2/6

They were trying to pull the curtains back over the painting that sat, pride of place, in the foyer. Evidently the painting was enchanted or cursed and would scream profanity at anyone nearby until the curtains were closed again.

It seemed like a fitting decoration for the morbid house.

Gaara approached to offer some help. Sirius and Remus both were visibly struggling with the drapes, one from his emaciation and the other with the pre-transformation pains.

Together the trio were able to draw the curtains, but not before Gaara suffered a number of insults to his appearance and blood purity. The blood purity he could live without, but he didn't think it necessary for the painting to denigrate how he looked. Plus, he didn't think he was that short.

"Sorry about that." Sirius huffed in between breaths. Perhaps Gaara should implement some sort of recovery workout regimen for the free man to bring him up to a basic level of fitness. It would be nice not to hear the man struggling to breathe every time he climbed a single set of stairs. "That, Gaara, was my mother. Or at least her likeness."

Gaara glanced back at the covered portrait and wondered what he could say without insulting his friend's mother. That was definitely not allowed.

He had paused too long, it seemed, as Sirius continued speaking. "She wasn't always so… Well, she was never a kind woman, but that portrait was commissioned during her more… after my… it was painted when she was in a particularly bad mood, shall we say."

"Fake mothers screaming insults. I can relate." Gaara mumbled.

"What?" Sirius asked, not catching it.

"Nothing." Gaara murmured as he continued to the stairs. He would venture down to dinner tonight.

OXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXO

It had been on Gaara's mind for weeks, how he would navigate the issue of his lunar indisposition with Sirius around. Lupin would obviously leave for a deserted area where he could change and hunt without the risk of killing or (worse) infecting innocent people. But that left Sirius.

Gaara had planned to hide in the attic that Sirius had yet to re-enter since returning to the house, if Sirius had not told Gaara that he was going to accompany Lupin to the New Forest for the night. For once, neither adult insisted that Gaara should go with them on their outing.

Not wanting to risk anything close to what had transpired last month, Remus had downed the little bottle of Wolfsbane potion and proceeded to remind Gaara and Sirius every five minutes that he had taken it, as if to assure himself he had indeed taken it. It had worn on Gaara's nerves quickly.

"And you know who to floo if there's a problem, right?" Sirius asked.

Gaara nodded absently.

"And Kreacher is somewhere around here if you need anything."

Gaara nodded again.

Sirius was apparently having a parental moment, and felt the stirrings of worry about leaving the fourteen year old on his own in the house. Entirely irrational, most would agree, since Gaara was more than capable of looking after himself (for a whole night).

'At least,' Gaara thought, 'Sirius hasn't tried to hire a babysitter.'

That would not have ended well.

When the adults had left and while Kreacher was nowhere to be found, Gaara settled in his room for the night. He couldn't risk the mad elf spotting him from afar and mistaking him for a wild animal that needed to be exterminated so he had to stay locked up in his room. House elves, especially deranged ones, could be quite resourceful and extremely dangerous.

Of the transformation and night, little should be noted except Gaara's usual animalistic restlessness in being cooped up and his attempts to wile away the night reading another boring book. Truly, the only moment of interest that the shinobi-turned-tanuki was involved in was shortly before his change back in the morning, as he was nearing the last chapter of his book, the door burst open and he looked up to see Sirius stood in the door, staring at him.

…

…

"Uhhh…" Sirius wasn't sure what he was looking at.

He was supporting Remus who was limp but conscious and hanging off of Sirius' straining shoulder. The householder had made it up one set of stairs with Remus but he needed a little help with getting the man up the next. Instead of the physically compact yet strong foreigner sleeping or, more likely, reading in his room, he had found a suspiciously familiar animal lying on the bed, wrapped in blankets, staring right back at him and ignoring the book sat in its paws.

Before Sirius could even begin to draw the obvious conclusions (and the more convoluted ones, for that matter), and before Gaara could think to make a break for it or try to incapacitate one or both of the exhausted adults, his body shifted and suddenly he was human and had some explaining to do.

"Uhhh…" Lupin agreed.

Gaara didn't have any words at the moment. His control now re-established and without a movement, his sand zipped out and slammed the door shut.

Sirius turned to his heavy friend, "Well… that was unexpected."

"Don't look at me, Sirius, I didn't know about it." Remus said.

So shocked, Sirius almost dropped the dead weight on his shoulder. Cursing, he struggled onwards, not expecting any help from their secretive younger friend. He was too tired to be dealing with this.

He would have preferred to come back and find Gaara had thrown a party and trashed the house (not that it would have made much of a difference to the dump), like Sirius would have (and did) at his age.

Sirius dropped off his semi-permanent houseguest and wandered back to his room. He probably should have checked in with Gaara now, but he was so tired, and he sensed it was a discussion that would benefit from the presence of a well-rested Lupin. Sirius settled on his bed and went to sleep too.

