Darkness Burning

February, 1979

James first brings it up on a cold February day, when the roads have frozen over and the leaves all disappeared from their branches. Sirius and him are sitting on a bench in Godric’s Hollow, appropriately bundled up in jackets and each holding a thermos filled with fire whiskey. Lily and Marlene skate on the outdoor ice rink in front of them, Lily laughing uproariously as her best friend slips and falls, arse first, onto the cold ground.

Marlene gives her the stink eye but doesn’t tackle her as she would have last year - Lily’s stomach is slightly bulging now, although one wouldn’t be able to tell from the amount of coats she was wearing - but Marlene was careful and gentle with her all the same.

Sirius took a sip of his firewhiskey, exhaled the smoke that came with it, and said, “I wonder if little Sirius will like to ice skate.”

James rolled his eyes. “We are not calling him Sirius Junior. For the last time.”

“Why not,” Sirius whined, flopping his head on to James’ shoulder. James shoved him off; the fluff ball on the top of Sirius’ beanie was tickling his nose.

“It’s a terrible name, yes, but certainly a funny one - how many jokes have we made with it?”

“I won’t name him after you,” James said again, “But we can have you adopt him, if you’d like.”

Sirius barked out a laugh. “I’m pretty sure he can’t be adopted if he’s got two living, loving parents, mate.”

He watched Lily grin across the frozen pond. Her teeth flashed, white as the snow around her, a hand pressed gently to her stomach. Her wedding ring glinted in the reflecting light, bright and mocking. Then it disappeared from view and she reached down and helped Marlene up with a careful grip, holding onto her forearms and helping her glide slowly forward.

She would be the best mum ever. Sirius tells James so, and James throws an arm around Sirius’ shoulders, squeezing tightly.

“Not regular adoption,” said James, “Blood-adoption. Like Magick intended.”

Sirius flinched. “James,” he said then, without looking away from Lily and Marlene’s smiling faces, “Never say that to me again.”

-

That, of course, was the worst response he could’ve given his best friend, because suddenly it was brought up constantly.

James, cooking dinner in the kitchen, towel thrown over his shoulder and hands covered in flour, saying, “It’s only magic, Padfoot.”

Lily, curled into Sirius on the sofa as they waited anxiously for James to get home from a stakeout, her hands drawing circles inside his wrist, murmuring, “Just in case anything happens to us.”

Sirius, nearly 15 years later, still remembers the way he had snapped at her in response; “Nothing is going to happen to you, Evans, shut the hell up.”

He had so many reservations, but his three main ones were all difficult to explain. First - the last time he had performed blood magic, he had nearly been kicked out of the Order. Sirius knew it was considered Dark Magic, sure, but hadn’t realized how seriously everyone else took it, not when he had grown up with it spoon fed to him. The fact that the blood runes he had drawn on Emmeline Vance’s arm was the only thing that had saved it from needing to be amputated in order to stop the curse she had been hit with from spreading was considered irrelevant; Dumbledore’s rage was a quiet and terrible thing to face, even with James and Lily at his side, defending Sirius when he couldn’t speak.

He didn’t want to deal with that again. Half the order still didn’t trust him because of it, and the event had occurred right when they left Hogwarts, a whole three years prior. The powerful rush of magic had felt like it was welcoming him home - it felt like his family, before they all went properly mad, and it terrified him. That tied into his second reason; with blood-adoption, regardless if the biological parents were alive or not, the blood adopted parent would be seen as just as much of an important figure in the child’s life, if not more. Sirius hadn’t the faintest idea about being a father. His own had been neglectful at best and verbally abusive at worst, and that wasn’t even touching on his mother, nor the Black madness that every child of the family inherited. Was it not cruel to subject an innocent child to that? To that level of insanity, when the Potter’s were as Light as they come?

And, mostly - it felt as if the Potter’s were preparing for the worst. Blood adoption was usually used in cases where the biological parents were dying from chronic illnesses, their deaths sure and soon. It felt like a bad omen; like the worst omen in the world, in fact. It felt like he was signing their death certificate.

And, listen - it had taken Sirius a long, long time to become this self aware. To be able to list out his fears and be able to sort them, to tell a listening ear. To be this vulnerable still felt like the greatest sin of all. He didn’t want to tell James or Lily about his doubts, sure they both already knew and just weren’t sure how to convince him; Peter was as emotionally constipated as they come, Remus was Merlin knows where with the werewolves, Alice and Frank were tied up with their own future baby, and Mary and Dorcas were dead.

