Prologue
So tired, it's the sky that makes you feel tried
It's a trick to make you see wide
It can all but break your heart
In pieces
‘The Prettiest Star’ David Bowie
Eight minutes or more until the sun truly set, and Sirius was doubting it because the world had been dark for ages now. Or maybe it was the panic, because he was panicking. He didn’t really know when the sun was supposed to set that night or if he had grabbed his wand or why he was so outwardly calm despite his cold sweat.
Because he seemed very calm. The motorbike was whipping down the skyline horizon like a bullet, and Sirius Black had never seemed so calm in his life. It was bottled in his chest from where he was hunkered down against the metal, urging the motorbike faster through the low-lying clouds, almost to the point where he was numb all over. Whatever it was, it was acidic and burning up into his throat like bile, disguised in the blanket emotion of peace.
It was at times like these that he wished for his broom when his bike couldn’t close the distances fast enough. He was marking miles and minutes off like a prisoner does his days with chalk on his cement wall. Slash, slash, slash, until the sight of it surrounds him. One minute, two minutes, three.
He shouldn't have waiting so long. He shouldn't have taken the bike.
The relief he felt was almost palpable, then, when he spotted the familiar stretches of land arcing out ahead, so quaint and ignorant and quiet.
When he was within a debatable landing distance, Sirius forcibly swerved his bike and gritted his teeth as the bike bounded tenfold across the ground, throwing off his flying goggles and stumbling onto his feet into the hushed streets of Godric's Hollow. He wouldn't saunter here like he used to, stride with purpose or glide with perfunctory grace, so he ran. It was sloppy and terribly unbecoming; Sirius ran like a dog.
The houses here were carbon copies of each other, small gates and matching hedges, but Sirius knew where he was going, even in the growing darkness. He counted in his head as he sprinted, four… four…four-twelve…
Just a little farther. Four-thirteen, four-fifteen, and, there it was, four-sixteen. 416.
He skidded to an abrupt halt.
“James?” He shouted without meaning to, staring at that gaping hole in the house where he knew Harry’s room to be. It was smoking, bits of the Potter’s Cottage littering the yard like shrapnel, decorating the well-kept lawn. Lily’s flower bed had a rocking chair splintered into it. He could see a bit of the hallway from where he panted on the sidewalk. “Harry?”
After that, Sirius didn’t slow. He pushed past the swinging picket fence gate and took the steps up onto the porch two at a time. The door was gone, gaping into a hollow house where the darkness had festered like a plague.
Sirius couldn’t swallow; the acid had risen into his throat.
He didn’t want to enter, afraid of what he’d find and afraid of never knowing.
Crossing the threshold sent a chill down his spine, the cold enveloping him almost instantly.
The living room was filtered with poor moonlight, the distress of scattered toys, and a forgotten child-sized quidditch broom lying on the rug before a dry fireplace. Sirius spotted brownies still cooling in the dark kitchen, the table still set for two and a half. There were letters on the counter. A few of them probably from Sirius.
James' old quidditch jacket hung with old warmth in the entry hall coat rack, next to Lily’s yellow raincoat.
Sirius kept walking, numbly remembering his wand and setting it alight, unable to speak. He couldn’t speak here, couldn’t bear it, in this tomb of silence; he was afraid to even disturb the air as he passed the kitchen table. The Potter house was so familiar he could walk it blind.
“Oh, mate.”
Lying half-blocking the hallway to the stairs, Sirius couldn’t miss him. James was always like that, always making sure he was known. To always take a room with a shit-eating grin and a fix of his glasses. Maybe run a habitual hand through his unruly hair.
He hadn’t even closed his eyes, even though his hands were empty of a wand. No fear, no acceptance.
James looked unreal in death. Sirius should have known a man like him being so full of life that his death looked wrong on him. He wasn’t resting, he wasn’t playing a joke; James Potter was a still warm body. James Potter was dead.
Sirius placed James' wayward glasses back onto his face, trying to find that familiarity he had known for so long. He choked on a sob, hands shaking so hard Sirius worried he would harm him.
Sirius took his hand instead, so delicately, so carefully, and felt a yawning hole carve right through him. Sirius was sinking, suffocating, he couldn’t even breathe.
He couldn’t look away, even when his sight blurred. Even when his grief was so palpable all he could do was mouth the words he couldn’t get out, if they were words at all. He’d lost all sense of language, but if grief was one he could speak it. It came out like Sirius was being mauled alive, he couldn’t help it. James was right here, his James.
“James I’m sorry…James I’m so sorry…”
It didn’t make sense; even with it right before him. Good things are supposed to happen to good people, and James was a good person. It wasn’t fair .
Sirius didn’t know when he had collapsed, just knew that his spine was aching, curling in on himself to ease the damage done to him. It was unknowable, this feeling.
He didn’t know how to console his friend, how to help him now. He didn’t know if James would want to be moved, or if he wanted to be given his wand, if he wanted…
Sirius raised his head to the stairs.
Lily.
It took Sirius a long moment to stand, an even longer moment to place a slender hand onto the faded flowered wallpaper. He stepped up the stairs like walking to the gallows: numb, unbelieving. Already half-dead.
