. Hermione had finally agreed that their son could have one, though she had made Sirius promise he would wait until Bear was five.

As he soared through the air, Sirius let the wind on his face soothe his growing irritation with the sad-eyed interloper currently weaselling its smelly way into his house, and into his family.

When he finally retreated home, Sirius went into the kitchen to make lunch and found Bear sitting on Hermione's lap occupied with paints that he was splashing around with the kind of careless purpose you only see within a toddler. Blessedly, there was no dog in sight.

"Daddy, help us!" Bear called, and he stretched out his little paint-covered fingers towards him as he stepped past the table.

Sirius dropped a kiss amongst his dark curls before brushing his mouth against Hermione's paint-splattered temple. "What are you doing little man?"

"We making signs for dog," Bear responded with a broad, proud grin, and Sirius felt the hours of relaxation seeping from his skin as he stiffened. He looked down at the parchment in front of them where an erratic poster was taking shape. 'LOST DOG' was printed in shaky letters at the top with Hermione's pencil guides visible underneath. There was even a picture in the middle with the blasted animal's tongue hanging out.

"Where did you get the picture from?" he asked icily trying to resist the urge to crumple the thing into a tiny ball. Not that he would have done so, he knew he would upset his boy and even if that wasn't enough of a deterrent, Hermione would hex him into oblivion if he even looked to be thinking about it.

His wife looked at him curiously, in the way she usually did when he had said something she perceived to be idiotic. "We had to take one. Where else would we have got it from?"

Sirius picked up a pasty that had been left on the side and decided to beat yet another hasty retreat. "One for the family album," he muttered before stomping out into the garden. Before the door closed, he was sure he could hear Hermione laugh.

"Padfoot you're acting like there's another man in your house."

Sirius levelled a withering glare at his friend. He had asked Remus out for a drink for moral support, and he was willfully refusing to see his point. That dog was an intruder, a wet-nosed trespasser, a furry usurper that was coming in and taking all of his family's attention from right under Sirius' nose.

"For all I know there is," he muttered petulantly, and when Remus rolled his eyes for the third time in half an hour, Sirius felt compelled to defend himself. "It could be another animagus!" he all but roared, slamming his tumbler back onto the bar.

Remus raised his eyebrows. "Well, it's not, is it? I'm pretty sure the wards on your house would have detected that."

Fuck, Sirius thought. He hadn't really believed that there was an actual, human bloke in the house but Moony had made an excellent point. It looked as if he wouldn't be able to hide behind the 'possible animagus' thing if Hermione asked why he was mopping.

"Fine, but she said it was a he," he protested, not sure why that bit even bothered him. He was reasonably sure he would have been equally put out with a bitch in the house.

"It's a dog Padfoot," Remus sighed rubbing his temples and looking almost as old as he had during the second war.

"Well, what would you do if you came home to find another wolf being coddled by Dora and Teddy," he replied smugly, confident of his winning point. Got you on the ropes now!

Remus laid his head on the table top. "I'm not even going to dignify that with a response. Drink up, as everything is going upside down at the moment maybe it will render you coherent."

Sirius stumbled through the floo later that night, not nearly as drunk as he would have liked. He stopped in the living room as he registered that it was empty and the house was silent. A glance at the clock as he walked through the hall revealed it to be only just after nine and Hermione usually let Bear stay up when he went for his fortnightly night out with Remus.

Knowing the bedrooms would probably be empty, Sirius walked into the library, and as soon as he popped his head around the door, he spotted the telltale dark brown curls pooling over the cushions at the end of the sofa. As he walked closer, he watched the flames from the dying fire illuminate the soft angles of Hermione's delicate face. She was fast asleep with Bear cuddled up next to her. Bear's hair was in a glorious tangle, and his little grey motorbike pyjamas were riding up on one leg. Sirius tried to enjoy the sound of the rhythmic breathing, as their chests rose and fell together but the vision was ruined when he heard a faint grunt from the other end of the sofa.

Sirius couldn't believe it, there was the fucking dog again, asleep in his fucking place. He scowled at the sight, just about holding back the growl in his chest. Reaching forward he picked up his son, pulling him against his torso and securing his arm around him as he cuddled into his chest. His little nose, Hermione's nose, snuffled and Sirius soothed him, gently shushing him back to sleep as he yawned.

