He never knew he could hurt like this.
He never knew that this sort of longing could awaken in his heart again.
As he stood there, listening to his godson recount his story, relive the horror that he had just been through, his heart constricted, and his throat closed up, his eyes gently closing in pain.
The gentle whir of the silver instruments around him and the rhythmic breathing of the portraits on the wall sent him back, years back, to a time in which his biggest worry was whether the prank he had played was impressive enough to astound her.
If Harry hadn't broken that connection at that moment...if he hadn't pulled away, one other ghostly shadow would have appeared, would have pulled out of Voldemort's wand and gazed at him with boundless love in its eyes.
She...she would have appeared.
And hearing Harry tell them, tell Dumbledore and himself about his father and his mother brought back memories so painful that he collapsed into the chair, hiding his face in his hands.
His best friend...the one person that he loved more than anyone else...he had been there that night.
James had been there.
Lily had been there too.
And...and she would have been there.
If that connection had held on for just a moment longer.
He could understand, of course, why Lily had told him to break the web right then.
The questions that would have come later to Sirius would have been too much for him to bear.
James was his best friend...but Lily had always somehow managed to understand his complicated love life.
A bitter smile broke out on his face, but it was quickly covered by a choking sob.
He wanted to be there.
He wanted to have been there with Harry, to protect him and to see them, to see all three of them again.
He wanted to be able to fight him, that man that ruined his life, that killed his best friends and the one woman that he had ever loved.
He wanted to be able to kill him.
Listening to Harry, the person that he had once sworn to protect, protect with his very life and everything he had in him tell him about the terrifying things that he had gone through...it made him think, more than ever about all that he had lost, and everything that he had once had.
It made him regret so much...but it also made him value, more than anything, the love that he had shared, both with her, and also with his best friends.
So he stiffened, pulled his hands away from his face, and stood.
Brave.
Ready to face it.
Ready to face everything, everything, in the name of everyone who had died for him.
His eyes blazed at the thought of what he yet had to accomplish, and for a moment, he looked down at the young boy sitting in front of him, hair just as messy as his father's once was, eyes just as emerald and bright as his mother's once was...and the kindness, that though he didn't know it, was shown to him by the one woman that Sirius held deep inside his heart.
For a moment, a single moment in time, Dumbledore looked up, his clear blue eyes meeting Sirius's hard gray ones.
And they understood.
They saw the pain and the suffering, the need to prove himself, the want to be able to do everything he could for the child sitting between them.
So he gave a small nod and Sirius transformed.
Literally into Padfoot...otherwise, into a stronger, harder human than he had ever been.
Because he was going to be brave.
He was going to show the world what he yet had inside of him.
And he was going to protect him, this child of theirs.
All in her name.
All of it, in her name.
He was going to be brave.
----
Okay, I'm going to admit right now that I don't like this fic. I don't know, it seems very poorly written, perhaps because I'm having some SERIOUS (Haha, little pun there) guy problems right now. :'( It was a spur of the moment thing, but I would still very much appreciate any reviews that any of ya'll would like to leave for me. :)
Thanks for reading!
Fanta-Faerie