𝐒𝐄𝐕𝐄𝐍𝐓𝐄𝐄𝐍

" the art of letting go "

✤ ✾ ✤

. . . FEBRUARY, 1976

WHILE ANOTHER CHUNK of the wall fell to the floor, Remus stared at the four of them.

It looked rather convincing. Peter, red in the face and standing awkwardly next to his overturned stool. James was at the end of the rug with his face scrunched up in a wince. And Maeve still stood with her wand arm slightly raised, cheeks flushed and eyes wide.

Sirius watched as Remus set down his bag and crossed his arms over his chest. "I see the tutoring is going well, then?"

As if someone had released her from a Full Body Bind, Maeve waved her wand in a deft circle and muttered something under her breath. The chunk of wall rose and reattached itself, pieces joining together until not a speck of dust remained on the ground. "Do you understand why I need tutoring now?"

Slightly defeated, Remus said, "Almost as well as the poor wall does."

Maeve had proven herself to be a thoroughly good liar. It took practice to become so convincing. Just the right amount of genuine emotion, a small sprinkling of the truth to make the lie land where it wouldn't be questioned.

But Sirius had his own tricks to maintain. It was all too predictable to bet on Maeve's competitiveness. The Byrne twins could say they were unalike all they wanted, but they both had a startling need to prove themselves. A duel was the perfect setting for their ruse.

James and Maeve continued on. To her credit, Maeve was taking James's relentless hits in stride. Eventually Sirius switched with them so that he and Peter could demonstrate form and technique. It was like playing a part in a play. The entire time, Sirius watched Remus from the corner of his eye. He was staring between them all intently but it was no longer with shrewd skepticism. He was truly only still in the room because he believed they were helping Maeve. When Remus stepped in and began to correct her, Sirius waited for the inevitable flurry of her protestations.

But they never came. Maeve listened to Remus. A strange discomfort itched at Sirius as Remus stood right next to Maeve and coached her on the correct way to cast Protego. Maeve mirrored his movements with utmost care.

"Have you ever thought of being a professor?" Maeve mused.

Remus just laughed. "Would you want a werewolf as a professor?"

"I wouldn't mind."

The next time James launched an attack, Maeve's Protego was nearly perfect.

They went on a while longer until Sirius could tell that Maeve was becoming dangerously annoyed with James' badgering. For all of her patience with Remus, there was none left for James Potter. When her Confringo came close to setting the whole rug ablaze, Sirius stepped in between them and called it a night.

"So is this all you've been doing, then?" Remus asked. He was remarkably eager to remain involved. "When do you meet again?"

Sirius couldn't remember the last time he had even seen Remus standing in that room with the rest of them. In years past, it had been their constant refuge. The four of them used it as their headquarters to launch pranks, a study spot. But now, it was littered with the hidden remnants of everything they had attempted to conceal from Remus. There was a jar shoved into one of the cupboards on the far wall that held the hawk's moth chrysalis. The cauldron that Maeve had concealed could be heard hissing, but only if one knew to listen. The chalkboard with their scribblings had been recently erased, but the word sundown still sat on the fringes of the white dust.

So Sirius met Maeve's eyes and mouthed, your call. She could end it all right then and there and it would be fair. Say she had enough of their tutoring, storm out of the room. Remus would be none the wiser.

Maeve only smiled and said, "Next week, same time. You're welcome to join."

✤

. . . MARCH, 1976

THESTRALS stood at the edge of the clearing. They happily trotted amongst the shoots of green grass that were beginning to poke up through the slush. It was a bit like watching Halloween lawn ornaments come to life.

All of the fifth year Care of Magical Creatures students were a safe distance away awaiting Professor Kettleburn's instructions. Avanti was right next to Maeve, and though they were mere centimeters apart, Avanti was being so quiet today that Maeve almost forgot she was there. She had hardly spoken two words to Maeve between Charms and Transfiguration. It wasn't until lunch when she said, pass the bread, please, that she acknowledged Maeve at all. Maeve was about to say something about the Thestrals just to break the ice of her silence when Kettleburn cleared his throat and began to speak.

