Idhrenniel

Sirius Black watches from a corner, drinking something he can’t remember the name of, but that is strong enough to make him forget the pain growing inside of him.

She dances and laughs, and spins around with people she has never met before. She makes the room gravitate towards her, as if she’s the light those people need to live. Men and women stop in their tracks to look at her, smile and speak as if an old friend was.

She doesn’t fear the attention. She’s not afraid of this, no.

When she’s tired, all she does is look towards the corner Sirius spends most the night in. She has tried to get him to dance before but he refuses, because he knows she doesn’t want people to know that when the night ends, he will be the one taking her home. This is their secret.

Sirius is the first to leave the place, walking a couple of streets to where he parks his bike. He is often tempted to show her what it can do, but he can’t expose himself and his magic like that, no matter how much he trusts her. He just can’t.

After a few minutes, she sneaks up behind him, kissing his neck and laughing. She spins around like she’s still on the dance floor.

“What’s wrong, babe?” She whispers against his mouth. 

I want more, he thinks, but never again will he speak those words. He knows the consequences.

He shakes his head, “nothing.”

Another laugh, one kiss in the dark that gets her moaning, and she’s against his back on the bike passing the streets of London like… magic. He can hear her breathing and feel it fall against his neck. She moves a little bit closer to him, making his heart go wild.

He isn’t sure for how much longer he’ll be able to take it. Almost afraid his heart will give out. She is killing him each time she kisses him, each time she welcomes him to her house, then closes the door on his face after he asks for more...more...more. He should know better.

There’s nothing she’s afraid of, except for falling in love. Sirius can see the fear present when he holds her hand, when he hugs her after climax. When he tells her that he’s in love with her, begs for a chance to prove to her their relationship is fate, all she has to tell him is…

…”No. It’s not real. Come back to the real world. Goodnight.” 

Sirius turns off the bike and she gets off. She runs up to her doorstep and opens the door, going in. She leaves the door open for Sirius to come in after her.

He could turn on the bike and go home. He’s tired of showing her he knows her worth and he’s not with her for a game. What more can he do? How can he stop this madness from occurring if this madness is keeping him alive? He’s weak. He can’t help it.

He goes in tonight. He’s fallen again.

_______________________________________________________

“I think it was her friends. Told her that I’d break her heart and she doesn’t want that to happen.” Sirius tells James while the two are shopping for the summer vacation.

James, who doesn’t know and doesn’t bother to learn how to hold back, laughs at his friend. It’s not an uncommon thing to see… not since Sirius met her. “It’s not her friends. Just like a month ago she was not testing you to know if you knew her worth. You’re a fool, mate.”

Sirius shoves James, but he knows his friend is right. He’s done all he could to be there for her and take that fear from her heart but nothing’s worked.

“I can’t help it, James. I love her. Nothing’s going to change that. Each night she calls and tells me all of her dreams and I know I want to be there with her when she makes them happen. But, I also know that she won’t let me. It’s killing me, James.”

He turns his face when he sees the pitiful look that Prongs is giving him. “We can tell. Mum tells me about the late night calls. She also told me the phone has not rung in almost a week.”

Sirius nods, sighing and letting his head fall down. It’s his fault.

A week ago he again told her he loved her, he hasn’t talked to her ever since. He misses the late night calls and the talks of hopes and dreams. He misses her, plain and simple.

“We’re in the middle of a war,” Sirius whispers all of a sudden, “and I’m here, worried about some girl that will never love me back. I’m a fucking idiot.”

“Love is complicated, would it not be, I know a few hundred thousand artists who would be out of business.” James tells him, grabbing a box of cereal Sirius hates. “Even if we weren’t at war, she still would exist. You still would be hurting over her. This has to end, Sirius.”

Sirius watches as James goes to the checkout. He runs up to him, “I’ve got something to do.” As he receives approval from James, Sirius takes off.

It’s past midnight during mid-winter, London is covered in snow and the golden lights that illuminate the streets reflect upon it, making it seem as if the ground and the top of the houses are glowing. This is such a beautiful sight that Sirius needs to take in, forgetting for a few moments what he’s going there, and the war, and all the pain.

“Sirius?” It’s her voice that brings him back. Making him turn around in surprise. Some people walk past them, some have tears running down their faces. Sirius looks behind her and sees the cinema closing up, with a big poster of a new horror movie at the front.

She loves horror movies. She’s not afraid of them. No, she’s not afraid.

He clears his throat. “Was it a good movie?” She nods, smiling. He fights himself to not get lost on that smile and let his lips speak the words his mind is begging him to speak.

“I can’t keep doing this. I know I’ve said this before, but I can’t.”

She’s holding his hand before he’s gone, because each time he’s told her he can’t do this, she’s been back at his door.

She’s kissing him before he can’t react, but when he does, instead of pushing her from him, he brings her closer to him.

