Thunder and darkness struck down the alley Sirius Black had taken refuge for that day. Passers-by moved swiftly by him as if he was nothing more than a mere shadow; a flicker of dark light, substantiating the existence of blackness altogether. It was his desired effect: to be there and no longer acknowledged, to be seen and no longer worthy enough for the raise of a hat or even the stop of a smile. It took him days to finally reach this goal— cruelly well-achieving it.

The anger sounding in the skies above normally could have jolted him from the spiralling hole he was no longer able to escape. It could have given him some sense to stop the tracks of his thoughts, allow him to backtrack for his own goodness. But there was no noise louder or angrier than his own mind. The sonority consumed every thought, every flame of sound and fire. Even the mythical god of thunder fell short in comparison.

With every new crash of noises, more people rushed against the unnoticed man in black. The warning in the air seemed to venture within every nook of space available, and all they could do was escape the harsh change in atmosphere to the dull lights of Knockturn Alley’s dank shops and diners. Still, he waited, and waited a while longer while no one cared he existed, until he finally spotted the man he had been waiting for; prestigious and vicious against the thundering roars.

He moved, in both darkness and light interwoven, up until he reached behind him; the tall man, with a long, twisted face mirroring all what was wrong with life. In a shuddering moment Sirius acknowledged how he had to resort to people like him, that the information he desperately needed resided in filth like…

Like Antonin Dolohov.

As swiftly as the pouring rain above them, Sirius took out his wand and petrified the Death Eater, and just as swiftly did the man collapse. The flicker of satisfaction that went through Sirius as he listened to the man’s bones crashing against the bricks did not go unnoticed.

Still in noticeable pain and unable to bend down, Sirius dragged Dolohov to the narrow alley on his left, a creak just as abandoned as the soul he was seeking. Slowly, he crouched down and released his grasp on the Death Eater to revive him.  Dolohov’s eyes began to open in confusion, more bewilderment loading them as he was shot with a much more powerful spell; one that had no place for the reverse of situations.

“Imperio.”

The spell felt wrong on Sirius’s tongue. From all the vows he had taken on himself, using the Imperius curse was one of the most dearly unbreakable, never believing in the power of holding the life of another human by the tip of your wand. How cruel; to slay a human with a syllable– to take away their dearest possession of all.

But Sirius now knew no lengths.

“Tell me what happened to Regulus Black.” Sirius immediately questioned; his voice raspy from disuse. It had been days and days of silence, of only speaking when aiming to interrogate. The cords inside were tired. The dark locks of his hair were falling from the length of them, slick and greasy unlike their consistently elegant nature. Even the blood in his veins moved slowly from weariness.

Empty eyes spoke back as Antonin had no choice but to respond. “He was murdered. The Dark Lord disposed of him.”

“Why, you miserable piece of trash?” Sirius shot back, furious to receive the exact same response as the other Death Eaters he had crowded before him.

“No one cared enough to ask.”

And it was ice, and hollow glassiness, that consumed Sirius at that moment. He was able to handle it when the others replied I wasn’t there when the news was given, or I wasn’t allowed to know or even cold feet, but this gave the whole situation a broader length; one that spoke of finality and endings. One that perfectly depicted the life of a very young boy, young by age but senile in soul.

Sirius exhaled his broken heart, never thinking caring a bit much would have mattered. Maybe it would have, and maybe all what it would have done was ruin Regulus further, for could Sirius do anything but damn his beloveds?

“Do you know where Voldemort killed him?” he finally asked and Dolohov flinched instinctively, even when controlled fearing the name. Sirius rolled his eyes in disgust.

“Only a high-ranking Death Eater may question the Dark Lord on his actions, and only if he deems the information relevant to them. So why don’t you go ask him yourself?” Dolohov suddenly spat, eyes starting to roll back into place and Sirius realised quite late that the Imperius must be fading in order for the man to return back to his senses slightly. He didn’t hesitate in crashing Dolohov’s head to the wall behind them, causing him to lose consciousness once more.

Once up and a bit composed, Sirius finished his work by erasing the Death Eater’s memory, imprinting a pseudo image of why he would be unconscious in a dank alley in the rain. Slightly wincing as he finished and moved to leave behind, something shone faintly in the dark space of Dolohov’s pocket. It glimmered like the apple had glimmered in the eyes of Eve.

It was his Death Eater mask.

Holding it up emotionlessly and rolling it between his fingers, Sirius tightened his hold onto it and spoke with the same lack of emotions and the lack of life in his voice.

“Well, maybe I’ll fucking do just that, Dolohov.”

•|∆

“If it were anyone but you, Lily, anyone, asking me to do this for him..” the blonde beauty had replied vehemently, the years and the gaps between her and the one referred to showing on her bright young face, now tainted with creases from frowning at the request she had received from the woman that once saved her life.

“I shall forever remain in your debt,” Lily softly replied, earnestly surprised at her acceptance. There must have been a solid point, Lily thought, in the mind of whoever came up with keep your friends close and your enemies closer. She really did feel nothing but close these days– close to foes and lovers, close to both healing and breaking.

When Lily had first approached James with her idea, she received nothing but near dismay: weariness and utter exhaustion apparent on his face from the barest emotion. It was fully expected, for it had been a week already by that time they hadn’t been able to find Sirius again after grandly disappearing from the Potter Cottage instead of healing from all the curses inflicted on him. Everyone took solace in the fact that he was alive and breathing, at least not dead as presumed beforehand. Yet, when he failed to show up the next day, the Marauders went full on vigilance once more, even as their disappointment rose as the matter was left behind the Order, no longer the chief of their concerns.

As if they were fallen soldiers, destined to stay on the grounds.

The Marauders hadn’t stopped, not even when they finally knew the reason why Sirius so abruptly lost the meaning of life altogether, and not even when they all silently guessed his mission. They kept looking for Sirius, trying to catch him somewhere following a Death Eater in the fumes of his rage, or, heavens forbid, battling one solo, but he never made a single appearance.

Alongside looking for Sirius, the werewolf in their midst was the one to suggest they try and find more of Regulus Black’s death, for what reason would Sirius leave them, leave him, other than gather information he couldn’t acquire elsewhere? It hurt that Sirius would think it’s better as a one-man mission, refusing their help and care and love. It truly hurt that Sirius didn’t understand how all four of them knew and felt the immense pain he must be going through, for who wouldn’t ache and tear for years over the loss of their beloved brother?

In truth, they all just knew the real statement Sirius wished to send. At nights, when Peter and Remus circled around James and Lily in the place they all called home, no one dared voice out the engraved thought that had always been there from the moment they met the heir of the Blacks– the inevitable lie he kept trying to drill within them, awaiting a chance to suffocate their lives from Sirius’s self-deprecation. They simply couldn’t heed the warning, not when Sirius Black was the paradigm of all goodness in their lives.