"How does one care for what one cannot see?" he mused. Baskets of raw meat were spaced evenly on the ground in front of them. "Thestrals are beasts you are all familiar with. I have taught you about their loyalty, their ability to discern friend from enemy, but now it is time for you to experience it first hand."

He lifted his bionic limb and held up a chunk of blood-red beef. A Thestral stalked over and snatched it right out of the air. Several students gasped. To someone who couldn't see the reptile-like creature, the meat would have appeared to disappear without cause. Maeve was forced to watch its sharp bony beak tear away at its lunch.

"I want you to focus on the unseen today. If you cannot see the Thestral, listen for its hoof beats, or feel the air shift." When none of them moved, he clapped his hands together and said, "Grab a basket and partner up! No time to dally!"

"Feel the air shift," Maeve snorted under her breath as Avanti grabbed up their basket by its wicker handle. "Kettleburn is away with the fairies, surely."

Avanti turned up her nose. "You don't have to pick apart everything he says."

"Well, it's less fun to take him seriously," Maeve said with a laugh. At least Avanti was speaking to her now. "And don't tell me you're suddenly keen to. You always poke fun at him, too."

But Avanti said nothing, speeding off in the direction of the Thestrals that were the furthest away. She would have run smack into one of them if Maeve hadn't told her to stop.

"He's just a wee lad," Maeve said, grabbing a piece of meat out of the basket and dangling it with an outstretched arm. The Thestral foal sniffed it with skepticism, stepped back, and lunged, eating the whole thing in one bite. Maeve yanked her arm back before it could take that, too. "Do you want to try next?" Maeve said. But when she looked at Avanti's face, it was clear that feeding Thestrals was the furthest thing from her mind.

Avanti threw down the basket. The Thestral foal snorted once. "Are you going to be around for game night, or what?"

"Didn't I tell you already that I needed to finish my Transfiguration essay tonight?" For the first time, it wasn't a lie, either. Maeve was actually behind and if she didn't finish it before tomorrow, any ground she had gained with McGonagall would be swept away as quick as a tide.

A subtle flush deepened Avanti's brown cheeks. "Is it actually another essay, Maeve? Or is there something else that's going on?"

One of the Thestrals was happily nibbling at the meat in Avanti's overturned basket. Now didn't seem to be the time to worry about what overfeeding did to the beast's digestion.

"It is actually an essay, the one on switching spells. I didn't have time to finish it with the extra Quidditch practice we had last night. But I promise–"

Avanti made a noise somewhere in between annoyance and distress. "Don't promise me that it's just this one time, that it won't happen again. You say that every single time!"

"I do not."

"You do, Maeve," Avanti insisted, crossing her arms.

"I–" Maeve stopped. She knew Avanti was right. Maeve had become as filled with false promise as a massive billboard for a new shopping centre. Better things are coming! It was only March, and June had never felt further away. The well was only growing deeper as the waters rose.

Avanti sighed and picked up the basket again. The foal made a small noise of disappointment before bounding away to what must have been its mother. "It's fine," Avanti told her.

"Clearly, it isn't." Apologies floated to mind but none of them felt like enough.

"I just miss you, Maeve. The old you. This version of you feels like she's always got somewhere more important to be."

And with that, Avanti walked off towards where Eloise, a dark haired Hufflepuff, was standing with her group of friends. Maeve was left to stand alone and swallow the bitter pill that was the truth. Everything was a give and take. But right then, standing alone beneath a canopy of budding trees, it felt as though all of her priorities had been shoved onto a roulette wheel. Quidditch, classes, O.W.Ls, Trinity, Animagi, the fake tutoring business that had suddenly turned real. Friendship had not even managed to make the list. It collected dust in the corner, slowly growing dull beyond repair.

But it was too late now.

