Padfoot and his Pup

26. | The Grim, the Boy and the Wardrobe

With an uncharacteristic frown, Sirius held up the shirt and inspected it for a whole ten seconds before tossing the item into the overflowing walnut chest on next to him.

The hour was quite late and any regular, boring person would have been fast asleep by now. Then again, Sirius Black had always prided himself on being neither of those things, so here he was, reorganising his wardrobe.

Besides, sleep was a scarce entity on most nights and anyone would argue that it was better to do something productive than toss and turn until sunrise.

No one had touched his things in over a decade for obvious reasons. When Sirius had moved back in, his new clothes and other items had taken up only a small space in the luxurious walk-in.

He'd been putting off cleaning the place for a while now before suddenly concluding that it was high time he dealt with it.

"You said you were going to bed."

Harry Potter stood at the entrance of the walk-in, looking younger than his twelve years. His perpetually messy dark hair was sticking up in all directions, crease lines ran across his cheek from his pillow as he blinked owlishly at his godfather.

"And you are supposed to be asleep," Sirius countered.

There was a beat before the boy answered. "I was thirsty," Harry yawned, holding up a bottle of water, his other hand coming up to rub the sleep out of his eyes. It was then that he noticed his surroundings: the piles of clothes in one wooden chest, empty hangers, shoes and an odd sock on the carpeted floor.

"Are you... cleaning?" Disbelief and amazement coloured his tone.

"Well, as a wise man once said: procrastination is the grave of opportunity."

"I doubt this is what he meant by that," Harry gestured around the walk-in.

"I promise I'll wrap this up in a bit. Why don't you go back to bed?"

Harry nodded but made no move to go back, still lingering at the entrance.

"What is it?"

"It it... is it okay if I stick around here for a bit? I don't think I can fall asleep for a while." Harry gave a little shrug, his eyes downcast.

Not for the first time, Sirius felt a fresh wave of anger towards the boy's former guardians. He'd ensured they received their just desserts, but that didn't mean he loathed them any less.

"Its more than okay, pup. Besides, I could use some of your stellar organisational skills in here."

Harry rolled his eyes but the tension eased from his shoulders.

Almost two hours later, they had successfully sorted through three shelves of old clothes, handkerchiefs, ties and watches.

"You have more than a dozen watches and yet this is the only one you wear," Harry observed, holding up the vintage Patek Phillipe that Sirius wore nearly all the time. "And by the way, why do you have so many watches?"

Sirius would concede that he did have a certain fondness for that timepiece as compared to the other ones in his admittedly impressive collection.

Rolex, Omega, Audemars Piguet, Constantin... the list was easily worth a few million galleons. Most of them had been gifts from various people while the rest he'd purchased because he had been young, rich and bored.

The one in Harry's hand however was special. "It belonged to my grandfather. He gave it to me when I was nine."  The watch had hung off his wrist back then, the dial ridiculously large. Now, it fit him like a glove.