Sirius was curled up in his bed, on top of the covers, knees to his chest, staring at his Gryffindor poster. The one he knew he didn't deserve, the one he knew didn't really belong to him anymore.
He hadn't left his room throughout the holidays, food and water was sent up, he didn't need much else.
He didn't think he deserved much else; part of him wondered if he even deserved the measly one meal a day he was already recieving.
Today was different, at the usual dinner time, instead of the food being teleported up, Sirius heard foot steps.
Regulus probably. His brother had attempted many times to communicate with him over the summer. An action that was definitely not reciprocated by Sirius.
The door creaked open, but on the other side was not his brother.
It was his mother. His initial reaction was to shrink down further. To hide beneath his blankets and draw his curtains. But he didn't.
His mother was looking at him with something other than the usual cold, distant face that would swarm his brain.
It was longing, it was sad it was almost...
Warm.
It was practically fighting to get out.
Sirius had seen this look before, a few times in his childhood. When he fell off his broom, when he had a nightmare, when his cousins were particularly mean to him.
She carefully made her way over to him. She stood at the foot of his bed and patted his shoulder. Nervously. Walburga Black is never nervous - Sirius thought.
He looked up at her, his eyes beginning to sting, and she looked down.
Suddenly he was a child again, hoping to be comforted. She gave him a half smile and quickly left, leaving a plate of food behind. It happened so quickly, part of Sirius wondered if she was ever really there to begin with.
They never spoke of that moment again, it wasn't a break through for their relationship or a gateway into a more loving bond. In fact later that summer, days before he was due to go back to Hogwarts, she told him that he would not be expected back for Christmas. He responded with a nod and retreated back to his room.
He went back to Hogwarts, recieving a curt nod as goodbye.
After all had been forgiven with his friends, and he had run away to live with James, he looked back on that memory with a bitter fondness. A small desire lived in the back of his brain. A longing for a motherly relationship with Walburga.
He hated himself for it. He hated that it was always there nagging at him, even after a hex or unforgivable.
It was the soft, warm, fleeting moments that he had experienced with her that made him keep wanting to run into her arms to cry and be comforted.
He had always wanted to run away, to leave and never look back - to even bring Reg with him if he could - but it was those half moments, those few warm almost-moments that made it so hard.
He never saw her again. He never missed her either. But he would never forget. Never forget that she had gone through the same childhood as his. Never forget that she was also just loving those around her in the only way she knew how.
Never forget those seconds where she was his mother.