The cold, beak-like head of the Thestral foal nudged the back of her hand. Maeve turned to meet its pupil-less gaze. With only two white marbles in sunken sockets for eyes, it still managed to look at her like Aoife's cat did when there was no more food in the dish. Maeve knelt and picked up a dirt-coated piece of meat that had fallen out of the basket. The Thestral tore it away from her immediately and ran back to the safety of its mother.

"Very perceptive, Miss Byrne! Excellent work locating the Thestrals, you are a natural!" Kettleburn said, rushing over with a mechanical clank and a wheeze.

"I can see them," Maeve told him.

Kettleburn only winked at her as if they were in on some sort of secret. "Of course you can."

✤

LATE one Thursday night, it was only Sirius and Maeve left in the room behind the tapestry. The month was almost up, and with luck, they needed to be prepared for the next stage of the process.

Sirius seemed to be taking every precaution to prove that he was taking things seriously after the first fiasco with the leaves. He scribbled on the massive chalkboard he and James had managed to nick from one of the abandoned second floor classrooms. On it, every interpretation of the next step that the boys had already tried was scrawled in Sirius's cramped handwriting:

- Dew that had been untouched for seven days added once

- Untouched dew added seven days in a row

- Sober teapot left alone for seven days

"Sober teapot?" Maeve said from her spot on the couch. "What has that got to do anything?"

Sirius pressed his lips in a thin line and wiped the chalk away with the sleeve of his uniform sweater. He rewrote it as, silver teaspoon. "There. Better?"

"Your handwriting is remarkably terrible for someone of your upbringing."

"I made it a point to forget everything our governess taught us about penmanship. Regulus can write you pretty cursive sonnets later if you'd like. Now," he said, brushing the chalk off his hands like a practiced professor. "What else have you got?"

Maeve riffled through the papers strewn about on her lap and the couch cushions. "So, for each of the times you tried, you held the leaf in your mouth from full moon to full moon?"

"Yes, I'm not an amateur."

"And was it cloudy on the night the month was up?"

He rested his hands on the backrest of a chair. "Only the first time. After that, we re-read the directions and realized that the phial has to be struck by pure moonlight before anything else happens. If it was even a little cloudy, it wouldn't have worked."

Maeve ran a frustrated hand through her knotted hair. Her transcription of the Irish directions sat on her lap, but it did nothing to assure her. "So if it's cloudy next week, we start over again."

"The Daily Prophet is forecasting clear skies."

"You'd better hope."

He laughed a little at the seriousness of her tone. "C'mon now, it hasn't been all bad. Has it?" Sirius leaned forward ever-so slightly, and Maeve realized he was genuinely asking. Sometimes it was startling how quickly he could switch from being Sirius-the-Charmer to what she liked to think of as the honest Sirius Black.

It was almost laughable to think that Maeve had gone from near-strangers with the Marauders to spending nearly all of her slim free time with them. The whole business with Remus had been a fluke. Running into them last autumn under the full moon was an accident. But here she was, a privileged visitor to the Marauder's secret room behind the tapestry.

"It hasn't all been bad," Maeve admitted. Some of it she would even remember with fondness when this inevitably ended and she went back to the old version of her that Avanti wanted so desperately. "And the dueling practice has actually been–" she looked up to meet his expectant gaze "–helpful."

"The acromantula fears the day you step into the forest again."

Maeve shuffled her papers aside. "You know it was never really about the spiders, don't you?"

"Remus keeps all of his copies of the Daily Prophet. Bit of a hoarder, that one," Sirius laughed awkwardly. "After you mentioned Mayfair, I went and re-read those articles. I remembered my mother mentioning it. They were all saying that it was likely Bellatrix that did it. But I had no idea you were there. That would have been the day after the Christmas party, or really the day of if you count what time we left that pub. Why didn't you say anything?"

For the first time, he had truly acknowledged the Christmas party out loud. It felt like a fever dream to try and remember that night. Ages ago, when everything was still relatively alright, when she had played the guitar for a drunken pub and pulled Sirius Black into a dance.