Gaara had emerged from his blankets after the door was firmly shut and pulled on his clothes. This was not good. This wasn't the fear of death or of loss, this was the fear of imminent humiliation. He sneaked up to both of the adults' rooms only to find they weren't huddled and snickering about Gaara but were thankfully both asleep.

He gave serious thought to leaving the house and hiding out at Draco's or somewhere else for the rest of the summer to avoid the inevitable embarrassment. He would break right through the wards if he had to. He didn't know how wards worked but he was sure he would find a way through it need be.

(Little did Gaara know, the wards had been set to allow Gaara through since he arrived, but Lupin had warned Sirius that Gaara would come and go without warning or permission unless he didn't think he could. Sirius knew it was manipulative but he was more concerned about Gaara's wellbeing than his own ethics. No matter how formidable the boy was, it wasn't safe for a teenager to go roaming around London, or anywhere else, at the times that Gaara tended to. So they had lied.)

Gaara had decided to tough it out by the time he heard stirring upstairs. He hadn't been able to get back into his book so he had visited Shukaku briefly, not for advice but to check up on the beast and make sure no other alterations in his seal had occurred and to distract himself.

Needless to say, that trip into his mind had been a mistake. Shukaku had taken enormous pleasure in mocking Gaara in all things, especially his tanuki transformation, and wasted no time in commencing the mind games when Gaara appeared. The one-tailed monster had droned on about how Gaara's friends would abandon him in this world, just like how his siblings and his friends from his own world had abandoned him to this one.

Testament to how long Shukaku had been in Gaara's head, the bijū knew precisely how to get under his skin.

Still, once he had confirmed the seal was unchanged and that Shukaku had nothing useful to say, he left. He wished he had the Kyubi inside of him. Apparently the fox just ignored his host.

In the end, Gaara had simply performed what little exercise he could inside to pass the time.

After he heard someone walking around upstairs, Gaara ventured up. If he wasn't going to run away, he would have to face them. And better sooner rather than later. If he left them to themselves, he would only be giving them longer to come up with jokes.

Sirius' door was open and his room was empty so he was either in the bathroom or bothering Lupin.

Gaara guessed correctly and found them both in Remus' room, Sirius sat on the edge of the bed and Remus looking like he had been woken up five hours too early. They both turned to him when he stopped at the door.

"Uh…" Sirius said, frozen.

"You said that already." Gaara inserted, walking into the room but staying a few feet from the bed.

Sirius looked at Gaara for a moment longer before turning to meet Lupin's eyes. They stared at each other for a second before the both burst out into raucous laughter.

Lupin's was interrupted with coughs and groans.

Gaara wasn't blushing. He wasn't!

After they (finally!) calmed down, and Sirius had wiped the tears from his eyes and Remus had caught his breath, they looked to Gaara again.

"You never cease to surprise us all, Gaara." Lupin started.

"He's right; you always have something up your sleeve. So was that something everybody in your world can do or another one of your special abilities?"

"You don't appear to be an animagus." Lupin added.

"It started when I got to this world. I don't know anything else."

"I recognised you from the forest. You change on the full moon, don't you?" Lupin said, remembering the familiar animal from his own transformations.

"Did you get bitten by a were-squirrel, Lily?" Sirius asked, excited.

Gaara obviously didn't appreciate either part of that question. "It isn't a squirrel. It is a tanuki. And I wasn't bitten, it just happened."

"A tanuki?"

"They're a type of small animal that live in Japan, if I'm not mistaken. A sort of magical raccoon, I think." Remus said. "But they didn't look anything like you, Gaara."

"You don't look much like a regular wolf, Moony."

"I suppose you have a point."

"So, Lily, I remember seeing you on the full moon when you first arrived and you didn't have a tail or fur, so…"

"It started in October and has been consistent since."

"And you say this doesn't happen to people in your own world?" Lupin checked.

"No."

"Well, regardless, I think it's brilliant. You were starting to get a little boring, I think Remus will agree. It's been about two weeks since you did something inexplicable so it was past due for you to turn into something. Though, for what it's worth, I would have put my money on something bigger with more claws and teeth."

"Does Draco know?" Remus asked.

"Yes. He found out a couple months ago."

"Hold on. You said you started�� this, whatever it is, last year."

"Yes."

"Then how did you manage to keep it a secret from Malfoy junior so long? Was it a case of the mute leading the blind?" Sirius said. He knew Draco wasn't necessarily a bad kid (being the scion of an ancient bigoted family himself), but he couldn't resist the chance to take a shot at a Malfoy.

"He's not very observant." Gaara said. He didn't want to admit to knocking Draco out multiple times.