I am danger, and danger I will no longer bring to you.

After the week of unstoppable searching, reaching out to anyone and everyone, they still had fallen short. If they had always known something else about Sirius, it was that he could hide so well, even from the people who would sense his existence from miles apart. Thus, the pain began to cement, and they began to deal with agony differently. The longer their days had lengthened, the sadder Peter Pettigrew had gotten, the angrier Remus Lupin had gotten, the older Lily Potter had gotten, and the wearier James Potter had gotten.

And none were to blame.

By the beginning of that second week, Lily was officially the holder of the collapsing Marauders; all distraught with that traumatising agony, unable to see past it. How could they, when their pillar, the obelisk of their entire foundation, was still nowhere to be found? They truly felt as if their little sanctuary in each other was slowly demolishing. Sometimes, when Lily sat with Peter, her words seemed to instill some hope and support within him, and when she was with Remus, she was able to at least hear some of the agonising screams and sobs shuddering from him in her insignificant hugs.

It was her husband, the love of her life, the hardest to console or even approach. Weariness led to silence and silence led to masks Lily had never seen on James’s consistently bare and beautiful face. Some nights she wasn’t able to discern a single emotion, a single thought out of him, no doubt failing to be confided in. James just didn’t know how to be so outspoken after the trauma of that forsaken day; the one he thought he had lost both who gave his life meaning. And even though all the time she wished to shout and scream at him, to sew inside his heart that Sirius and herself were both still alive and breathing, it didn’t really seem to make a difference when breath and death seemed to no longer matter to him.

For what Lily could not, and would never understand, was how every time James went looking for Sirius, a piece of his soul diminished. One particular day, she only saw how he returned home bloodied and broken for the first time in countless months. She had pleaded with all of her might for him to confide in her, to just tell her how she could be of any use, but he did not divulge any of the destructive events despite her excessive concern. She could only see how the events unknown were flashing behind hazel eyes: a roll film in the making– probably the saddest to have ever been created.

It was the first time those eyes truly shone with defeat.

Veiled from the whole world but James, that roll drew on to show how his hope and faith were destroyed when he saw no other course of action except to fling himself in front of a Death Eater. In useless trial, he kept asking if the man had come across Sirius, not even bothering to guard himself from apparent harm, not fighting it off like the fearless James Potter normally would— no longer the wiser in differentiating between a solid chance and a damning danger.

James only knew Sirius’s name then, repeating it in a broken mantra. His foe taunted him for knowing nothing else, and as he took the matter of ruining James physically in his hands, with every punch in the face and stab of flaring pain James could only breathe, Have you seen Sirius Black?

My Sirius Black?

It was a pattern of dread and loss.

Every day after that night unwitnessed, Lily could only occasionally see him slouched against their coffee-coloured couch bleakly. In desperation, she would try to hold him close and stay on his terms of silence; agree on them all while aching for Sirius just as fervently. And every day she would see him reject her earth-grounding touch, getting up slowly, and closing the door of their room behind him.

Sickening idleness tried to win that entire round of Lily’s life, but the Evans-Potter was always keen on beating it no matter the cost. Even as she neared that same edge of despair as the Marauders, she still held her grounds steadily. She didn’t lose hope, no matter how much it looked as if the earth had swallowed Sirius from everywhere they had shared the barest of memories in— swallowed Sirius Black a whole. She simply couldn’t lose hope in the faith they had always instilled in him.

Lightly, Lily had broken the rhythm of their manacled life as she approached James who was sitting on their couch one evening. With a closer look, she noticed that he was staring at his side of their two-way mirror, flipping it over quietly as if trying to question the piece of metal and glass why it can’t make him see his brother anymore. The simple act did nothing but break Lily’s heart even further.

“I am going to contact her.” Lily finally voiced, and James didn’t even react. “I have no hope she’ll respond, but it’s something, alright? You know her circle and how it’s more likely for them to stumble across him now more than us, so we should give it a chance. It’s a good chance. A 50/50 chance. Better than any chance we’ve gotten so far.”

And she stopped rambling, just reaching out for his hand, desperate, urging him to get out of his trance and look at her. When he did, Lily saw such raw anguish that she knew nothing can ever compete with. James’s hazel eyes no longer looked bright, or even looked the same. She had always said he looked younger without his glasses on, but now his heartbreak seemed to discard her previous identification.

Only then did James react, smiling so minimally it didn’t even feel like a smile. He reached up to Lily’s face, and gently tucked the straying red streaks out of her face, embroidering her vision with the clarity he could not possess; at least one of them could have it.

“I understand, Lily,” he voiced at last as he leaned against her and brushed her cheeks so agonisingly softly. No sound or touch ever mattered so much to Lily as his. “I truly understand. And I thank you, my love.”

But it was not Lily’s plan that he was referring to: James Potter understood that Lily Evans-Potter was trying her absolute hardest to stop him from hitting core bottom.

•|∆

Past midnight arrived when nonsensical plans began to evolve in the Black heir’s mind. The fickle thread of sanity holding him back all the days beforehand began to melt; heated into his roaring fire of hurtful desire and ache. The murky grounds he walked paved a path he never thought he’d ever cross. They didn’t just feel dirty to step on, but from the inside they also stained him. He marched onto it, knowing no barriers, no lengths: an unbeatable being of no decorum.

The bars of the Malfoy Manor rose high in the twilight. They highlighted roads ahead, gave the aura of grandeur, chilling Sirius from his bones inside. It was not fear that consumed him per se, but the memories that began resurfacing at the back of his mind, encircling the closest family he knew that resided there: Narcissa Malfoy née Black, a cousin of oaths rather than one of blood.

For a moment his mind flickered to a day in their earliest youth, probably the earliest he could remember, when all they were was beloved cousins to each other. Sirius and Regulus, not knowing what it meant to have a girl for a sister, found their answer in the three Black sisters, and vice versa had occurred; the girls formed actual thoughts on what a true brother should mean, not that all the notions were formidable.

That particular day Sirius remembered, now gleaming against the high bars of the Manor in front of him, he saw himself lying idly in their sunny garden on his stomach, eyes drifting close as a gentle weight laid on his back, bones so small they had not fully formed. When he reopened his eyes, he saw Narcissa’s blond locks, too closely settled against his own hair as she concentrated with unadulterated youth on the braids she was forming with Sirius’s hair.

It was one of his fondest memories– the laugh that emanated from her, when she had succeeded. But now– now all he could feel from miles away was corrosive resentment. It burdened his soul just as everything he had ever done in that family had burdened him.

