[ A delicately wrapped parcel arrives containing an heirloom silver watch with the initials S.O.B engraved on the back. ]
For surviving another year. Father wanted it to be yours. — R.A.B
Sirius gave the owl a treat as he unburdened the bird of the delicately wrapped parcel. It was the same wrapping paper that had greeted him every birthday and Christmas and for a foolish moment, Sirius thought Walburga had sent him a gift. But the owl wasn't Walburga's. He recognised it as the bearer of news from Regulus. The same that had carried him with the note of Orion's passing, the same one that had recently started arriving to him with letters after years of no correspondence.
He didn't pay attention as the owl swooped away, the parcel heavy, yet it barely weighed anything. Part of him didn't want to unwrap it, to let the mystery house wishful dreams instead of brutal reality. Yet, Sirius was curious, too eager for gifts as not to accept it, tear into it. He found himself in their cramped kitchen, the narrowness of it a comforting hug, the clutter of life a grounding anchor.
The parcel was delicately wrapped, indeed. There were no tears in the wrapping paper like Sirius managed when he got too eager to wrap up and give away, the folding was neat and picture-perfect. He envisioned the studious, careful, perfectionist boy who always shut himself up in his room wrapping the gifts, trying to exchange the boy into the man Regulus had grown up into. A flutter of sadness shook Sirius's heart at the difficulty of it, the stark reminder of the years wasted like a desert between them.
The note attached to the parcel strangled Sirius's heart. Reminders of Orion were still too raw, the angry resentment of the sudden death and no solutions tormenting him still. Loose ends that might have been able to be tidily tied, had Orion not succumbed to the Black's notion to die so young. Besides how broken Remus had found him when he had got Regulus' letter of their father's passing, Sirius rarely allowed anyone to realise just how complicated his feelings towards his family were. It was easier to see it in black and white, a choice more so than the truth.
Gifting the care put into the wrapping, Sirius opened it thoughtfully. The sight of the clock another reminder of the time lost, of what could have been, of changes impossible to make as it was already vowed into the fabric of time. Sirius stared at it with the same grey eyes as the clock. It was beautiful. Clearly made by the best clockwork, expensive beyond belief, but not pompously so. The details were full of Orion as his father through the clock so clearly showed that he had listened, and had seen him. Years together in Orion's study manifested into the details of the clock Orion had ordered for his 17th birthday. A clock father would have given him himself, if Sirius had returned home with him as Orion demanded - ask for, in his way, Sirius supposed now, with distance and teenage rebellion not as hot in his blood - that afternoon at the Potters.
Thank the Potters for their hospitality, Sirius. Come now, we're going home.
Sirius would never wear the clock. Fingers wrapped around the coolness of the watch, a brief embrace, before he made his way to hide it away, like everything else family of blood, to be found when nostalgia and longing got too strong. Yet, he was grateful for the gift, more than Regulus would understand.
"Thanks, mate! Cheers for another year!