"So you're just like an adorable little version of Moony then. You have your own furry little problem." Sirius said.

Gaara didn't rise to the bait. There were few things more embarrassing than actually arguing that one wasn't 'adorable'. "One that I wish to solve. I want you to teach me to be an animagus."

"An animagus?" Sirius parroted.

"He wants to learn how to transform so that he might be able to control his monthly changes consciously. I've heard of a couple of werewolves who tried it. None of them managed it, but it is a rare gift so it could have been a coincidence. I never bothered, myself. I spend enough time with fur and a tail each month."

"Worth a try, though, right?" Sirius said.

"For Lily, perhaps. His transformation is clearly different from my own so it might work. Other than the obvious form difference, he also changes a different point in the moonrise and moonset to me."

"So it's worth a shot?" Sirius asked.

"I don't see why not. He should be able to find out whether he's capable in a month or two."

"Quicker than that! James and I managed it that quickly but Lily has an experienced teacher helping him. He should get that far in a couple weeks."

"Maybe, but Gaara's not… well, he doesn't pick up on magic as quickly as you or James did." Remus was trying hard to tactfully convey how inept Gaara was at spellcasting.

"I'm sorry, Remus, if your teaching methods failed to help our poor, precious, little Lily in his schooling," Suddenly Sirius was surrounded by enemies, "but I plan to relate to my students my own way."

"Yes, I can see it now: Professor Sirius Black." Remus added, sardonically. "Hold on, I think I hear the floo in the other room, it must be Dumbledore looking to fill my old job." The aching lycanthrope didn't bother pantomiming getting out of his bed.

Gaara wasn't too enthused by the thought of being taught by Sirius, especially on this most disagreeable of subjects, but he couldn't deny the utility of the experienced instructor at hand. Nonetheless he knew it was going to be an unpleasant experience.

As Gaara began to contemplate the excruciating experience that was soon to start, Remus and Sirius had moved onto another vitally important subject.

"Well we can't keep calling him Lily anymore; it defies precedent." Sirius argued.

"I understand that, Padfoot, but he's been Lily for so long now, surely it's too late to rename him now."

"Now is the perfect time. You saw him earlier, he's perfect. So many features."

"Well, what do you suggest?"

"Something to do with his tail?" Sirius started, fingers stoking his beard in thought.

"Or his mask perhaps?" Lupin continued, joining Sirius with his own deep-thinking face and twirling his moustache.

"It would be a shame to ignore his fur. It looked awfully soft…"

"I know what you mean. 'Fluffy' something?"

"Fuzzy McFluffikins!" Sirius said triumphantly, looking over to see what Gaara thought only to find the redhead already walking out the door. "We'll keep working on it!" He called after the subject of the discussion.

Over the next couple of days, Gaara had to endure Sirius and Remus' endless suggestions for nicknames, as if Gaara wanted any part of the process. Granted, he was admittedly a tad eager to be rid of 'Lily', but when the alternatives were names like: 'Gaara Fluffy Tail' and 'Raccoon Squirrel', any eagerness died.

OXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXO

"Domino?"

"Zorro?"

"Burglar?"

"I quite like Burglar. 'Masked Burglar', perhaps?" Remus queried.

"Too long. Should be one word." Sirius replied.

Over the days the adults had been seriously considering their childish mission, Gaara had been working on his own again. Evidently Sirius wasn't going to offer any assistance until he had found a new nickname for Gaara.

He had briefly thought about resigning himself to helping the pair to speed up the process, until they started on the more insulting names.

Then, one afternoon, they both appeared in the library where they seldom ventured since Gaara arrived, and Remus stepped forward with a smile to rival Sirius' own.

"Bandit." He said, smile stretching impossibly wider.

Gaara quickly worked out that this was the result of their exhaustive search. He weighed it up in his head and decided it wasn't the worst one they had come up with. To be called a mere bandit wasn't great, but at least it wasn't a reference to how 'plush and cuddly' his tanuki form was.

Although he might have liked it if the reference, to his ringed eyes, were not present in his human form as well. At least Padfoot, Moony and Prongs were just eccentric titles with no meaning to any outsiders who heard them. People might put together that 'Bandit' was a reference to Gaara's insomnia/possessions marks in his human form.

Then again, it was still infinitely better than 'Lily'.

Over the next two weeks, Gaara started on the excruciating journey that was learning from Sirius Black. It had been frustrating to discover that since he had begun this secondary research project, he had been reading the wrong books and trying the wrong rituals; including the precious days he wasted whilst the two idiots had been deciding his useless title.

Sirius said Gaara would have been finishing Hogwarts by the time he managed to transform if he had stuck at his old avenue of enquiry. Both the depth of his folly and the idea that he would still be in this world in four years time were upsetting.