In the shadows of his past, Sirius walked towards the Manor, head held as high as a Death Eater would. The mask on his face reflected what everyone always expected from him; such a convincing act that he did not even meet any resistance on his way. At least, his inner consciousness hoped it would remain an act.

The door opened in sombre welcoming, and behind it he saw a masked man ushering the incomers inside. His black robes dragged behind him on the ground, and the simple flicker of blond hair was all it took to recognise his greeter as Lucius Malfoy; a source of significant evil.

“Dolohov,” Lucius nodded, and in silence Sirius returned the gesture. “I was starting to wonder if you lost your way in the rain as usual.”

Sirius did not respond. He was counting the minutes until he could shut the sucker up.

“You might want to know, he’s not in a particularly good mood today.” said Lucius, a hurried tone trying to hide his fear. Sirius distantly thought he couldn’t see anything more pathetic. “He hasn’t revealed the information yet, but it seems they blew up some important thread he had been tracing.”

They reached the second floor, and he instinctively began to feel closer to his goal than ever before. He could already see the ornamented door, distinctive and apparent to any seeking eye, embellished with silver jewels and green gems— a typical Slytherin mansion, and yet so intricately designed that the swirls were breath-taking.

Sirius stopped listening to Lucius and continued towards his destination, hands curled around the wand in his pocket in preparation. It was dumb, Sirius fleetingly thought, to expect to even have a chance when you enter the lair of the most powerful man on earth, surrounded by people who’d compete to end your life most creatively in order to appease. But Sirius did not care. It was a suicide mission to someone who no longer believed in life.

As they drew closer, the sounds started to emanate from the closed door. They were all gibberish chatter that Sirius could not distinguish; his mind was already speaking to him in that same language. It rumbled deeply inside him, trying to awaken him from a long-time sleep, but to no avail.

It was the spell that flashed from their backs right before they touched the door that coaxed him back into reality. Sirius didn’t even have time to get out his wand and spin around, but surprisingly, most surprisingly to him when he turned, he noticed he wasn’t the victim of the spell.

It was Lucius. He appeared to have entered a daze, confused and distorted, and Sirius could not comprehend in what world would the caster ever need to use Confundus on the Malfoy heir— why she would ever enchant her own husband.

Narcissa Malfoy, in shining green contrasting her blonde beauty, strode towards them in silence, holding onto Lucius as gently as a lover who just cursed their beloved would. With a soft murmur, she moved him towards a door beside the grand meeting room, opened it, and silently locked it after she had left him inside.

Only then did she finally look at her intruder, cold harsh eyes resting on him. It was a look unmatched to Lucifer’s.

“This will be the only time I ever save you, Black.”

And she walked away. In plain horror, Sirius found himself following her, no chance to resist or rebound the spell he did not notice was put on him. She kept leading them away from the room, away from his one sole purpose, and in utter frustration Sirius began to recite some spells to use as soon as he’s free to curse her entire existence.

The moment a door shut right behind them, Sirius felt the shackles around his tongue slacken, an invisible hand still tugging hard on the manacles binding the rest of his body. He gave a furtive glance to the room they had entered and noticed the dark green garnishing, typical of his typical cousin. It left no space to wonder, until her voice echoed across the room.

“You know, thick and dense are actually synonyms to the same word; obtuse.”

He would have laughed. After all, her words of nostalgia threw him back to something he had one day hoped to cherish forever— their little dictionary game: the unquenchable ache for wisdom, the prized rivalry of family. In his mind’s eye, Sirius could see himself, so young and gullible, with Regulus propped on his lap and Andromeda holding Narcissa the same. He could see them all screaming nonsensical words of similarities to one another, as if they were all one similar being, no differences to part over.

“Glad you upheld the tradition,” Sirius drawled gracefully as he normally, without the haunted image of him, would. “I must say I am personally rough around the edges when it comes to new discoveries these days… or should I say around manors, Narcissine?”

The room fell silent. The dark intonation in Sirius’s voice consumed it. It left no place for regretful nostalgia. “You better remove the jinx and leave me be, or I think you know what I am capable of doing.”

Narcissa was the one to actually laugh. Perhaps the clarity she had was her source of amusement beyond measure, for all she could see, even with the mask he wore, was a dog full of barks and no bites.

She accordingly put a leash on him.

“Have you ever wondered, Sirius,” Narcissa began in a very low voice, her thick emerald robes swirling elegantly behind her as she stepped towards him. “Have you ever truly wondered if anyone thinks you are worth existing?”

And all restraints were gone with a wave of her hand, alongside all might and defence Sirius had put up. They tugged him to run forward while he had the chance, to let go of his delusive pursuit and never listen to the destruction Narcissa seemed ready to hurtle upon him. But wasn’t the whole purpose of what he was doing was to find the truth, the bare truth, hiding all the while?

She leaned closer to him, and her rich blue eyes ensorcelled him into rigidness and fixation on only her. It was an effect he had long forgotten she had on anyone she wanted something from. Here and now, Sirius could subconsciously see that Narcissa wanted to end him altogether, unarmed and unhinged.

“I have long pondered where your self-conceit would bring us all, and I thought it would stop bringing us down when you eloped, but you couldn’t rest, could you?” she expressed most vehemently. The gentle features of her face turned– a switch had finally unlocked the true look on her face. “You had to perform your grandest finale. You had to literally bring him down.” 

Sirius was stunned into silence like a mannequin bearing no soul. His grey orbs, the only feature unveiled from his face, dilated in pain. Narcissa didn’t even need to see his face behind the Death Eater’s mask to make out the effect of her words. This was the exact track that needed to be treaded upon in order to break the mighty ego of Sirius Black. It was a track she kept retracing, redefining, in order for one day to strike home. She never thought, though, that the context would be the biggest sorrow she herself had ever felt.

“Tell me where he is buried, Narcissa,” Sirius whispered slowly, finding his long-lost voice at last. The grimness in his voice resembled the paintings he had always despised in Grimmauld. His ego was lost in a sea of misery. “You must know what happened to him— please, just tell me and you will never see my face again.”

“Too late for demands!” she hissed. The snake within revealed itself; angry and bitter over a life of coiling. “Too late to be saved any grace. What mercy have you given him for me to entreat you with it?”

“Do you have any idea how it feels like to be me?” Sirius expressed– in it, he expressed pain. The whisper sounded reluctant to ever reach the air of Narcissa Malfoy. “Do you know what it feels like to be ripped apart, shred by painful shred, because of your guilt and ache? If you did, you wouldn’t have even thought of that. You would not have presumed I am not wasting away for him.”