A few months have passed since she first discovered Sirius cheating on her with Marlene. It’s now Christmas and she’s packing all her things to go home, forget the burning hell she has been put through by the two people she had once loved the most.

You know, the rumours, the whispers and stares, it was all too much at first. She tried to hide in corners until people had passed and then she would go to her class. Too ashamed to face the classmates that pitied her. Until she realized there was nothing to be ashamed of, or to be pitied for. She hadn’t been the first girl to get cheated on and she wouldn’t be the last. It had happened and she needed to learn how to move on, ignore people around her and focus on herself. She took baby steps, with Lily and Alice always with her, and slowly but surely she had grown out of it. Now she can finally say she’s happy and over it.

Sirius, on the other hand, is like a dog that wouldn’t let go of his favourite bone. Rumour has it─and by rumour she means Remus telling her everything─that he hasn’t been with anyone since she broke up with him. Marlene tried to approach him a couple times but was rejected, and with the entire school knowing what she had done, it was safe to say she wouldn’t be dating or befriending anyone anytime soon.

She sighs, turning around on her heels and walking up to her closet to grab the last piece of clothing left. There’s a knock on her door.

“Come in!” But no one enters. “Come in!” She screams again, thinking the person behind the door has not heard her.

When her door remains closed and the silence falls upon the room, she lets out a frustrated sigh and walks up to the door, opening it wide to see what’s going on.

Her scream is loud enough to have alerted the entire castle─but she hopes no one comes─.

She grabs Sirius’s fur and pushes him inside, scoffing when he lets out a whine. After checking the hall’s still empty she closes the door and turns around, almost letting out another scream at the sight of Sirius’s naked body.

“Put something on, asshole!”

“Well, fine. But unless I’ve grown a third nipple, it’s nothing you haven’t seen before.”

“Before! When I wanted to see it, Sirius! Now I don’t, so put something on before I kick your ass out of the window.” She can’t believe she needs to explain this again.

Sirius taps her shoulder a moment after. Not knowing what she was expecting, she has to laugh. He has covered himself with her sheets. This man is unbelievable.

He clears his throat: “can we talk now?” She sighs.

This is not the first time Sirius has tried to talk to her about how much he has changed.

But she didn’t want to hear it the first hundred times and she doesn’t want to hear it now.

What can she do? Tell him to go? There’s a chance he won’t. Just give him five minutes, let him explain once again and ask him to leave. It’s worked before, it’ll work now.

“Fine,” she tells him while walking up to Alice’s bed and sitting down. “Speak.”

Sirius sits down on her bed─good thing he’s using her sheets, now he can’t get too far from her bed─and once more clears his throat as if it’ll make his words more believable.

“You’re going home for Christmas?” He asks, confusing her. Before she can answer his mouth is moving again and more and more words leave his throat: “Remus told me because Alice told him. It’s not that he tells me things! It came up in the conversation we were having so please, don’t get upset with him.”

She blinks one, two, three times. Unsure of what’s going on, she takes a couple seconds to take in his rambling and making out the meaning behind it. She is unable to make it make sense and the little patience that she has is growing out.

Is it her fault? Should’ve she told him to fuck off? Perhaps it’s because she keeps giving him the chance to explain himself although she knows nothing is ever gonna change. Is she leading him on? That’s the last thing she wants to do. Hurting is not in her nature. It’s never been.

“Sirius,” she calls his name while running her left hand through her hair. She inhales, gives herself time to think about her next words. It’s time to let things turn clear as water. “You didn’t go through all the trouble of morphing on school grounds, sneak around the castle and up here to ask me to not be mad at Remus. So tell me, what was the actual reason?”

She has taken him off guard, being so blunt, her voice so calm. She’s not upset with him, or resentful, she’s at peace and holds no grudge against him. “I…” he begins, the sound of his voice lingering in the room for a couple seconds before he finishes: “To be honest, I came here to ask for another chance…”

“Sirius─”

“...No, no. Let me finish. I came here to ask for another chance because I thought that to fix all of this mess all I had to do was change. But, that’s not it, right?” She shakes her head. “I made a mistake, now I can’t ask the girl whose heart I broke to risk it being broken again. So if it’s not too much to ask for, I’d like for us to be friends, like before. Because whether it’s as my girl or my best friend, I don’t want to find out what life without you is like.”

“We can’t be friends like before, Sirius. Before is gone. I’m not the person I was then. I like to think neither are you. But I’m sure we can work something out, as long as you promise to not come naked into my room ever again.”

“Oh, no I can’t promise that.” Sirius grins, tilting his head right.

Out of all the times Sirius could’ve chosen to cheat he had to do it first week of school. As if walking in on Sirius and Marlene making out in the Common Room hadn’t been humiliating enough, now she had to put up with the gossip, gazes and laughs for ten months. Fantastic.