Over that fortnight, Sirius had also been continuing his frequent letters to Harry. Of course, now that he was teaching Gaara, he was put in the awkward position of having to lie to his precious godson. He couldn't admit to teaching Gaara how to be an animagus without giving some sort of reason, and Gaara would surely kill him if he did spill the beans to anyone, especially Harry.

In the end, he couldn't outright lie to Harry so he just cut out any references he might make in his letters to the research. Which pretty much entirely excluded Gaara from the missives, which Harry wasn't about to complain about.

Aside from his messages to and from Harry, Sirius also received two owls from unlikely sources. They had come a couple days apart, but were otherwise entirely unrelated except for one other factor: they concerned Gaara.

Sirius had gotten a number of letters asking about Gaara or requesting interviews with the boy, from the papers and the general public. Sirius thought these people were rather resourceful to try and go through the boy's legal guardian and to find out their address. Still, he had ignored or declined every such letter, just as he was sure Gaara was likely ignoring any such letters addressed directly to him.

The two letters he got were set apart because of who they were from: Luna Lovegood and Lucius Malfoy.

Luna had politely asked if she could visit sometime in early August, and whether she might be able to do a short interview for the Quibbler with Sirius. Apparently she hadn't bothered asking Gaara for the visit as he wasn't very agreeable or social. Sirius heartily agreed to both of her requests. He wouldn't tell Gaara about it. It would be a nice surprise.

Really, Sirius thought it was cute and wouldn't stand in the way of budding romance.

It had taken one unrelated conversation after that thought to dissuade Sirius of any notions of Gaara participating in a relationship. Him having friends was difficult enough to believe.

Lucius' bloviating letter had been a formality Sirius had expected for a while now. It spent four pages (front and back) to ask if Narcissa, Draco and he could visit for tea, and then offered a number of dates they were available. Before it had gotten to the point, it had offered a number of insincere well wishes and claimed that they had all known Sirius was innocent from the start.

Sirius bitterly thought that if they had known, they had kept it awfully quiet. And the only reason Lucius would have known Sirius was innocent was because Lucius really was part of Voldemort's inner circle.

As much as he might have liked to outright refuse the pompous man's request, he understood it was a necessity that they all meet before Draco could come and visit on his own. He remembered having to bring his mother and father to the Potters house after first year for the same reason, even though they all knew each other.

Hell, the Potters were, albeit distantly, related to the Blacks and had attended a number of functions together before then. Nonetheless it had been startling to have Orion and Walburga sat across from Fleamont and Euphemia like that. At least Regulus had shut up. He'd been so annoying back then.

It had been during that meeting that Sirius realised he wanted James' family more than his own.

Even though he knew he couldn't reject Lucius proposed tea, he still filled his short reply with as many snarky comments as he could, as well as mentioning once or twice that Sirius' family was older and purer than Lucius'. He figured the sit down would be unpleasant but would provide many more such opportunities to insult the prig. The only other downside would be that his cousin was going to be there.

No matter that she was the youngest of her sisters, Narcissa had always been the most severe of the three, none of which liked him. She never had time for Sirius' shenanigans or his ideas and made those feelings perfectly clear. Then there had been that period when his mother and father had been threatening to marry him to Cissy. He'd thrown such a fit eventually they had called the whole thing off and she had been married to Lucius.

Speaking of cousins who hated him, Sirius thought he should try and reconnect with Andromeda. He had occasionally exchanged screams with Bellatrix in Azkaban but he had not seen Andy in years. Unlike the other two, her dislike of Sirius had not been chiefly because of his blood treachery since she was even more of a traitor, marrying Ted and all; instead, she had simply hated him for his personality. He took comfort in that.

Sirius did tell Gaara about this letter, if only so he could drill him on some basic etiquette. If Sirius wanted to maintain the upper hand during the meeting, he couldn't have his snotty cousin-in-law pointing out Gaara's lack of manners.

So now the first week in August was set to be entertaining.

But before then he had Harry's visit to look forward to.

OXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXO

Sirius was annoyingly up-beat in the run-up to Harry's first visit, to Gaara's consternation. The man had spent the better part of two days cleaning and attempting to decorate a room for Harry. It wasn't enough for Harry to sleep in a guest room, he needed a room of his own when he came to visit, apparently. Gaara didn't understand that, but then he didn't fully understand the custody agreement Sirius had struck for Gaara over Harry.

The redhead suspected that his guardian was hiding the truth of the matter for some reason. It was clearly untoward, the reason Harry couldn't stay for more than two weeks during the summer and why Remus had to return to his own place for the duration of those visits. No matter, Gaara thought; there was no sense in asking questions that would produce no answers and only serve to cause his friend stress. Sirius wasn't the type to bow to pressure and wouldn't have kept it a secret without a good reason, so Gaara trusted him.

For the moment.