* Vague reminiscenes *
"I see you're done packing."
Sirius, tall and imposing as he was, stood in the doorway, the shadow of a smirk brightening his sharp features.
As he finished folsding his sweater, Harry closed his trunk and turned around. Sirius was now seated on a chair next to his bed, hands knitting atop if stomach.
"How are you, Harry, really?"
He looked down at his feet as he sat on his bed. If he knew how to explain his feelings, he would, but it was an aptitude he barely mastered and therefore remained silent. But silence often voices fears and thoughts more easily then words can do. And Sirius, though his fiery, impulsive temper and usually rebellious attitude was a wise man; he saw through his godson's silence without much struggle.
"I know you are scared, boy, and yes, they will point at you, make foolish jokes on your behalf", he paused, looking around the room, his grey eyes resting on Phineas Nigellus Black's painting, "but who am I to speak?"
He let go of his laughter, sudden as a wolf's howl in the night.
"But it is in such times, Harry", he resumed talking, "that we come to understand who our friends are, and who our enemies."
In the meantime, Harry lifted his eyes from the ground at his godfather. He was nothing like the young man in the pictures he'd had of his parents' wedding. This was another Sirius speaking; this was the Sirius who had seen his friends die, who had seen the world as it truly is: cruel, deceiving and full of injustice.
"Because friends are the only bridge to a happy life. In the end, friends are the only who really matter, and when you lose them ... you just lay down on your bed realising just how alone you truly are without them. You come to apprehend that you're just a lonely wolf lost in the woods."
As his spoke, his eyes were still fixated on the portray, but he seemed to be looking through it. Harry couldn't tell is Sirius was talking to him or to the ghosts that haunted his every move.
"Is that how you feel? When you think of them? You feel lost?", Harry questioned quietly, but it felt as though his voice echoed through the entire room.
Sirius removed his eyes from the wall and looked over at where Harry was seated.
He smiled. A bitter smile.
"With every day that the war went on, we were being brought terrible news: at first it was Caradoc Dearborn and then others followed; the ambitious Prewett brothers, stubborn Dorcas, kind-hearted Marlene", he paused on the last name, sorrow reflected in his eyes. Sirius eventually sighed and continued, "and ... and then James and Lily ... my best friends ... that was the darkest news of them all. What is the purpose of living if they are not with you? Keep your friends close, Harry, value them ... protect them. I didn't do it when it was time to."
"You did all you could."
"No, I didn't. They wuld be sitting here with us tonight if I did."
Nothing could mend the pain in Sirius heart, Harry understood that at one. There were no words comforting enough, no promises sweet enough; there was nothing to make the regrets fade away, nothing but oblivion, and that was not a solution.
Watching his godfather, the Gryffindor asked himself if he would be reacting just like him if he were to lose his friends.
There were so many questions he was willing to ask, so many which he knew would be left unanswered, but there was so little time. It was not fair, that he had spent more time with the horrid Dursley family, than with his own godfather.
"When you've been taken to the Ministry, accused of a crime you weren't responsible of ... you didn't fight against", Harry took a deep breath, while Sirius nodded, "Why?"
Again he sighed. A deep sigh.
"People believe in what they see, in facts. And all the apparent facts were proving me as being guilty-"
"But they were witnesses", Harry protested.
"My poor witnesses", the older wizard shook his head. "My witnesses were Muggles who, within some minutes, had seen two wizards cast spells at one another. They had seen random flashed lights, they had seen blood, they had seen death. None of them really understood what had just happened, and very few of them actually survived Peter's storm of curses, so do you really expect those people to count as witnesses?"
Harry said he couldn't.
"I just wished it were different, you know. I don't want to have to return to the Dursleys next summer.", the boy complained.
"I never understood how someone as lovely as Lily could have such a dispiseful sister", Sirius spoke with honesty.
"You mean you met her?"
"Once, yes, by mere accident. But I don't suppose she knew who I was, nor that she eecognized me when she saw my picture printed in the newspaper."
"And she wouldn't recognize you, because ..."
"I'll leave that story for a another time. Now, I have something for you."
As hespoke, Sirius took a small pack covered in a handkerchief out of his pocket.
"What is it?", Harry asked, striken by curiosity.
"Cake", the wizard replied, as if it were the most obvious of things. He sliced the bit in two and gave Harry the bigger one. "Now, Molly thinks she is smart, but she can't fool a Marauder, and besides I know this house better than anyone else."
The both of them laughed, devouring the dessert.
Just as silence fell over the room, Sirius decided to profane it.
"You know sometimes, if I close my eyes, I can see them. Lily sitting in the garden, James complaining he can't find anything eadible in the fridge, and you torturing a poor cat.", he smiled, "It's not much and I don't even know if it's real, or just a fantasy I imagined, but it seems like heaven. It's how I like to remember them, you. Happy."
There were so many questions he was willing to ask, but he didnt know where to start from, so instead, he remained silent and quietly bit out of his cake.
A/N: Ta, I hope you liked this one. It's just an idea that I had last night and I just couldn't go to sleep; I had to get it done. Now, I'm not going to force you to review, but I would be very happy if you would, though.
Remember I own nothing.
I also know that Sirius' picture didn't appear in the Muggle newspapers, I just needed that one bit to make them laugh. Hope you understand.
- R.