So, grumbling the whole way, Sirius had gone to Marlene McKinnon.

Marlene and him rarely got on, and that was probably because they were much too alike. The McKinnon’s were an old family, and a respected one - Sirius had grown up being tutored with Marlene and her brothers, had often danced with her at galas and fenced with her father, exchanged rapid fire French with her mother, and made a suitable enough impression that Walburga thought there may have been a chance of a betrothal contract being written up when they had reached eleven. That, of course, had gone up properly in flames when Sirius and Marlene were both sorted into Gryffindor - Sirius, breaking the Slytherin Black tradition, and Marlene breaking the McKinnon Ravenclaw one.

He’d still always liked her. If you grow up with someone you don’t have much of a choice in that - but she had grown closer to Lily after third year, and as Lily had declared her and James enemies, that meant Marlene and Sirius had to be too. That didn’t mean the two of them didn’t occasionally find themselves snogging secretly in broom closets, of course, but for the most part they just sneered at each other in the hallways. When Lily and James did start dating, and Sirius got to properly know Marlene again, it felt like a little, rare piece of brightness from Black Manor was reunited within him.

Marlene knew all of these things. However, sitting across from him on the love chair in her cottage, legs crossed and hands holding a teacup close to her face, Marlene’s expression was one of great judgement.

“You’re being stupid,” Marlene declared, and then told him all the reasons why. “Who cares what Dumbledore or the rest of the Order thinks of you?”

Sirius scratched his head. “Well, I do a bit, mate, honestly, they’re not going to trust me, are they?”

Marlene shrugged. “Not your issue, I say. And anyways, what does it really matter if they do?” She gave him a look, then, her electric blue eyes glinting, and Sirius understood. “If I’m safe, and my brothers, and Jim and Lily and their baby, then…”

No one else really mattered, Sirius finished in his head.

“And Orion wasn’t your only father,” Marlene pushed forward, tapping Sirius’ knee, “Fleamont took you in, did he not?”

Fleamont had been the best father that Sirius hadn’t deserved. He had shared his love between Sirius and James as if he had always had two sons, that was true. Always gave Sirius pocket change or a new music recommendation or let him be the first to try his new hair potions. The silly things that dads are supposed to do that Sirius had never experienced before.

Sirius took a sip from his own teacup. “I don’t know. So much of that is foggy.” The summer after he ran away, he means. It had been a haze of pain and grief and overwhelming relief. Guilt, too, for leaving Regulus behind. For leaving Bella, even if she had been the one to tell him to go. And he hadn’t had as much time with Fleamont as he wanted - he’d died of Dragon pox a year after they graduated, his wife passing of heartbreak a week later. It’d nearly destroyed James; it had devastated Sirius too. He had hated Fleamont for leaving James with so much pain.

“All a father needs to do is love,” Marlene said wisely. She looked whimsical, almost, layered with necklaces and bracelets that jingled together with the slightest of movements. “There’s no handbook to it, Ri.” The childhood nickname made him flinch, but she continued regardless. “This leads us to the next point, anyways. You won’t be the primary parent. You’re acting as if James is already dead.”

He hated that word. Dead. It was so final. Lily had introduced them to the muggle Bible in seventh year, read them a quote that Sirius dreamed of on bad nights; “The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death”.

Even this all powerful muggle being that Lily believed in knew that death was an enemy. You couldn’t escape from it, nor move past it. Sirius’ grief haunted him, day in and day out. He remembered Fleamont and Euphemia Potter’s headstones placed together; Lily’s cries as Mary McDonald was lowered into the ground; his own father’s funeral, and the way Sirius had stood far enough away that his mother hadn’t known he was there at all; the pure numbness that had swept through Sirius’ entire body when Bellatrix had sent him a letter to tell him that Regulus was gone, with no body to bury.

He sees the grief even now, right in front of him. The wedding ring that Marlene spins around her finger, a house haunted by pictures of a long gone Dorcas Meadowes. The gauntness that hasn’t left Marlene’s face, the heavy air of loss that lingers around her.

