Number 11 Wisteria Walk, Surrey, Great Britain,
Sunday, November 1st, 1980
1: 30 AM
Jocelyn woke to the familiar and loud 'crack' sound she had long since associated with her lover apparating into her home, followed by several loud and painful sounding crashes that were loud enough to not only wake her little firebird, but her nosy and snooty neighbors. Throwing back the covers, she slid out her warm bed and followed the crashes out of her bedroom, down the hall and into the kitchen where she caught sight of the man that had become a rare sight since the birth of their daughter, Ankaa.
"Sirius?!" Where he didn't respond, she inched closer, worry in her blue eyes. Suddenly, a hand shot out, wrapping around her wrist and with a sharp tug pulled her into a hug, the arm that had wrapped itself around her waist tightening every time she shifted. "Sirius, what is it? What's wrong?"
"They're dead. Lily and James are dead and I don't know where Harry is. My brother and his wife are dead, my Godson is missing and it's all my fault! I should've never told James to use Peter as secret keeper instead of me! I should've known he was the mole and not Remus! I should've known!" Jocelyn was frozen, her blue eyes wide as she processed what she'd just heard.
James and Lily Potter were dead.
"Oh Sirius," She whispered and wrapped her arms around the sobbing man, running her fingers through his soft hair as she shushed him and allowed him to hold her tighter. "There's no way you could've known it was Peter. There's no way anybody could have."
"But I should have." He rasped, the sound muffled by her chest. "He always liked being around those who had the most power and Voldemort was on par with Dumbledore himself."
"But you didn't because he was your friend and like a good friend, you trusted and believed in him. This is nobody's fault but Peter's. He's the one who choose power over loyalty, Sirius, not you." Sirius pulled back enough to stare up into her eyes, his face covered in soot with tear tracks revealing that he had been crying where he apparated into her home and his grey eyes that were normally filled with laughter now dull with pain. His hands slid from their positions on her waist and wrapped around her wrist to grab her small hands within his own as he stared up at her, an unreadable expression on his face.
"Jo, what would I do without you?" He rasped out, his voice hoarse from sobbing and she gave him a weak, yet soft smile.
"Crash and burn." His lips twitched ever so slightly at her usual response to the familiar question, before he pulled tugged her down onto the kitchen floor with him and cradled her face in his hands, his grey eyes staring at her as though he was committing her face to memory. And it worried her. "Sirius, what's wrong?"
"Jo, I love you." She felt her eyes sting slightly as tears formed and threatened to fall, only for Sirius to brush them away gently. "I want you to know that you and our little firebird are my entire world and that I will always love you, no matter what. I'm sorry."
She pulled back slightly, her brows furrowed. "Sirius, wha-" She started to ask, but something hit her in the back of the neck and everything went black.
~o0o~
Tears slid down her face and fell onto the letter that had been written in Sirius's familiar scrawl, her soft sobs the only sound in the room she had once shared with the black-haired wizard that she had fallen in love with despite knowing she shouldn't have.
Jo,
I've gone after Peter.
I can't stay with you while knowing he's still out, that he's the reason why James and Lily are dead and that if he ever discovered you and what you mean to me, what happened to James and Lily could happen to you, but at the hands of my insane cousin. And that is something that will only happen over my cold dead body and even then, they would have to go through the wards I placed around your home for protection.
I know a letter is not the proper way to ask you this, but I wish to ask you so that when I return to you with Harry and if you have waited for me, I can ask you the way you deserved to be asked.
Jocelyn Redbird, will you marry me?
She cradled the tiny velvet case that held the engagement ring and letter close to her chest as she sobbed, praying to whatever higher power there was that it brought Sirius Black back to her safe and unharmed with little Harry in his arms, that stupid smirk of his on his face as he stepped through her front door.
He never would.
All rights to the Harry Potter books, movies, and characters belong to the wonderful J.K. Rowling.
To my wonderful readers of Madness in Wonderland, I have decided to stop writing it and try my hand at another Harry Potter story I had started writing a while back. While it could be called a rewrite, it is not the same as the original and features a different oc in Harry's era instead of the Marauder's, so I would not classify it as a rewrite of the original, but a different story. Nonetheless, I hope you will enjoy this story as much as you did my original.