She scoffed, drawing a long breath of the cigarette between her lips and breathing out the smoke short after, watching it disappear into the wind and fixing her gaze on the moon. Most of her friends warned her about Sirius Black, but she didn’t listen. She thought his intentions were honest, that he had changed and was worth fighting for; in that moment she realized she had been an idiot, a puppet he had used to have some fun and prove himself irresistible. But that wasn’t the worst part, no. She could get over a heartbreak; most people did through their lifetimes. No, the worst part was that Marlene had been her best friend - hell, she even considered her a sister. Somewhere deep in the back of her mind, she had been expecting Sirius to pull something, hell she even had been surprised it took him so long, but Marlene? 

Was she supposed to expect her best friend to betray her like that, even after been friends for ten years? She didn’t know where she went wrong with them, if she had been so horrible to deserve such pain. But one thing was clear, it hurt like hell.

“Enough,” she said out loud, hoping if she did so she’d follow her advice and let it pass. She couldn’t keep thinking about it. She wouldn’t find an answer because there wasn’t a question. Sirius must had been tired of being in a relationship and Marlene must had been a liar all along but she hadn’t noticed. Letting herself fall back against the grass, she finished her cigarette and killed it, throwing it to the side. She had pitied herself enough, now it was time for people to do it - which, she was sure had begun.

It wasn’t as if those two treacherous bastards had thought about backstabbing her in secret to spare her from the public humiliation. She had been one of the last students to go into the Common Room after classes, she was well aware she hadn’t been the first one to see them.

It would be fine, she told herself. Ten months wasn’t that long of a time and before she knew, it would’ve passed. She’d graduate and she would leave Sirius, Marlene and the pain behind as if it never happened in the first place. Yes, it was going to be hard and she would have to put up with a lot of shit and it was going to come from friends, other students and even some of the professors (she was sure Minerva would give Sirius detention twice as much as a form of revenge for hurting her), but there was nothing she could about it. Even if it was going to be fine in the end - and she knew it would, the path there was going to be painful.

She heard footsteps coming from her side, but she didn’t bother to look up to see who it was. It was stupid, weird even, she knew he didn’t care about her feelings - that much had been proved, but she also knew he would look for her to apologize because he couldn’t fathom the idea of someone thinking he was a horrible person for the wrong reasons.

He sat down next to her, looking forward. He seemed tense, nervous even. She couldn’t bother herself to hide the pleasure his discomfort brought her and allowed a humourless laugh to escape her lips. He sighed next to her, forcing his gaze up to avoid looking at her.

She didn’t know when the tears had started to fall, she just knew she didn’t had the strength to wipe them off her face and so, she let them run hoping that he wouldn’t notice.

“I,” he started but stopped right after, the words getting caught in his throat. She couldn’t look at him even if she wanted. He took a deep breath that came out ragged right after. “I came to apologize, and if I have the chance, to explain what happened.”

“You were gonna shag Marlene when I walked in. That’s what happened,” she explained for him. It came out as harsh as she felt the words and he winced. “You can apologize now.”

Sirius turned around, the moonlight was right behind him and so it was difficult to distinguish his features, but even in that moment, from her position on her back she could see the storm that were his eyes, and the redness around them; as if he had been crying too.

He took a breath before speaking, clearing his throat to get rid of the soreness. “I don’t know how it happened and I didn’t want it to happen. It was a mistake and I am, believe it or not, sorry. Marlene had been flirting with me since school started again and then this morning I was in the Common Room waiting for James and Remus and she started talking about how she loved me first and it wasn’t fair that we weren’t together; next thing I know she’s all over me. I know the damage is done but, that is the truth and you had to know.”

His voice came out ragged, sore. He had wasted his throat out prior the conversation. It was for a moment she doubted, until she heard him sniff; that and how he pursed his lips together told her all she had to know. Indeed, he had been weeping as well. She cried for a lost love, for a friendship that had meant nothing, but what did he wept for? What had he lost?

No, she thought. It couldn’t be, even if the thought made her skin tingle. Sirius Black didn’t, and had never loved her. If he had done so, then he wouldn’t have done her like that.

“Now I know,” she said while nodding, breaking apart from her thoughts. Her own mind driving her insane. Her voice cracked and it made Sirius aware that she was sobbing. He tried to touch her but she stopped him, slapping his hand away. “Just leave.”

It was a simple request. Leave. He had broken her, it was painful enough to know she had to see him in the halls, in class, in the Common Room, the last thing she needed was for him to pester her until she forgave him. She couldn’t, not in that moment. The wound was fresh, her heart was ripping apart and she had trouble breathing.

She wanted him to leave, but he didn’t. She sobbed out loud, shaking. It was in that moment she knew, she had reached bottom. It was one thing he knew about her sadness, another to show him how her hopes and dreams for them had died.

Sirius wrapped his arms around her waist, bringing her closer to him. He buried his head in the crook of her neck, kissing the exposed skin.