"There was nothing to say."

"Back in the forest, you could have told me the truth about what had you so afraid."

"And why would it have mattered, Sirius?" she sighed, beginning to pack up her papers and shove them into her bag. "It wouldn't have changed anything."

"I suppose not." He wetted his lips, as if he was about to say something, but then thought better of it. "Are you leaving?"

"I think we're about settled on the Animagus business. Everything is in place for next week so long as one of you spanners doesn't swallow a leaf again."

"It was an accident."

"And accidents don't happen twice, so let's hope that's true." Maeve grabbed up her bag and the rest of her things, but the exhaustion of the night was beginning to weigh on her. Her fingers fumbled with the strap, and she exhaled in frustration.

"C'mon, Maeve," Sirius said with a low laugh that bordered on teasing. "You don't have to leave. I thought you wanted help with the Patronus charm once we had everything sorted."

Her hand froze on the clasp of her bag. The Patronus charm—she had nearly forgotten. Past-Maeve had been in a stellar mood when she had suggested it. Current-Maeve was pissed at her for bringing the idea up to him. Truth be told, she wasn't particularly eager to try, not in front of him. She wasn't even sure why she had asked for help in the first place. "I really don't think you're going to be able to help me," she muttered, her shoulders slumping as she dropped her bag back to the floor with a dull thud. She sank back into the couch.

He gave her that grin of his, the one that sent half of Hogwarts into a frenzy, but only ever served to make Maeve want to hit him over the head with a chair. "Try me."

"Fine. But if you laugh—"

"I won't, I swear!"

She shrugged off her wool cardigan and pulled out her wand. Sirius, meanwhile, had moved from his position in the chair and over to the couch, casually lounging in the very spot she had just vacated. She was reminded of the smug look their dog, Tory, gave them when he jumped on the furniture he wasn't allowed on.

Maeve closed her eyes and called to mind the memory that she almost always chose. Her first real Quidditch match. Right when she was about to say the incantation, Sirius interrupted her and said, "You're thinking too hard."

"Jaysus, I haven't even done anything yet!"

"I can already tell. You're almost always thinking too hard. The Patronus is about feeling, not thinking. What memory are you using?"

"I am not tellin' you that."

Sirius leaned against the couch in the shadows, watching her with a bemused grin. "That's alright. But whatever it is, I don't think that's your happiest memory."

Maeve crossed her arms. "Excuse me? Are you really going to tell me that you know my memories better than I do?"

He just shrugged in that nonchalant way that always irritated her. "It's simple. The root of the spell is your happiest memory. If you can't control the memory, you won't be able to control the spell. It's far less about willpower than it is about conviction."

"So much of Defense Against the Dark Arts is about conviction. It's awful."

"Because you can't read a book about it or hit it with a stick?"

"You're an arse."

Sirius just laughed, which was somehow the most infuriating thing he could have done at that moment. "Just because it doesn't come easily to you doesn't mean you can't get better at it."

"That's easy for you to say. Everything comes easily to you," Maeve snapped, her frustration bubbling to the surface.

Sirius's smile faltered for a moment. "You think it's easy for me?"

"Don't go humble on me now. It's just second nature to you."

"You think I just woke up one day and knew how to do all this?"

Maeve hesitated, caught off guard by the shift in his tone. She was drawing near a line she shouldn't cross. "You certainly don't struggle with confidence."

He pushed off the couch and took a step closer. The invisible barrier between them broke and everything suddenly became on limits. "Confidence is all an act, Maeve. You learn the rules, you play the game. I've played this game for a long time, and I know what happens when you let your guard down. The Black family does not tolerate weakness. You either wisen up, or at least pretend you aren't willing to let the wolves in. Don't for a second think any of it came easily."

Maeve hardly knew what to say. She rarely saw him like this, and it had only ever been in glimpses. The bitter version of him, the one that had survived years of living in the dark halls of Grimmauld Place. It was nearly terrifying. As if he were an animal she didn't want to spook. And–Christ–the intensity in his gaze was almost suffocating. It was like being burned alive.

