[HP] Can you be gentle with me

"You'd better not touch that door, Snape."

Snape turned his head almost instantly, and replied coldly. "Black."

That man is Sirius Black.

"Maybe this place isn't as secret as Tahlia said..." he said sarcastically. "Since even you know about this place, I think everyone knows about it──"

"You!" Sirius wanted to explode again, but after taking a few deep breaths, he calmed down under Snape's surprised gaze. "I didn't come here to argue with you... what are you doing here?"

"Same purpose as yours, obviously—" Snape said flatly.

Sirius frowned. "You came for Tahlia?"

"With the size of your brain, it's probably hard to understand such an obvious fact." Snape sneered, and after finishing speaking, he reached out his hand again to knock on the door.

excruciating pain.

The sharp pain went straight to the forehead, spreading from the point where the knuckles touched the door, Snape stumbled back a few steps because of the exploding blankness in his mind and the sudden blackness of his vision, and his back hit the back hard corridor wall.

"Ha..." Black's gloating voice seemed to come from far away. "I told you not to touch that door."

"What's going on?" Snape started, only to find that he seemed drained of words, his voice sounded as weak as it could be.

"You wouldn't be naive to think that Tahlia didn't do anything to protect her house, would you?" Sirius said coldly. "As long as you are a wizard, you can't just touch that door──"

Although he still felt that such a protective spell was too cautious, considering the attitude of people in the magic world towards Tahlia, he never mentioned it to her. After all, more protection means less damage.

"But I came earlier... to knock on the door—" Snape said, standing against the wall, frowning. "That didn't happen back then—"

Sirius froze for a moment, then smirked. "Ah, that's clearly a loophole, isn't it? And loopholes..." Satisfied to see Snape still standing limply against the wall. "Of course it should be repaired──"

Snape glared viciously at the smug black-haired man, as if hoping to burn a hole through him with his gaze.

"It's no use staring at me, Snape." Sirius smirked. "No one can touch that door unless Tahlia unlocks it herself."

"Then what are you doing here?" Snape finally felt the discomfort subside a little, and quickly distanced himself from the wall, he couldn't always act like this in front of Black. "Since you can't even touch the door—"

"She told me to come over at nine," Sirius said. "She will open the door when the time comes—it's you, don't tell me you didn't tell her when you came over?"

"No." Snape replied dryly.

But she shouldn't have turned him away just because he didn't notify in advance. Thinking about the fact that he came over several times in a row, there was no prior appointment.

"Really..." Sirius murmured. "Tahlia probably won't turn you down either—"

Then the two men stood silently, quietly waiting for the door in front of them to open...

And the closer it was to nine o'clock, the more uneasy Snape became—

Will Tahlia talk to him?

In the past, he could definitely say that Tahlia would never refuse any of his requests, but now... Tahlia's cold expression from a week ago is still lingering in his mind, and he has become less sure .

Just as he was thinking about it, the door was pulled open.

A head protruded from it, with a fluffy, seemingly messy hair──

And the child who seemed to be about seven or eight years old seemed to be surprised by the two men standing outside the door, his uncertain eyes moved back and forth between the two of them, until Sirius spoke.

"Harry! You are Harry!" Sirius said happily, almost jumping up with excitement. "I'm Sirius Black... your—"

"My godfather, I know—" Harry nodded cautiously. "Tahlia and I have said many times..." Then, a small smile.

Seeing Harry's smile, Sirius froze suddenly.

As if going back to the long time ago, at a certain banquet, there was also a little black-haired boy smiling at me like this...

But he immediately shook his head vigorously.

He is not James.he told himself.

Harry is not James.

"The last time I saw you, you were only this old──" Sirius said with a smile, gesticulating for a while, and then saw Harry shrink back with a blushing face.

"I wasn't even two years old then, Sirius..." he said embarrassedly. "I'm almost seven years old now!"

Before Sirius could say anything else, another voice suddenly came from inside the door.

The voice he hadn't heard for five years...

"Harry, didn't you ask you to open the door for your godfather and come in?" The door was opened a little more, revealing the woman inside. "What are you sticking here for so long?"

Harry looked up and smiled apologetically at Tahlia. "Because you didn't tell me what Sirius looks like—" He pointed out.

Tahlia looked down, and... "Ah, Snape—" she said flatly. "What are you doing here?"

"S...Snape?" Sirius was at the side, stunned for a moment, what did he hear just now?

Tahlia called that guy Snape?

Suddenly felt as if something was wrong.

