A Look and a Moment
This is set in the movieverse, I much prefer the books but to give the directors credit they did do Sirius's death very well and the comment about James was just too hard to resist. I hope you like it. I own nothing. Please read and review.
Bellatrix was watching …
"Nice one James."
They were both trapped in a memory in that moment. One where they were both children but still on different sides of a disagreement. This one was meaningless and the cause was all but forgotten but the expression on Sirius's face was the same. Smiling at the challenge and tossing alternating hexes with his best friend. There had been many decisions and infinite changes between this battle and that one but there he stood fighting side by side with his godson. And winning, always winning.
But he would take the fall, every victory came at a price and he would be the one to pay it, just like every time before. He had done it last sitting in a cell beside her with only a stone wall and the past between them. She had yelled, and screamed, and cursed his traitorous name but all he had done was talk. In a quiet measured voice he conjured the memories. Ones of laughing with real cause and of trust and of family, of pranks and of adventure, he spoke of all the things before the mark.
And when he left he had given her a look: the same one he was giving her now as he turned to face the words she didn't really mean. His eyes said take it all back and you can come with me in that cell she had stayed silent, accepting her sentence and by finishing those two words she was earning herself a new one. He held her eyes even as he fell through the curtain. His unwavering gaze and contented smile saying I forgive you Bella, I forgive you.
She stared for a moment more and as she turned she whispered "I'm sorry". Then she hardened her heart and vowed to never, ever, forget.