This was written for Penelope Fiction's OC challenge. I had been given two names with their meaning and I had to write a story about them.
Prompts : Riley means "clearing". Tia means "aunt".
This story had been corrected by Schermionie, thanks a lot!
Tia Smith was crying over the new issue of the Daily Prophet. She didn't know why she still read it, but what she knew now was that she had been really stupid. She had never believed him. All those years Sirius Black had been innocent, yet she had not believed him. And she was now crying over a piece of paper which was claiming that he had been misunderstood. That he was innocent. That those thirteen years in Azkaban had been unfair. But it was too late. He was dead now.
She crumpled the paper in her hands and threw it to the fireplace. Tears were still escaping her eyes; she couldn't help it. Memories floated in her mind.
When she overheard him, during their last year at Hogwarts, telling James that he couldn't stop thinking about her. Their first date, one night in Hogsmeade. The various and several dates that followed. She remembered how they escape at the end of James and Lily's wedding and how he proposed to her that night. She remembered how he teased her when Harry was born: her name suited her now. She was auntie Auntie, he had joked.
She remembered that night when he gave her Riley. A kid he didn't get the chance to know about. The child she had hidden from him, believing he was a criminal. She never told him she was expecting.
And now, she regretted it, even if it was too late.
Footsteps snapped her from her thoughts: it was their child, Riley.
"Mum, is everything okay? Why are you crying?" He hugged her.
"It's nothing sweetie, really, don't worry."
"Okay." His tone was hesitant, and he stayed by her side.
She looked in the grey eyes of her son, their son, and what she saw was the remembrance of Sirius Black. Sirius who had been her evening star, her light during that dark period.
Now, it would be Riley. He was her anchor to this world. He would be her clearing in the walk through the forest that was that second war.