Maeve's heart pounded in her chest, and she fought to keep her voice steady. "I don't understand why you're bringing this up now."

"Because you need to hear it," he snapped, his voice hardening. "Just because something is hard for you, it doesn't mean you're weak."

She hated how he could do that, hated how he pushed her right to the brink and held her hand before she fell completely over the edge. "I've never been good at letting go," she heard herself saying, but her voice felt very far away. "Not of fear, not of anything."

Sirius's hand reached out, hovering just above her shoulder as if unsure whether to make contact. "Then maybe it's time you learned. Because if you don't, it's going to eat you alive."

For a moment, they just stared at each other. Maeve's chest rose and fell with cathartic anger and a strange kind of comfort. Then, Sirius's gaze flickered away as if he'd revealed too much.

Maeve finally found her voice again. "Can you show me? The Patronus charm?"

"It isn't like you haven't seen it done before."

"Humor me."

Falling back into his usual banter as quick as a summer storm, he asked, "How much of the things you ask are purely for your own entertainment?"

"Only eighty percent. This is the other portion."

For a moment, she thought he wasn't going to do it. Then Sirius stepped back, the glow from his wand illuminating the room as he called out, "Expecto Patronum!" A brilliant flash of silver morphed into a large dog that bounded joyfully around the room.

Maeve almost laughed. "A dog?"

"Cursed with loyalty," he told her as the dog bounded up to his side. It was brighter than any Patronus she had ever seen. "Now, you give it another go."

"I've embarrassed myself in front of you enough for one evening, so."

"It isn't embarrassing," he chided. "So what? The great Maeve Byrne isn't good at everything."

She lifted her wand with a long sigh. Just as she was about to flick her wrist, she felt Sirius's hand close around her forearm, his grip both firm and reassuring.

"What is it now?"

"Just slow down for a second," he told her, still holding on to her arm in a gentle grasp. "Try a different memory."

Maeve let her eyes fall closed. At first, she saw the vibrant, artificial green of the Quidditch pitch. But then the green gained a brown hue and transformed into the rolling hills of the seacoast. Sorcha was there, and the two of them were standing near the edge of the trail in Howth. They stood at the height of birds; waves hammered the rocks far below them. Sorcha reached out and wrapped her arm around Maeve's as if she was truly afraid to fall. They were ten years old. Maeve knew that she would never let go.

"Expecto Patronum."

White light coaxed her eyes open, illuminating the room with a silvery glow.

Sirius's eyes widened in awe as he watched the Patronus circle the room, its silver feathers gleaming in the dim light. It wasn't nearly as vibrant as his, but it was still whole and beautiful. The dog began to follow it around the perimeter of the sloped ceiling.

"Maeve, you did it," Sirius breathed, his voice filled with genuine admiration. "You actually did it!"

But Maeve's eyes were locked on the bird that flitted through the air, buffeted by an invisible breeze. Its wings caught the light as it darted and swooped. It was a magpie, after all. Relief escaped her in a slow breath, though it carried an edge of disappointment. She had hoped for something different, something that wasn't Sorcha's. Yet here it was, another reminder—a connection that lingered despite everything else slipping away into the past.

✤ ✾ ✤

a/n I am going to say this once and I'm sorry in advance: Sirius teaching Maeve the art of letting go is a direct parallel to her inevitably having to let him go when he's imprisoned in Azkaban. 🤸

A Sieve moment at long last! In a very strange way that neither of them realizes, they're both comfortable (to an extent) being vulnerable around each other. Unfortunately the drama with the girls is not yet done. But yay for Sirius and Maeve content!

I already have a document that's slowlyyyy gaining more scenes for a potential trio-era fic. I cannot give away too much without spoiling the end of rose blood, but if I do actually put the time into writing it, it'll be a sort-of sequel that wouldn't require reading rose blood beforehand because I feel like for-real sequels always tank on here. Long story short! Would you guys be into that???