Dead is so final in a way that Sirius comprehends perhaps too well. He cannot wrap his mind around James ever leaving him, partly because he just doesn’t think James would agree to it. They had never been apart, not really. Even when Sirius was young, before Hogwarts, there had been a little piece of him missing that was only filled in the moment that Jamie had sat down next to him on the train in first year, laugh loud and brash. James was bigger than death.

Despite truly believing so, Sirius was petrified of it not being true. Of something going wrong that would steals James from him - and, subsequently, Lily too. Lily, who was the other half of James’ soul, which meant she was half of Sirius’, too.

“I know James isn’t dead,” Sirius scowls, staring down into his tea. “Obviously. But making me Harry’s father… it feels like something he would only do if he was desperate.”

Marlene chuckles. “Then you don’t know James at all, if you think that.”

Sirius gave her a terribly affronted look.

She sighs. “Sirius, I think that if it were possible, James would have married you and Lily both. I think that the thought of you not being his child’s father has never even crossed his mind. This blood adoption, dark magic, whatever it is - it just cements what James has thought about you for the past nine years.”

Her eyes are bleak and cold when she stares at him. “Don’t waste time, Ri. It’s stolen so easily.”

She’s rail thin, her usual blonde ringlets hanging in greasy tangles around her head, bags so dark they look like bruises under her eyes. She lost Dorcas and lost herself in the same breath. Sirius looks at her and sees his future; his mirror.

His relationship with James was complicated. He didn’t know how to describe it, and he never would. Just that they loved each other in a way that surpassed friendship and romance too; that they had been interwoven, linked together in some terrible, cruel sort of way that could never be undone. That it had nearly ripped Lily up in her jealously before she finally understood and let it be; and that in doing so, she had been given a space to occupy too. And then they hadn’t been Sirius-and-James anymore, nor James-and-Lily, but instead some awful third thing; SiriusJamesLily, nothing in between them, all crushed limbs and a really twisted sort of love.

He didn’t like to think about it, mostly because it wasn’t normal. No one else lived and loved the way the three of them did. It was otherworldly, and unnatural, and a pain to explain. And terrifying to feel, impossible to understand. So he didn’t think about it. But hearing Marlene - he knew that she was right.

“I’m scared,” he admits, like they’re seven years old and hiding from Abraxas Malfoy after smashing a vase in his manor at a dinner party again; like they’re fourteen and ducking into the hidden tapestry to sneak away from Filch; like they’re nineteen and watching as Dorcas is laid into the ground, casket closed.

“So be scared,” Marlene says fiercely, and takes his hands, squeezes them so tight he feels the imprint of the diamond from her ring biting into his skin. “Let it consume you. Find something worth fighting for.”

Sirius kisses her on the head before he leaves, sweeps out through the back door. Her eldest brother stands in the garden, cigarette burnt to the filter. He looks just like his sister, although his eyes are harder and still full of fight compared to Marlene’s empty and grief stricken gaze.

“It won’t be much longer,” Marcus says quietly, flicking the butt into a dragon-shaped ashtray.

Sirius runs his palm down the brick of the house. The magic thrums quietly. “Your wards are strong.”

Marcus scoffs. “Strong is nothing against Death itself.”

Sirius tilts his head at him, and they stare at each other for a long moment. Then he takes one step forward and spins on his heel, disappearing to a home he hadn’t even fully meant to go to, Marcus’ exhausted face tattooed across his mind.

-

Bellatrix’ palm is soft in his.

Sirius’ own are calloused and rough to the touch from hard work; James’ dad made his sons build things the muggle way, with hammers and wood and nails and long, grueling hours under the hot sun. Potter Manor has been abandoned for three years now - James didn’t have the heart to live in a house haunted by the ghosts of his childhood - but Sirius has seen it since, with leaves and vines growing up and along the fence they had spent all summer building.

Looking back on that - summer, childhood, laughing so hard his stomach had ached from it - feels a bit like he’s looking back on a dream. And anyways, his hands can be as rough as anything, and they’ll still never be as dirty as Bella’s own.

She looks beautiful, of course, was the first thing that Sirius had thought when he walked into the cafe in Diagon to meet her. Her long curls are so dark that they look like shadows that crawl down her back; in contrast, her skin is so pale it makes her practically glow. There’s a wedding ring wrapped around her finger and a dainty silver chain hanging from her neck. Her robes look perfectly tailored to her body, not too tight nor too loose.