He found Lily soon after, curled in on herself before Harry’s crib, a residue of a heavy killing curse still poisoning the cold night air coming in through the exposed framework. Harry, quietly sniffling as he was known to do after a meltdown, had a fistful of her red hair through the crib beams.
Sirius, stricken as he was, tried not to disturb Lily as he crouched in front of Harry. It was hard, given how well she had laid herself before him.
He couldn’t look at her. God. James’ girl.
Harry’s wide eyes were reflected on Sirius’s face, the same tear-tracked, haunted gaze, reveling in each other's familiarity. Harry knew Sirius. Harry was all Sirius had left.
He had been ready to bury his godson, but he should’ve known better.
No Potter he knew would ever have let that happen.
Sirius murmured what he assumed was meant to be soothing words, but came out more as incoherent whispers. Harry seemed to understand though, lip wobbling a little less, though his white-knuckled grip was still locked on his mother’s hair.
Sirius reached out. “C’mon, Harry. Let go.”
Harry didn’t, but let Sirius take his tiny fist that was still reached through the beams. His small fingers were tightly wound in the red strands, and Sirius had to gently dig to loosen the grasp so he could try to free her hair.
When Harry realized what Sirius was trying to do, he retaliated. Harry began to wail, trying to push Sirius’ hand away, but it was to no avail. Sirius had wrangled her hair out of his vehement iron fist.
“Shhhh, Harry. I know.” His voice cracked as he quickly pulled Harry from the crib, holding him tightly as he stepped away from Lily, her arm still reaching out across the floorboards towards them. “I know. I know. I know.”
Harry fought, twisting in his grip, trying to reach down and turn, clawing a bit at Sirius’s neck.
“I’ve got you. I’m here, Harry.” Sirius continued to chant softly despite the volume that Harry continued to scream.
Sirius recognized a few of the words Harry was bawling, and it only made the gape in him widen. Mum. Mum.
It tangled with his cries, but Sirius held him closer and went into the hallway, rocking him until Harry calmed. After a long, brutal wait, Harry had his small tired arms wrapped around Sirius’s neck, snot still running from his nose, but settling in his grief. He was stuck with Sirius.
“I’ve got you, Harry. I’ve got you.” He was saying still, voice raw. Sirius had been staring aghast at the adjacent wall, unable to do more than soothe Harry and grow paralyzed.
Sirius didn’t know when, but eventually he made his way down the stairs, holding Harry’s head close to his chest when they passed the bottom steps and into the living room. Sirius didn’t let go until he had crossed the threshold into the yard.
The darkness of the house spat them out into a dark yard with cloudy moonlight. Harry was quiet now, resolutely gripping Sirius’s leather jacket zipper. Brave boy, he was. He was James’ boy.
There was a heart-wrenching crack through the neighborhood of Godric’s Hollow, and Sirius whipped his head around, wand reflexively ready in his left hand.
Harry was indifferent now, sleepily sucking his thumb on Sirius’ shoulder, but Sirius was so tense he was certain Harry felt it. Maybe Harry didn’t care anymore. Let the bad happen. What else is there to ruin?
A presence made itself known, and Sirius swung his wand around, finding the barreled chest of Rubeus Hagrid, cheeks ruby in the chill, at the end of it.
Sirius’ chest heaved, not lowering his wand even though Hagrid had his hands up and empty.
“Stan’ down, Black, I mean no ‘arm.”
“Yeah?” Sirius spat, voice distant and weirdly choked. “I don’t believe you.”
Hagrid looked towards the house, ignoring Sirius’ wand where a genuine sadness took his face. “James an’ Lily.” He said quietly. “I didn’t wan’ ter believe it.”
“Why are you here?” Sirius was so strained it was a shock he wasn’t splitting at the seams.
Hagrid looked back at him, then at Harry. Sirius, noticing that, pointedly stepped back. “No.”
“Dumbledore ‘as a plan for ‘arry.”
“Not Harry.”
“Black-”
“I’ll take him. I’m his–” Sirius felt his eyes burn. He couldn’t say it. “I can protect him.”
“I’ got orders, Black, I’m sorry.”
They stared at each other, one in grief the other in unwanted pity and apology, and even Sirius knew he could not fight Dumbledore, despite wanting to. Despite wanting to put someone, anyone, into a grave to fill the absence of what he had lost. But Dumbledore didn’t kill the Potters.
And Sirius knew whose fault it was.
He lowered his wand, the bile back in his throat. It wasn’t with a sense of goodness as Hagrid said it was when Sirius reluctantly handed over the swaddled child, it was shame.
He told Hagrid to take his bike since he wouldn’t be needing it anymore.
He watched them leave, listened to his motorbike roar to life, and walked away when he heard them go. The dark was empty now, just a drowsy street in West Country, with its carbon copy houses and pretty picket fences.
For all Sirius knew, it would remain nighttime forever. It was a system that relied on the others: the stars, the moon, the sun, the darkness. Take one away and the infinite collapses on itself. Unknowingly, a clock started ticking like a time bomb.
Sirius disapperated with a crack.