A/N: hogwartsharpist has been my muse for this story. This is for you, Lauren; a Sirius/Marlene fic using the prompt 'song'.
I'm also entering this for:
-Cheeky Slytherin Lass' All Sorts of Love Competiton: prompt, Non-Canon and
-faraway's The Ravishing Romance Competiton: prompt, medium, Sirius/Marlene
-Dawn-Of-Indescribable-Colours' The Mood Ring Challenge: prompt; red (stressed, restless) and Sirius Black.
only because you and your prompt became my muses. Thank you and I rally hope you like it!
Sing Me to Sleep
Sirius Black was hardly ever at a loss for words; if anything, he had the ability to turn people deaf by chatteringprattlingbabbling all day long. The sight of an especially buttery hunk of chicken or rich pumpkin juice had him waxing (not so) lyrical about their ability to send his taste buds to the zenith of heaven, and a glimpse of Snape's (ever so) greasy locks made him choke as he attempted to laugh and mock and hex the boy All. At. Once.
But here was a very different version of the usually loud-and-oh-so-proud boy who was quick to bring a smile on to the surliest of faces with his quirks. It was the third consecutive day of his (for a change) permitted absence from Hogwarts as he sat by the bedside of Marlene McKinnon, the only girl who'd managed to catch his eye and capture his heart and turn him into a happy-sappy-puppy as she showed him what it felt like to be loved for the first time in his life.
"Sirius," she croaked weakly as he gently drummed patterns on her slight arms with just his fingers. Tapetty-tap-tap. Tap-tapetty-tap. The patterns changed but the grief just didn't.
"Sirius." It took a while to leave the hazy world of predictable patterns and memories attached to happiness and respond as Marlene looked beseechingly into his eyes. The sight of her hooked on to tubes that attached themselves to machines that whirred on and on and on as she faded away, away, away from him kept bringing bile up his throat and tears into his eyes. It made him furious, oh so furious.
"Don't leave me," he whispered roughly, bringing his face close to hers and planting soft, salty kisses on her soft, sweaty forehead.
She shivered.
"Will you do something for me, sweetheart?" Her voice was so soft but her grip on him hardened with Every. Passing. Second. and that made his heart hammer faster, harder, louder.
"Anything," he whispered, trying (and failing yet again) to sound strong. She was his greatest strength and his most lasting weakness.
"Sing me to sleep," she whispered, the words dying on her parched lips as her eyes fluttered shut, struggling for a second like the trapped gossamer wings of a silk moth.
"No. NO!"
She could not leave him
There wasn't a world for him without her.
"Marly!" he roared, standing up angrily as he walked away from her bedside abruptly, immediately bringing two alarmed healers rushing into her room who angrily threatened to have him removed. But his world had ceased to spin on its axis.
"Sirius, I love you, I always have," she whispered, clearly in pain, unable to speak in words.
He rushed back to her as she signaled to a healer and shoved him aside, helping her sit up and feeding her a sip of water as she coughed terribly,joltingly,violently with her entire frame quivering like the last leaf from a branch giving up amidst the tempest.
"Sing to her, won't you?"
"Get out. You're not supposed to be in here! She's not supposed to be in here! GET OUT!"
"Sirius. It's okay sweetheart. I'm okay."
"No!"
"I've always been a terrible liar, haven't I?"
"Only to me, Marly. Only to me."
And he clutched her hand as the sun sank into the oceans and an inky blue spread through the skies, singing her the very same ballads from the days gone by that she had taught him in the first place. And he saw as the beat of her heart became unsteady, slowed and stopped while his own unsteady one grew stronger; the fluttering of her eyes going, going, gone.
Marlene McKinnon was gone, just another dead victim of Voldemort's meaningless bloodbath.
And so was Sirius' one chance at true love.
Please do drop a review; thank you and hope you enjoyed it! :)