Sirius feels like he pales in comparison, but he’s always thought that around his cousin, so he doesn’t dwell on it long. He’s still in his robes from work, hair tied messily at the nape of his neck, little strands curling freely in front of his eyes, which he knows are dark and worn.

If the war has rejuvenated Bella, it has drained the life from him. He’s in pain as he sits, his ribs smarting from a stray curse he’d been hit with the night before - but still managed to wave down a waitress and order enough tea and scones to feed a small army before he says a word to his cousin.

“You look dashing as ever, darling,” Bella says, and the worst part is she really does mean it, always has - thinks he looks his best when he’s on the cusp of death, or sending someone there.

Sirius sighs. “How’s the husband doing?”

The tea arrives. Sirius takes a sip and watches as Bella tears her scone into a million little pieces.

“How’s Lily?” She says finally, and they’re at a stalemate.

It’s a familiar dance. Sirius searches for their common ground. “Is Draco walking yet?”

Predictably, Bella lights up, and Sirius is sentenced to spending the next thirty minutes hearing about who he is sure is going to become the most spoiled child in Britain. Merlin, he’s hated Lucius since the moment he met him, and with Narcissa by his side and Abraxes dead, he’s somehow become even more unbearable - cruel in a quiet sort of way. Everyone who was anyone knew that it was Lucius who helped draw up the plans to torture the muggles, to decide which areas to wreak havoc in next. And then Narcissa, whispering poison in her husband’s ear, her mean streak a mile long.

“I took Draco out to the gardens yesterday,” Bella is saying, and Sirius is hit by a wave of jealousy so deep it nearly makes him shiver. Because it should be Harry out in the gardens, it should be Harry giggling at nature and being rocked and held in public. “He’ll be a good Black Heir,” Bella adds, and Sirius thinks No, no he won’t, and he thinks maybe that’s the moment he decides that Harry will be Sirius’ own. Sirius has hated the House of Black all his life, maybe, or at least half of it - but its history is too deep, too rich to surrender to a French upstart like the Malfoy’s.

And Harry would take care of it, Sirius knows. He’s positive of it - Harry is James and Lily’s son, and Sirius’ too, and there would be no world in which Harry would grow up to be anything but perfectly imperfect, the way the three of them were together. He would be raised as a pureblood only in the ways that helped James and Sirius become better, and raised as a muggleborn the way it had helped Lily. Sirius would make this work - through spite and love and everything in between.

For now, though, Sirius sits there and hums as Bella talks. She’s slipping up, accidentally telling him tidbits about her side - or maybe it’s on purpose, but it’s the truth all the same. It doesn’t matter. Sirius won’t do anything with the information, will keep it quietly in a dark corner of his mind. If necessary, he’ll tell the Potter’s. But no one else. He owed Bella that much.

“And you?” She finally asked, when Sirius was nearly done with his second tea and third scone. Her voice is breathless, like she wants to hear everything about him that she’s missed.

It breaks his heart that he can’t tell her.

“I’m well,” Sirius lies, smiling weakly at her. “Tired. You know how work is.” He’s a hit wizard. They’ve just been given clearance to use the Unforgivable curses against death eaters. He knows that she knows this, but her eyes do not become any less kind as she gazes at him. “Haven’t had time to do much but work and sleep recently.”

She tuts at him, brows drawn. “You do look so thin, sweetheart. Eat another scone.”

He eats another scone.

“They’re working you to the bone,” Bella sighs as he sips on his tea, “You need some rest. Why don’t you take a week off? Spend some time with your… friends.”

Sirius doesn’t stiffen. He doesn’t pause at all. “I’ve only got my co-workers, Bel. I don’t talk to anyone else.”

She smiles at him. It’s a gentle thing, and he’s 14 again, shaking in her arms as she soothed a hand over his hair, the bathroom door shaking as their mothers tried every spell to break the ward that Bella had put up.

“Well,” she murmurs softly, reaching across the table to take his hand. “If you did, I would let them know that whatever spell they are using to hide is truly impressive.”

Sirius squeezed her fingers so tight he was sure he left bruises. “You…”

She shakes her head at him. “Nothing else. You know that, my love.”

His brave, beautiful cousin. He doesn’t know how this war will turn out - though it’s looking less likely like he will survive it by the minute. And yet, he’s suddenly overwhelmed with a fear that the Light will win, and his Bella would be thrown into Azkaban until the last shreds of her sanity were torn into confetti.