“You know what, Sirius Black?” she retorted angrily. “If you are truly wasting away, then I salute that day for finally breaking you.” And she drew away her face, glimpses of shared despair consuming it. Perhaps her goal was to destroy Sirius with her words, but she didn’t realise how painful it would be on her to voice out the whole truth she had been unable to grieve. “Do you know what it feels like, being unable to do anything? Watching the only family you care about wither away in a scorching fire because it was the only light that flickered in front of him when his own flesh and blood took away all of his? Pray tell me, dearest light, away why did you ignite?” 

Wounds of fractured bits of an arrow pierced Sirius’s heart. The fragile metals seemed to seep inside and delve much further, causing him great torment, feeling them most vividly. He felt them in their rush to shatter the nook of his innards, in the agony erupting. He thought he could never live with anything bar heart bleed after the arrowheads of words.

“So no, Sirius,” Narcissa continued. “I will tell you nothing. This mask you wear cannot truly hide the face behind it. It cannot make you the man your brother twice was. So, leave him alone, and haunt him no more, for in death he’ll evade you as in life you did.” 

And in strength assorted with sorrow, Narcissa glided away effortlessly from him. With no forewarning, no sensing what she may do, Narcissa Malfoy née his cousin spoke into the air, tainting it with dripping venom, no love or connection of lives past lived left. 

“May you be damned as long as the light rests upon you and not Regulus.”

•|∆

Time; it moved so quickly sometimes it was out-of-reach. It bore no pace, no rhythm to get used to. People barely feel it at times, and feel nothing but its prolonged existence at others. For James Potter, he was stuck in its loophole: in constant agony of its changeability. One day he would sit and stare for hours at the reminders of his only brother, and the other he’d find himself unequipped to realise that barely a few minutes had passed.

And other times, like the one he was about to live, forced him to outrun its pace, for otherwise he’d lose the dearest on his heart.

Another evening it was when the Potters and the extension of them were gathered at the cottage, avoiding the harsh night’s lustre. Lily and the remaining two Marauders were busy in their newest additions of advanced spellbooks for tracking mechanisms, and James, like every night for the past many nights, sat staring at the fireplace, spinning his glasses over and over heedlessly– a relatively useless marionette in the air.

He could have missed the flicker of light in his haze, had he not been achingly gazing at it in the first place, wishful of any sign. He could have missed his only salvation, formed in the face of Narcissa Malfoy.

“He’s here. Study room. Only one has a minute to take him before the wards close off.”

Her painfully unfamiliar face disappeared in fire and flame. James didn’t even put his glasses back on before he ran to the fireplace, shouting his destination, and evaporated in its green flames. Behind him stood Lily bordering on shock. She could only look at her two remaining companions, drained of colour for finally finding their dearly beloved, but from a source so frightening they paled to think what James would bring back.

They couldn’t have possibly expected what he did bring back.

In grand arrival, James stepped foot away from the fireplace of the Malfoys, wand at the ready for any case, even ready for a purposeful deceit, a false alarm to lure one of the mightiest warriors. But he didn’t care. The mantra of Sirius’s name was back; the main aim and purpose returned.

Although everyone knew that the Potter heir was born with a silver spoon in his mouth— a lone child, brought up in one of the grandest wizarding families, with doting, loving parents, allowing him to recognise luxury and be content with it as if it were a mere image of what he had forever seen— it was not heritage that made James dismiss the magnificence of the Malfoy Manor. Rather, was what he had found, blended within its walls as if it was always there, as if it was a corporeal embodiment of the place—

It was the Death Eater he saw upon arriving. 

All adrenaline and ache evaporated from his eyes, and in their stead remained only disbelief. He would know Sirius anywhere. He would know him masked, or unmasked, in an earth of identical duplicates. He would instinctively and distinctively find his chosen brother, for he had seen all the façades he had ever worn. Now, he didn’t know whether it was a blessing or a curse, for in no perceived world would James Potter ever find Sirius Black wearing a Death Eater’s mask.

The shock that momentarily disabled James was mirrored against Sirius’s obscured face, no doubt from the realization of where he stood in front of whom. But time was not on either of their sides to allow them to process. They barely had any of it left before they would be stuck in a manor of enemies, and then there would be no time to be blunt, none to confront.

James took several long strides towards Sirius, and without even bothering to acknowledge the man in front of him, he held him so tightly with both arms, facing him, looking straight into his masked eyes unflinchingly.

And he threw them back into the fire of Godric’s Hollow.

Dust and ashes lunged into the lungs of all the attendees. The artificial lights hanging from the ceiling moved suddenly in upheaval, trembling from the scene beheld; a scene truly never lived by the lively Marauders before— one of commendable shock and disbelief. Audible gasps welcomed the bonded brothers upon stepping out from the shadows of fire. Lily and Remus both reflexively reached for their wands, momentarily unaware and unhinged from the Death Eater in their midst. Their Peter, small Peter, only put his hand over his mouth to stifle his gaping shriek, retreating several steps back.

When it fully clicked in the minds of all who the framed person was, all wands were dropped along with their beating, dripping hearts. As for James, now fully out of the adrenaline of time-frames and dead endings, he kept looking at Sirius, his eyes never leaving the veiled face. No one dared break his silence. Not even Sirius could save himself now.

Timidly– an emotion never experienced when conversing with the Potter heir before– Sirius tried to utter, “I—”, but James moved away from him, giving him his back, an arms-length away; a distance that has never felt more spaced– a distance measured in pain rather than in metrics.

As the silence returned, James stood rigidly backing Sirius like Sirius has never seen him do before. For a moment, all the grace Sirius could have gotten from James was a mere acknowledgement; a sign that his truth was not fully in disarray.

But the grace he received was different; it was formed in James’s hands, in a moment’s worth, finding all their strength and might to face Sirius back—

And slap him.

The slap reverberated through the chests of all. None could have possibly presumed the action. An astonished gasp sounded from Lily, only able to step one step forward in means to restrain James from what he just did before she froze in apprehensive motion as James raised a hand in murderous intent to stop anyone from nearing them.

“James?” Sirius could only whisper, hurt and betrayal echoing across Sirius’s face– a face now bare, having been hit so hard that it knocked off its mask, all his masks, revealing only anguish. Pain itself echoed through their forever peaceful residence, bewilderment touching Sirius’s heart as much as it was laced within his features. He looked like a ghost who had just received the curse of immortal insignificance.

“God damn you, Sirius!” James finally shouted; melancholy etched and face wretched. The rage fuelled was making its first appearance in what they all presumed their entire lifetime. His anger became the blade shredding apart James’s own heart into slashes alike the fallen mask. His hand, which he had hit Sirius with, was shaking so hard, disbelieving of its action. Even the ground on which he walked away was almost on fire. The whole world lost its balance, or perhaps, just perhaps, they were each other’s worlds, so it was an effect expected.