When they made it into Bear's room, Sirius flicked on the nightlight - a lamp with a tiny otter and large dog running around the shade - as he dropped him onto his constellation bedspread. Pausing to push his hair out of his face he leant down and pressed a kiss to his soft forehead before rising and tiptoeing out. When he made it back downstairs, Hermione had shifted and her brow was now puckered into a frown almost as if she knew Bear wasn't there, even in sleep.

"Love," he whispered, before kneeling in front of the sofa. "You can't sleep here."

Hermione stirred and her eyes blinked drowsily. "Where is…" noticing her son's absence she sat up abruptly and Sirius reached forward to put his hands on her shoulders comfortingly. She was better since the war, but the reflexes never really left, he knew that himself.

"I've put him to bed," he softly reassured and then moved to sit on the sofa himself and pulled her onto his lap.

"What's wrong?" she asked a few moments later, and Sirius sighed. It was a sound that all husbands would have recognised — the sound of being found out. Despite Hermione's steadfast loathing for Divination, the woman could have been a fucking oracle.

"Love, it's a dog," he admitted resentfully.

"Yes, Sirius I'm aware what the animal I brought home is commonly referred to as," she responded dryly, and his hand shot to her hip to pinch her softly in rebuke.

"A black dog," he emphasised with an exasperated whine. "And Bear just seems to love him! He can't stop himself from going loopy even when it's just sat there doing fuck all."

Hermione shifted away from him, and Sirius made a small growl of protest, which she ignored as she arched to click her back. "Not as much as he loves Snuffles," she replied confidently.

"You sure about that? Snuffles is also a black dog."

"But a black dog that is also his dad. Who he hero worships."

"He does?"

Hermione yawned and leant back against him to burrow against his neck. "You know he does," she replied, her words breathing against his shoulder. "You were a Marauder." He sniffed loudly. "Fine! Are a Marauder."

"Thank you," he muttered petulantly.

Hermione sat up again, this time placing both of her hands on his cheeks. "You have tattoos, and Molly is always angry at you, you broke out of Azkaban, you came back from the dead… Sirius, a lost puppy, it isn't going to compete with that. It couldn't."

Sirius sagged against the seat, and his hand drifted up to rub circles on Hermione's cheek that was still gloriously warm from the fire. "And you?" he asked after a moment.

Hermione's head fell to the side as she regarded him, and the change in position had an incredible effect on her curls, which in turn caused a bit of reaction in Sirius' groin area. "I'm not sure I can replace my husband with a puppy, not that I've ever truly given it much thought."

"Am I being stupid?" he asked as he sensed her slight irritation.

"Yes," she responded but she nuzzled against his jaw, and he felt the sensation travel down his spine.

"But you're not angry?" He hedged.

"No, it's quite endearing really. Who knew you were so possessive over your territory."

"Witch," he huffed.

Hermione smirked at him. "And in any case, you don't need to worry anymore. We had an answer to the posters today."

"Oh?"

"Yep" she replied popping the 'p' in that way that she knew, she just fucking knew, always got to him. "That's why he was asleep in here; we're taking him back tomorrow."

Sirius tried not to let his unbridled delight show on his face. However, the whoop of ecstasy he released accompanied by his fist in the air might have given the game away.

Hermione rolled her eyes. "I love you, Sirius Black, even though you are a ridiculous man, and sometimes dog."

"Best dog," he challenged raising his eyebrows expectantly.

"Sirius…" she whined looking put out.

"Say it, Hermione, or else how will I know?" he asked in an innocent tone that they both knew he had absolutely no business employing.

Hermione looked up at the ceiling as if questioning every major life decision that had brought her to this point. "Sirius Black, I love you, and you are… The. Best. Dog," she finished through gritted teeth.

He kissed her then, forcing his lips against hers until she stopped feigning disinterested and melted against him. "Why thank you for the unsolicited compliment, Hermione," he teased, and he smiled as she fought to keep her mouth set in a firm line.

Sirius pushed some of her unruly curls off her face and kissed the side of her neck, just below her ear. "I love you too, Mrs Black. Now come up to bed. I'm too old for things to go any further while we're still on this sofa."

"And how do you know they are going to go any further?" Hermione replied primly, and Sirius laughed.

"My years of experience."

Hermione tried to protest, but Sirius cut her off by standing and pulling her up into his arms. He took one last look at the dog, still collapsed on the sofa, and just stopped himself from poking out his tongue. It was best not to run the risk of straining the muscle if he played his cards right he was definitely going to need it later.