“If this ends,” Sirius tries, and then, “When this ends, Bella, whichever way it goes… what will you do?”

She squeezes his hand so hard back that her wedding ring cuts into the groove of his index finger. “I’ll stay. I’ll always stay.”

Sirius knew that. Of course he knew that. Bella always stayed; she was loyal to a fault. To the Blacks, to Sirius, to the Dark Lord. She would die from it, he was sure. Or, worse - her soul would be pulled from her body in prison, and Sirius would be left with nothing but the shell of one of the people he loved most in the world.

“I saw you submitted your will,” Sirius says, admitting it like a secret, because it was; he had broken several laws to find the damn thing, had wove enchantments and wards to make sure his presence would remain untraceable.

Bella shrugs. “As I’m sure you have.”

He had, but it didn’t mean much. Almost all of his belongings were in his bedroom at the Potter’s cottage, and they were to stay there after his death. James and Lily and Harry got to keep everything that had ever been his; Remus and Peter and Marlene too, if they wanted keepsakes. Because that was really all he had. His old school trunk, books and old essays, robes and muggle clothes and his trusty leather jacket. Letters from Regulus that he couldn’t bear to let go of; a gold signet ring with the Potter crest stamped on that Monty had given him as a graduation present.

Bella stared at him, her expression bland. “Are you thinking about it?” She asks, reading him as easily as she always had. “Did you leave me anything?”

Sirius teases, “My everlasting love.”

She squints at him.

Sirius sighs. “You already have my soul, Bella. You always will. You’ll never be able to find my belongings.”

She smiles, and her eyes crinkle. “Ah. Hidden with the Potters, I presume.” She doesn’t mention his first declaration.

He shrugs at her. He doesn’t ask about her will. She shares a similar role in his mind as James and Lily; a being who could never be touched by death. The thought of her being gone forever was unthinkable. He couldn’t even grasp his thoughts around her having a will at all.

She tells him anyway. “Nearly everything I own is in my vault. Safekeeping. I don’t have many personal items, except for two, you know. My ring will go to my husband, of course,” Sirius snorts, but she pushes on, “And my necklace to my niece.”

Sirius gapes at her, aghast. “Cissa’s pregnant again?”

Merlin, a daughter would be even worse than a son. You can only dote on a son so much before it’s declared they’re too old for it. A daughter would be a prize to Narcissa, a sweet cattle for her to raise and poison and sell to whoever would elevate the Malfoy’s to a higher social status.

“Of course not,” Bella sniffs, and wraps a dainty hand around her necklace, like she’s protecting it from the very thought. The diamond twinkles in the lowlight. Sirius had spent a quarter of Uncle Alphard’s fortune on it after he ran away, had dragged James to countless jewelry shops before he decided on the simplicity of a diamond. Something so beautiful that even its muggle origins wouldn’t deter his cousin from wearing it - and he had been right. He’d never seen her without it.

Still, the thought of what she’s implying takes his brain a long moment to process. “You… Andromeda’s daughter? Really?”

“Yes,” she says, like it was the simplest idea in the world. “I can’t imagine what kind of muggle hovel that poor baby is living in,” she adds, and there’s the Bellatrix he knows. “Nymphadora needs to know nice things exist, and Andromeda certainly has nothing to show her, not after…”

Bellatrix trails off, and her and Sirius shudder in unison. The spell Narcissa had performed had made several of both Sirius and Bella’s own belongings light up and disappear, even though it had been years since either of them had even seen Andromeda at all.

She claps her hands together. “This has taken such a depressing turn, I’m sorry. Why don’t we continue this at the manor?”

Lestrange Manor. They had found one of Benjy Fenwick’s legs and both of his thumbs right outside the wards of that house and nothing else. Sirius imagines walking inside and seeing Benjy’s head staring at him from above the fireplace.

“I’m meeting the Shacklebolt’s for a pint, actually,” he bluffs, standing up. “Best be going.”

“A good family,” Bellatrix nods, approving. She stands up and brings a hand to the front of his robes, wiping a few stray crumbs off the fabric. Her palm lingers; Sirius feels the warmth, as he always has.

She looks older than her years, suddenly, staring up at him. Maybe the war has aged her and he’s just been too frightened to admit it. Too frightened that change is inevitable.