Distantly, Sirius saw James stride out of the place, Remus at his heels– both of them leaving him to face what he couldn’t possibly comprehend. In their stead, he felt a gentle hand on his flaming cheek and instantly recognized the kind touch: hers had always been nothing else except that.

“I– I–” He was at a loss of words, the sting on his cheek still fresh, coursing shock through his veins. He couldn’t discern between reality and nightmares any longer.

“Please.. please know he aches for you.” Lily whispered, both hand and cheek on his own. The tear that fell from her eyes seemed to burn his skin into comprehension.

But Sirius could only feel like a beating heart buried dead in the ground.

•|∆

“James,” came the soft grounding voice of Remus Lupin; the only one sane in a group of innately insane. For a moment, James felt bewildered to be the one hearing Remus’s voice, not Sirius. The eldest Black was always the first priority, not just to him but to the both of them. They bonded over that shared love, and further strengthened their unconquerable bond. But the fact always remained: Sirius Black was always the prime concern, the first in position as well as in proximity.

So, even that small shift of places, that unsurpassable insignificance that was in James’s favour, threw him much more on the edge than he already was.

“Go to him, Remus,” he mindlessly replied, waving Remus away, not even bothering to look behind him. How could he, when he shouldn’t be comforted after what he felt, what he did? How could he show Remus his pain and all-consuming anger when he had seen how direly the man was affected, too? James’s eyes rewinded all their nights, all the rage Remus had so blatantly allowed to show while trying to heal, sending James into conviction that he could never reveal his own in order not to add unto him. But there was always a limit: always a range that shouldn’t be surpassed. “Go and love him, or leave him, for all I care.”

“You must know I wouldn’t,” Remus replied sadly as he stood behind James, a touch away from easing the torment of that broken, broken man, but to no avail. “You must know it has to be you.” 

“How– How dare you?” James finally looked up behind him, fuming agony accidentally erupting for both of their behalf. Maybe it was Remus who had to stop his limitless empathy. Maybe the purest Potter should not always remain the grief-bearer. “After all the hours we’ve scorned, the hours we’ve mourned? Must you always let your love for him precede your judgement, Remus?”

“How dare I— how dare you?” Remus replied with a tone never used with the Potter heir before, and it was suddenly clear: the wolf made his reappearance much sooner than expected. “Is he not the brother of your heart, the chosen brother of your soul? How dare you think him a plain sinner when you know the grief he weathers, the misery he suffers? How dare you think I am enamoured, blind to his actions, offhandedly shrugging them off when all I’ve done was ache and bleed beside you those past forsaken days? But you can’t look me in the eyes and tell me you do not feel what he’s going through, James..”

The intensity of his words cracked the broken air between them; his hidden claws slashing unto it. And unexpectedly it stopped, and all that was left was sorrowful existence. Remus stopped advancing with fury on his noblest friend, stopping the whole world in trial to remind James of what was at stake if the most honourable did not lean and learn.

“You.. you cannot deny the tormenting agony of losing the other half of your soul— of feeling responsible for their demise. You cannot deny you haven’t already done the same,” he paused slightly, and gave space to the misery written on his friend’s face to melt a bit. It seemed that the scars on Remus’s face were the ones addressing James. “So, give him a semblance of what we were not allowed. By God, heaven will fall and hell will reign if there will be no more mercy and true justice in your heart, James Potter. We shall all be damned then, and first in line will be the man who loves you like no other; the one who would have returned to you, not to anyone else, if even life separated you through its veils of earth.”

And Remus stopped, earnestly unfazed from the truth he had always known but would have never dared to voice out loud in fear of breaking his own heart. Still here and now, with that truth yet echoing from his words, Remus found that he was at peace, knowing he finally acknowledged the differences between their relationships; those lines uncrossed, no matter how much he had once wished to erase, seeking to be loved just as Sirius and James loved each other. He could now see how love comes with different measures.

“I– I can’t,” James finally murmured. Remus barely registered the sound; it did not even feel real. It did not speak of the mightiest Marauder. “I can’t. Remus, oh Remus. . .”

And the real misery began: silent, solemn sobs racketed James’s entire posture. In a moment’s time, his head was nestled inside Remus’s chest, trembling. His glasses collided painfully on the edges of his face until they cracked and fell, and yet it was the moment he needed the most, finally seeing what ought to have coloured his perception so long ago. All the weariness faded into true honest grief, and with a small voice that could never be compared to his normally encompassing presence he brokenly whispered, “I can’t have him leave me.”

Remus’s heart shattered into little fractures. The wolf in him retreated, no place for him any longer during James’s unveiling. Alongside, his fiery rage disappeared, and the previous ache returned, intensified to the brim for seeing the purest of them destroyed so fully– farther than just being destroyed.

“I swore, by all religions and oaths, that day when he came to me broken and alone to always be the one to hold onto him when he couldn’t anymore. I swore to always be there, and in thinking I was being his saviour, I never noticed him slowly becoming mine. So how can I keep going when my own saviour cares no more, Remus? How can I continue life, when I’m always threatened by my own knife?”

James paused, looking up with teary brown eyes, trying to fully acknowledge the man holding him in his worst. “I– I know I am blessed,” he began, eyes begging for forgiveness on a deed he did not even commit. He would die a million times to save that man from his own monster, and with nervousness he held unto his gaze, for in no world can Remus Lupin feel less loved by James Potter. “I have you, and I have Peter, and I have Lily, but you know I cannot live if I don’t have him. The world cannot live without having him. Alas I tried.. dear God, Remus, I tried in earnest healing these days to go on with just knowing he’s alright, that he’s okay, but I– I couldn’t. I couldn’t accept he’d rather destroy himself than be with us. I couldn’t stop looking for my brother even if I knew he was looking for his.”

“How I wished it was me, Remus,” James ended up announcing out loud. The air fell agonisingly still, as if it did not approve. “How many times did I truly wish so, for trading places with our Regulus would have been all it took for Sirius to no longer be driven by guilt.”

But that roaming guilt filled the air. It seemed to creep inside Remus himself for all the harshness he had inflicted on someone as tormented as James. Guilt did not differentiate. “Look at me, James,” Remus started, holding James by both arms; maybe then guilt will at least make James feel Remus in all sense and actuality. “You can see me, right? You can see my face, feel my hand, and hear my voice. But that is all that we can get; this physical world of nothing but what we observe. We cannot experience what’s beyond it, and so we never leave goodness to its expectations. We leave all horrible thoughts to what is yet to be known, and fill this one with hopes and aspirations to the fullest extent. But they intervene, my dearest friend.”