And it's very, very wrong.

"Come to see you," Snape said.

"Aren't you going in?" Tahlia turned her head directly and said to Sirius.It was as if he hadn't heard Snape's words at all.

"Yes...Of course." Sirius nodded blankly, still stunned by Tahlia's strange behavior, he moved stiffly into the door, and Harry was also led in by him unconsciously.

Two people remained at the door, Tahlia and Snape.

Tahlia didn't speak any more, took a step back and was about to close the door...

"Wait!" Snape said, stepping forward quickly, when Tahlia stopped and looked at him disapprovingly. "You heard me... I came here to see you—"

"And you see it now." Tahlia responded coldly.After finishing speaking, he took another step back.

"I—"

The door snapped shut before Snape's eyes.

He failed again. Tahlia didn't even give him a chance.

And when Tahlia closed the door, went through the hallway and opened the door to the living room, what she saw was a surprised Sirius, but not at her—but at a child sitting quietly on the sofa in the living room.

"His name is Nigel," Tahlia said, and Sirius turned his head quickly, looking at her stiffly.

"Snape didn't come in?"

"No." Tahlia replied.And that tone sounded like he didn't take this matter to heart at all. "I think he has other things to do."

"Really..." Sirius stared at Tahlia with a strange expression, obviously not believing what Tahlia said just now, but he didn't say anything, and slowly turned his head and looked at the child again .

I don't know why, although Sirius couldn't see the slightest connection from that child at all, the moment he saw him, his mind intuitively flashed the name of the person who was still with him just now. The name of the person outside the door.

Could it be because the child doesn't pay attention to people's attitude?

No, the kid's eyes were guarded when he ignored him, not the way that guy Snape was looking at other people with disdain.

"He..." Sirius squeezed out another word. "It's not what I think it is, is it?"

"I'm fine with what you think, Sirius." Tahlia replied flatly, passing Sirius and sitting next to the child.

"You're okay with what I think?" Sirius repeated in a murmur. "What does that mean?" Although he was almost sure.

He had never been so sure of anything.

But... when exactly?

He doesn't know how he feels in his heart now.

Sad that Tahlia had that kind of relationship with that guy...

Resentful that Snape acted the same way out of it...

At the same time, probably this emotion is the most obvious──

It hurts that he will never end up with Tahlia for the rest of his life.

And she and that damned bastard have kids...

Something suddenly snapped in my head.

Nigel looked about four or five years old...

Looks like four or five years old──

"Tahlia," he said seriously. "How old is Nigel?" He had to double check.

Tahlia sat silent for a moment before answering. "Four years old."

"So he really is—" Sirius swallowed, walked forward slowly, and then showed a look of sudden realization. "So you left because of this...?" He secretly decided in his heart that he would definitely beat that bastard hard.

Why was he able to tell that kind of lie so flatly, obviously Tahlia did go to see him five years ago - although Sirius didn't know why it happened, but the guy...

The guy left the matter clean.

"What happened in the past doesn't matter at all," Tahlia said casually, before making Nigel stand up and whispering to him. "That's Sirius, he's Harry's brother's godfather—you can talk to him, he's a good guy—"

"A nice guy like Draco?" the kid said softly.

Tahlia nodded, ignoring the involuntary twitch of Sirius' mouth.

Comparing him to that Malfoy brat...

This kid is really like his father, with the excellent talent of being able to irritate a person with a single sentence.

But he wasn't naive enough to vent his anger on a child, besides, he had already cautiously walked in front of him, looking at him with those black eyes blinking.

"You're a good guy, wouldn't you bully Tahlia?" he said.

Sirius instinctively thought that he should answer this question seriously, otherwise the kid would probably never have a grudge against him—"I will never, ever bully Tahlia." He said seriously.

Nigel relaxed and smiled. "In this case, you are really a good person."

"Sirius is of course a good guy." Harry interrupted suddenly. "He's my godfather."

Sirius let out a chuckle, and then, suddenly thinking of something, he took out a large paper bag from his backpack and handed it to Harry.

Turning his head and explaining to Tahlia. "This is James' cloak..." he said. "The headmaster borrowed the cloak from James earlier - but never had the chance -"

Tahlia nodded. "And you've got it from the headmaster now."

"This has always been a Potter property." Sirius said seriously. "It's always been." Then, pretending to be relaxed, he urged Harry to open the paper bag quickly.

Immediately, he was amused by the exclamation of Harry and Nigel when they saw the cloak that could make people invisible.