She pushes up on her toes to kiss his cheek, her lips soft against stubble. “Stay safe, Cousin.”

“And you,” Sirius agrees softly.

When she takes a step back, her smile is soft and young. “Don’t worry,” she tells him, “The end is so very near.”

She spins in a circle and apparates away, curls flowing and disappearing last. Sirius stares at the spot she had just occupied, and thinks of her last sentence, and the surety in which she had spoken.

He needs a damn drink.

-

Sirius puts Harry to bed, rocking him gently back and forth for long enough that his arms start to go numb. It’s only when the clock above Harry’s crib strikes midnight that he reluctantly lets him go, covering his little body with a blanket Mary had been knitting before she’d been murdered on the doorstep of St. Mungo’s, ten minutes before her first shift as a healer was set to begin.

Lily and James are sitting at the kitchen table when he makes his way downstairs, their voices hushed and quiet. James, mid sentence, stops talking abruptly when he spots Sirius. Lily’s head is in her hands, hair like fire flowing down her back and around her face. Sirius lays a gentle hand against the back of her neck; feels the thick chain of her necklace and runs a finger across it.

He and James stare at each other, the warm lighting reflecting against James’ brown eyes, making his stare seem even softer than usual. There’s nothing accusing in them, despite the fact that James had asked Sirius to adopt Harry over eight months ago and still had yet to receive any answer.

Sirius takes his hand off of Lily’s neck, and sits on the chair between them. Lily doesn’t look up; he thinks that she’s crying and trying to hide it, although he’s not sure why.

His question is answered by James’ steady voice. “Lily got a letter from Pandora Rosier earlier today.”

Sirius blinks. That girl had been some sort of popular outcast in Ravenclaw, two years older than them and with the sort of wit that comes from being raised the way Sirius was. Other than that, he didn’t know much about her; her parents had died years ago, and her younger brother Evan was one of Regulus’ best friends - which made sense to them joining the death eater’s together during their seventh year. She was kind in school, unlike Evan, and had mostly disappeared from society after graduating.

“Okay,” says Sirius, confused. “I didn’t know you were friends, Lil.”

“We’re not,” comes Lily’s muffled voice, “We never have been.”

“Pandora’s a seer,” James continues for his wife, his brows drawn together, “Or so she claims. And she believes something terrible is going to happen to us, either this year or the next.”

Sirius rubs his forehead with his hand. Most wizards and witches had premonitions throughout their lives; instincts that were honed on an entire differently wavelength to the ones that muggles received. But true seers were unspeakably rare, and claiming to be one without proof was more embarrassing than anything. Pandora, raised in a family part of the Sacred 28, would know so intimately. There was a very small chance that she was lying.

“That’s not even surprising,” Sirius tries to argue weakly, “We expected that. It’s why I polished the ward stones when Harry was born.”

Lily makes a sound like a whimper, like a wounded animal scared to make noise in fear of a larger predator. “No,” she says, lifting her head up, eyes bright with tears, “I’ve had this feeling too, for months. She’s not lying. It’s a warning.”

Lily gestures to her chest, places a small hand against her heart. “I feel it inside of me. Not just as a witch - as a mother.”

Sirius looks at her and aches. He can see her defeat in every inch of her; her fight is being siphoned out by the day. He wants, more than he’s ever wanted anything, to take her and James’ pain away.

Sirius’ response is out of his mouth faster than he even realizes what he’s saying; “I’ll blood-adopt Harry.”

Lily’s in his lap in a second, shaking like a leaf, her arms tight around her neck. “Thank you,” she’s murmuring, over and over, “Thank you.”

Sirius runs his hands down her back, the fabric of her sweater soft against his palms - and then another hand is intertwining itself with his fingers, thumbs rubbing gently against his knuckles. James stares at him with a gratitude so deep that it feels like worship.

“Even if we weren’t in a war,” James whispers, “We would still ask you to blood-adopt him a thousand times over.”

Lily nails digs through the fabric of his shirt and sting dully against his back. “Sirius,” she says, like a prayer.

-

A year later and they’re in hiding, Pandora’s warning just the beginning of the end. There’s a prophecy about Harry and their family, one that threatens their safety and their lives, one that brings Sirius to his knees in worry every night, begging for a God he doesn’t believe in to keep them alive.