He halted, not wanting to overwhelm the burdened man and yet genuinely wishing to help him, but James Potter cannot be helped with anything but the truth. “It cannot be all about goodness in one place. It cannot be about saving him miseries in a world bar the other. It cannot be cherishing an all-time state of betterment— some endless form of happiness, for he will never be endlessly happy, nor any of us will ever be. What we have is to be genuinely happy; make use of this limited elation we’re given in life and never despair from its short-span.”

Remus stopped, feeling James’s body slacken against him, taking Remus’s words in. All the werewolf could do at that moment was caress his friend’s back— caress him back to the world of the living.

“Do not wish you were dead, James; wish you were alive.”

•|∆

The room looked so pale and empty— the colours were bleak and the good memories seemed wiped clean. As soon as James had entered, he found its usual resident sitting on the brightly coloured tiles of the floor, facing its window, face blank of expression; perhaps seeking some light, or else embracing its chilly bite.

All in all, Sirius looked like a melody out of tune.

“The moon is no sight for tonight.” James announced his presence. Through him sounded a blank monotone that spoke of windowless evenings and sorrowful nights. It reminded him of his previous collected demeanour, and kept trying to fit into it.

Sirius did not respond; not that James expected him to, however much-needed reassurance it was to hear anything beyond the ringing accusation and confusion of Sirius’s last call to him. He moved closer to the window, lit by the waning crescent that seemed so small to cause so much suffering at times. Perhaps life is all about the phases of that moon– that never-ending circle, where you must always endure its pain to experience its pleasure. Perhaps that’s the only thing you can actually get for love.

“I came to reconcile,” James reconvened as he leaned against the windowsill, banning all light and fully absorbing it instead. His face reflected no luminescence back; both his glasses and clarity were broken in half. “I came to say I understand, and that I will never stand in your way if that is your wish. My actions have superseded my rage and error, but perhaps..” he wavered, fearful of his own words, knowing how meaningless they were about to be received. “Perhaps you may forgive me for you know that I know honour– honour and debt, and that I won’t cross your boundaries any longer.”

James straightened up, and moved across the small distance in front of Sirius until he was at his eye-level, an arm’s length away as earlier before; a slap away. “I will leave,” he said calmly, “the moment you tell me so.”

Sirius didn’t, or at this point couldn’t, react. James looked into the hollowness filling Sirius’s naturally bright grey orbs, now dull with meaninglessness and the most destructive urge. James recognised the notion– he saw it flickering deep in the façade; Sirius, all broken and torn, just wishing to drive his closest people away from him, make them care less about him. Make them leave.

James saw it the moment he saw Sirius in that damned mask.

“Alright, then we’ll do it the way you and I function,” he retracted, adamant to get a response, hiding how done he was with those façades and the insufferable barriers behind his own cool, collected mask. Perhaps it was what they both actually needed, and perhaps the last. “Hit me,” he exclaimed calmly, “Hit me so that we’re even, Padfoot.”

Sirius snapped out of his haze so quickly. His eyes widened in that same shock and confusion of earlier– all signs of resignation evaporated. It wasn’t necessarily the request that disturbed Sirius as much as its genuineness: the way James sat kneeling in front of him, face bare and glasses missing, eyes speaking of depths they both never sought in their friendship before.

Or maybe it was his torn, broken heart, too, seeing the one person he sought more than anyone else at that moment of need, only to feel his presence now and here instead, baring himself to Sirius, selflessly asking him to take whatever he needed.

Either way, it felt like a total loss in the mask of a win.

“Come on,” James urged seriously, even holding Sirius’s chin up to look at him directly, guiding the hands he held for days’ worth, not so long ago, to the edge of his own cheeks. It felt as slippery as the winter’s snow. “Come on, you miserable bastard, come on–” he began to rage, hitting Sirius’s loose hand across his own face over and over, losing the control Remus had thrust in him– losing all sense of what was honourable and what wasn’t again. “Come on, you most vulnerable part of my heart! Hit me and bar parting me from you!”

And it was the final crack of the glass; the straw that broke the camel’s back. The sobs that he thought had ceased when Remus had held him returned. They twisted him in a way so ugly, tainting his naturally elegant features. What a lie, he thought, whoever said melancholy makes you beautiful. He felt the farthest from beautiful– farthest from okay.

James’s head tilted ahead and rested his forehead against Sirius’s; the touch merging what was yet left unsaid– the broken bricks trying to make sense of their frailty. His hands wrapped themselves around Sirius’s loose hands that were still on his right cheek, so closely interwoven that a beholder wouldn’t care to entangle the mess they made of their limbs. They were seeking mercy, or grace, and in sobs both qualities emerged.

In damned return, the mighty Black cracked, unable to hold the excruciating pain that burned his heart and soul– it burned him truly. He circled James with his other arm, and it was indistinguishable who was holding onto the other at that point; the two broken souls had finally reunited– in misery and misunderstanding they did.

The room shared their moment in unity: its silence lingered, nothing daring to break it. The hollow edges of the wallpapers all stood still in assembly, in solemn grief to the two falling and breaking for longer. In actuality, nothing just compared the break of man, the break of metaphorical angels. Nothing simply compared the break of the truest two.

“My mirror seemed so hollow without you, Siri.” James finally whispered, delicately breaking– finely fading. In cruel missed intimacy, Sirius brushed the back of his thumb against James’s neck: there were no longer any lines of who’s to be grieving and who’s to be anchoring the other back.

James moved against Sirius, settling softly behind him, finally daring to creak his head between Sirius’s shoulder blades and holding him with unnatural strength. It was all that both needed now: the only way for both to remain anchored. Perhaps they were the tears rolling in equity that gave them a way to solace, or just the fact that Sirius began to let go of everything, even the control over his own nerves, just as much as James was holding onto him, allowing himself to break and grieve for all the misery he had lived, not the guilt he carried. James’s arms seemed to not just anchor him to this world, but from all possible realms Sirius found himself drifting to the past few disastrous days. Between the slight tremble in James’s embrace, he found such vivid insight as to how it really is to be ruined, and that his ruination would only cause for other ones to follow, not prevent it, for there was no preventing love.

Still barely over a whisper, James ended by voicing, “You can grieve, but you can’t make me grieve you.”

With it he felt Sirius’s tears rushing down, falling on James’s own cheek, truly merging their sadness. Selfishness should have been the only emotion translated from that statement, but it wasn’t a flicker of what Sirius was feeling from it at that moment: pure, painful and raw love was much closer– it held a much broader scope to his own emotions.

A rattle of I’m sorrys, I don’t deserve you, I don’t deserve any of you, not you, not them, not him, began. The more his vocals verbalised, the more he instinctively found things buried inside, aching to be said. I’m sorry. I am a failure of a brother. I feel I have been bereaved of it– the whole feel of it, the sole worthiness of it. I feel I can never be one again. I wish I was dead. Dead. Dead. I wish it were me. I always wished it would have been me.

And James, like a martyr, took it all. He held Sirius’s fragile frame and fragile words in his delicate hands, and left them to be mended through the existence of his touch alone. For it was true; James Potter owned the key to Sirius Black’s healing: the more you try to help him, the more destructive he turns, and the less effective your impact becomes. All one had to do in Sirius’s case was peaceful co-existence— solemn, solid reassurance to his heart that you were there to hold him when he wished to jump off the high cliff of his own burdens, and that you were okay with the reasons behind that act— that you were okay with him being that destroyed.

“Hold my heart, Jamie, because it is in ruins all the longer.” Sirius finally spoke, and in his words all else ended.

No other grace was any longer needed.

•|∆

As the night prolonged, and in its vivid embrace as well as in James’s, a miracle began to bloom through the heavy curtains of Sirius’s tortured mind. Near dawn it was when the thin line between fine dreams and nightmares became hazy, and all Sirius could see was his old bedroom in Grimmauld Place, as ancient as the day he had ever had a first glimpse of it. The air smelled different, as if void of any memories, any troubles. It looked like an ordinary room. It might have even looked like home.

Relatively aware, Sirius closed his eyes and hoped to wake. He could never associate that place with any attachments any longer. How could he, when all he could feel was terrible ache and loss of what he can never have?

“I’ve always known you go for the extra mile, but in the past few days you’ve given this a literal sense, Sirius.”

Sirius’s eyes opened so quickly they blurred to focus. In front of him stood Regulus Black, as last he remembered seeing him, pale of skin and full of emotions. The grey within Regulus’s eyes heightened with mirth, and in shame Sirius felt he couldn’t actually remember when was the last time he saw his brother’s eyes merely merry.

Regulus looked at him as an equal; not a single gap between them. His informal attire spoke of peace, of autumn nights and their sweet shivery breeze. His face was momentarily vacant, pondering the right approach, and Sirius willed to focus on the dream a bit more– direct more energy to lock this dream, whatever its content will be, within his soul and memory.

“Never thought the day would come where I ask you to thank James Potter quite fervently for me,” Regulus smiled in jest as he entered the spacious wide room. “He took my payback quite well.”

“Regulus?” Sirius questioned in faint trembling ache. He could bear no more disappointments. “Is it truly you, Reg? Or is my heart just so broken that it began fathoming you within me?”

The hallowed edges of the room seemed to stiffen, making Sirius feel Regulus so close to him when in actuality he was still so far away. It might have been just a dream, but the farther Regulus seemed, the less indifference Sirius noted on his face. He longed to remember that fallacious look of happiness on Regulus, instead of an up-close betrayed one.

Regulus smiled faintly. He seemed to understand like he always had. “I truly am here, Sirius, as long as you believe in both of us.”

And he started moving to the middle of the room where Sirius was standing, shortening the barrier-full distance between them. He looked and felt at ease, probably another desperate interpretation from Sirius’s mind; only an added hallucination to the one of Regulus’s existence altogether. But don’t we all dwell on dreams?

Yet, despite it being a dream, still all emotions gathered on his stricken face, unable to find solace from the person he ruined the most.

“You didn’t,” Regulus started, and in shock Sirius recognised he could listen to his thoughts. Of course he could, the functioning side of his brain thought, he’s just a figment of your imagination, a mannequin well-placed. “These are my truest words, Sirius, my truest self. I feel you– I always could, and it is not me reading your thoughts: it is me just reading your heart.”

In that moment when Regulus was standing right in front of Sirius, teaching him words of significance, the older one felt a dire need to cry. He did not know whether it was a blessing or the deepest curse to ever be inflicted on a human being. He did not know whether this will become a memory he will live on, or die on. He did not know how he could truly live without his brother.

“I–” Sirius began, then faltered. “How could you be real?”

“Because I cannot rest.” Regulus replied in sensed suffering. He seemed torn between both hating and seeing fit the end of his line. “I have been given no tombstone for my name to be engraved upon, and for my soul to rest below. Hence, I remain entrapped in your world of sorrow. I remain a roaming soul watching you grieve as if I was ever worth grieving.”

“You are worth everything, Regulus.” Sirius responded automatically, not even beginning to realise the horror of his brother’s fate. All that consumed his mind was just Regulus’s worth. His head kept drilling worth everything, worth everything.

“But I’m not worth destroying you over.” Regulus replied, and he moved to rest hand on Sirius’s shoulder at last. The touch partly went through Sirius, solidifying a fate worse than death, electrifying what remained within. “Do you remember what you had said to me, that day everything changed? About what would happen if I no longer mattered to you?”

And Sirius’s mind stopped drilling, instead it sent him to a day so dear to his heart he ached for them both. It was no secret how protective they were of each other throughout their course of childhood. They were inseparable extendable parts of one another. They truly mattered to no one else in the world but to each other. And that particular day Regulus was referring to, it was the first time for either to be parted from one another. Sirius could truly deem it the beginning of the end, no matter how veiled that actually was then, for it was the day Sirius first went to Hogwarts, and returned a fully changed one.

“Please, Sirius,” Regulus begged, not knowing what was he even asking for at this point. He only knew that he was on a platform he never visited, that his mother and father were away talking with some elders, and that it was his last ever chance to talk with the person that spaced himself in Regulus’s small heart. “I won’t matter to you anymore, Siri... You’ll make your friends and I will no longer have any place in your heart.” Regulus cried in such a desolate way that onlookers thought his world was ending.

“Don’t dare say that! You’re my brother, Reggie,” Sirius said with pain in his own heart as he gathered the shivering boy in his arms. His brother had always been his true home, and Sirius had to make his home feel loved and cherished before he departed with ache from him. “You will always remain the first of the first. And besides, if you don’t matter to me, who will you ever matter to?”

Remembering this now, and seeing where their fates had devised them to be, Sirius’s heart cracked.

“You said it so fondly my heart always ached,” continued Regulus, smiling as if death never touched him and he was just there in that memory reliving it. “For even the most hostile combination of words sounded like love from you. I knew your love was beyond comparison and that I didn’t want to matter to anyone else. I never wanted to matter to anyone else, and all I’ve ever broken from was when it actually felt like I no longer mattered to you.”