Once a week, Sirius is permitted to visit, heart heavy and with worse news everytime. There’s one time that he doesn’t show up at all, just sends a letter - selfishly, he cannot stand Lily’s grief for the Mckinnon’s on top of his own, suffocating as it is.

Marlene had fought to the end, of course. Her house had been destroyed, body badly burned, her brothers’ corpses just as horrific to look at. Sirius had been the one to organize the funeral, to lay her down to rest in the same plot as her parents and her wife and her brothers, one by one and with beautiful flowers to match. He had spent days creating wards so that it would be moderately safe for people to pay their respects without worrying about Voldemort popping up behind them, although the turn out was larger than he expected despite. Lily and James, of course, had not been permitted to attend - but Lily came anyways, her hair transfigured blonde and eyes blue.

She stood in front of Marlene’s casket and smoothed the hair from her forehead. “I’ll see you soon,” she whispered to her best friend, and Sirius had felt his stomach fall to his feet at the promise, had ushered Lily away at once.

The months continued to pass in a bleak fashion. They didn’t have much hope in winning the war, not anymore. They were dropping like doxies, no purebloods spared. After the Mckinnon’s, it was the Bones’ - and after them, Minerva McGonagall’s husband, then Emmeline Vance’s infant daughter. No one and no where was safe. The Fidelus charm was perhaps the Potter’s saving grace, and Sirius guarded that secret with his very soul, like a starving dog who had just been fed.

It was early October, then, and bitterly cold. Lily’s fair skin was now practically transparent, and James’ usual glowing brown tone was washed out and dull. Sirius thought them both beautiful anyways, especially with how hard they were fighting to stay in good spirits, but he knew it was weighing down on them; Remus had been in southern America for months, Peter was so skittish it was freaking everyone out, and pretty much all the rest of their friends were dead - other than Alice and Frank, who were both in hiding too.

“Dumbledore?” Lily’s voice called out when Sirius pushed the front door open on a particularly frigid October night.

“I’m sorry to disappoint,” Sirius had said, carrying in a grocery bag of the worst possible muggle snacks he could find. The moon was full, and cast a brilliant light across the floor. “Just me.”

“What a shame,” Lily replied, appearing in the door way in front of him, hair pulled up into a loose ponytail and sweatpants low on her hips.

Sirius grinned at her. “You love me, really.” He slid past her into the living room, placing the bag on the floor. James was playing blocks with Harry, the radio a soft murmur in the background.

“How humble you are,” came Lily’s amused voice, and her thin arms wrapped around his back, her face pressed into the spot between his shoulder blades. He let her rest there for a moment, then gently pulled her around to hold her against his front, tugging gently on her hair.

James smiled up at them from the floor, glasses askew. “Come play, Sirius, please. I need a shower.”

So Sirius played with Harry for a while. He could hear Lily humming in the kitchen, and the water running upstairs, Harry’s soft coo’s sweet against his ears. The smell of curry floated through the doorway, and for a moment he was transported back to his fifth year summer at the Potter’s, stuffing himself full on Euphemia’s family recipes.

James came down later, dropped a hard kiss on the top of Sirius’ head. His wet hair dripped onto Sirius’ neck, making him shriek and squirm away. “Missed you,” James said, laughing but sincere, and shook his wet hair out over Sirius and Harry both.

They ate dinner, and then listened to the stereo. Sirius watched Harry fly around on his new little broom. He put his baby to sleep, rocked him slowly until the eyes he had inherited from his mother closed, and he looked like a tiny sleeping James.

Then he went downstairs and discussed his recent missions with James and Lily; the new ridiculous laws that were somehow getting passed; the letters that Bellatrix kept sending, begging him to meet her for lunch to hear out a recruitment pitch. That’s what made him suggest switching secret keepers to Peter; Sirius was quickly becoming a target. James praised him for smart thinking - Lily worried he would get tortured either way.

“You’re special,” James said, eyes as kind as they had always been, “We don’t need anyone else.”

“But we do need Sirius safe,” Lily said, More than we need Wormtail safe, was unsaid but heard quite clearly anyways, and they made the switch right then and there, calling Peter through the floo.

Sirius left that night with a quiet, “See you next week” and a ruffle of his hair. He checked on Harry once more before leaving, and handed Lily her book because she wasn’t bothered to make James get up from their bed and do so.

In the end, none of it would matter.

They were dead eleven days later.