Hesitation and heartbreak seemed to interlude Regulus’s words. He had no clue what he himself was saying, for he never thought he would be given this chance to finally tell the soul he loved like no one else his truth and the whole truth.

“I will never be at peace as long as I know you’re hurting, Sirius. I didn’t think I would matter anymore. Now I think we’re the only thing that ever mattered.”

And he stopped, giving Sirius’s mind a chance to note down his words, to save them where they can later save him. It was dire and desperate for Sirius to remember, even if he only remembers the soft smile embroidering Regulus’s face. And it started taking effect, for the haunted image of Sirius began to fade away, replaced with an aura of bittersweet love and remembrance.

“For years..” started Sirius, looking at the floor vacantly. He was unable to look at Regulus when all he could see was their agony reflected, so it was probably better he started memorising the shadows of his only brother instead. “For years, Regulus, I had no one but you. You taught me life, and you’ve given me a reason to live it. I would have never survived being alone in that household. I would have never become the man I am, albeit a disappointment, if I didn’t have you. How could I, when all I ever knew was us breathing the same air, hearts beating the same rhythm? 

“Yet I have seldom allowed myself to wonder how you were faring with me suddenly all gone and different,” the older said, beginning to hear the cruelty drilled into his mind and soul– drilled enough for him to remember them in a mere dream. “I kept hearing their words ringing in my ears, how they should shield you from me, how I was becoming a terrible influence on you, and to a certain extent I started believing them. I kept saying you would be better off without my exuberant flair for danger and damage, never noticing it was precisely what I was doing to the both of us. But not a day had passed when I did not feel your love embraced within James’s arms. He kept me reminded of you, and I only ever hoped you’d have someone who’d remind you of a good version of me, too.”

But Regulus stopped him, shaking his head so vividly it hurt them both. He leaned his head on Sirius’s shoulder and rested, nuzzling into his brother’s achingly familiar love and comfort; seeking warmth, giving warmth. “It is you who I have sought in the middle of the cold nights, for no embrace was ever warmer than yours. It is you who kept my mind wandering, always dwelling on how you would be faring in that life of dangers. But it is also you who gave up on me; left me for the days to fade me away if you didn’t.”

“Regulus–” Sirius tried to intervene but Regulus stopped him once again, looking up to his older brother with grey eyes so sincere, and lightly touching his face, embracing it in both hands.

“I do not seek an apology, nor wish for you to remain immersed in guilt. I only ever wanted a chance to tell you my truth, for this is how I truly rest. You may end up remembering a moment of this, or remembering it all, but I urge you to remember which brother is worth living for now, Sirius.” And sensing the interjection ahead, Regulus further squeezed his brother’s cheek, with a gentle care to only make Sirius absorb his words so fully. “I am not bitter, nor in pain, to see you under the love of James. In real peace I will rest, knowing he gave you what I never could.”

“I harmed your heart, Regulus,” Sirius began, tears beginning to roll down effortlessly, not even trying to shy from the truth anymore. “How could you forgive me? How could I ever allow myself to be forgiven?”

Regulus only smiled in sorrow. “Because you’re the only one that matters, Sirius. Because a life without you is so horrible and faint; an eternal nocturne alike the one I dwell within. I have seen enough of the harm that your friends had endured in your absence, and all I wanted was to make you remember your real worth so that all of you would heal.”

“How can I avenge you?” Sirius diverted, unable to hear words that earned him forgiveness. The fire of lions roaring inside him to do something was a remarkable replacement.

“There is no place for vengeance,” Regulus shook his head, “You avenge me by never avenging me. He did not kill me, Sirius; I died killing him.” 

As silently as he had arrived, Regulus retreated, backing away from Sirius and the resurfacing agony of memories that began to control him. He could not hurt in this realm, but as he remembered his last moments on earth, a shudder coursed through his veins, illuminating a deep, drowning pain.

“I did what I thought was right..” Regulus began in a small voice that was barely audible. It sounded like a boy so young indeed. “I lived a life so insignificant that no one cared to pray for me. So… pray for me, Sirius, and let others pray for a day you and I may reunite with no lingering regrets.”

And Sirius could only hold Regulus the way James had held him a few hours ago— acting like the anchor when he himself was still sinking. Yet, holding Regulus was different; it gave him peace, as if this was the only thing he ever needed. Grief would never fade, but having this: somehow his subconscious knew that it would make him bear life a bit easier.

“Lead me,” Sirius heard from in front of him. “As you always did, to a life where I can rest. I hold myself responsible for what I did, the lengths I took, and now I only wish for peace, for you and me both.”

“I will do anything you want, my baby brother.” Sirius voiced in the void of the room, and in return felt Regulus’s body resting, smiling. “But will I never see you after-hand? Are you leaving me forever?” Sirius stiffened, a plea leaving his mouth before he would even try to filter it, and yet the moment the words were out, both he and Regulus were thrown in another haze of hurtful remembrance, the one that was to be held accountable for all the damage inflicted upon his only brother.

“Are you leaving?”

The simple question stopped him in track, not needing to look back in order to imagine how the twin of his face looked while annunciating those words. He never needed to. He could clearly sense the dejection in their air— the air of solemn endings and daring beginnings. Sirius felt in tune with it, merging itself into the shadows of Grimmauld, borne into them, and maybe that was true, since that house only knew of shadows and ghosts.

He faltered.

“I am leaving.” he ended up responding, head and body and soul all hidden in the shadows. When silence answered him, he touched the metal knob symbolising his freedom; his one-way ticket away from hell. But as he was turning it, his shadows replied back.

“Are you leaving me, Sirius?”

The metal knob burned him.

Regulus smiled in painful reminiscence. He seemed to be there right at the moment his life truly ended; the moment of utter disappointment and hurt. Still, he had nothing in him but to say, “I would never leave you, Siri.”

And there it was– the stark imbalance of their whole dynamic. The reason was why Sirius knew the first moment he had held his baby brother in his arms that Regulus was a creature so much better than the world, that he deserved the whole world. Now, Sirius could only see how he just led him to be taken from the world.

“I—” Sirius began, lungs blocked– words freezing. 

“I know,” Regulus intervened gently. He looked at Sirius as if he was the only being that ever truly mattered. “But I’ll never be sorry for loving you.” 

And with that Sirius felt, from the deepest shard of his broken heart, the lingering touch of longing and love. Regulus gave him the one thing that could finally heal him, lest he only remembers and believes it. Their conversation ended, and the room began to fade, but the words enunciated in the air were felt by both brothers in coalition.

My heart, and my wandering soul, will always think of you.

In the morning, when the light flickered down on Sirius who was standing in front of the freshly engraved grave of Regulus Black, it shone right from heaven.