Not Through the Night
Chapter One
The marble was glass-smooth on two sides, rough and pebbly on the other four, unforgiving enough to leech warmth from even the coldest fingertips, sharp at the edges of each side and sharper at the tiny edges of each letter carved into one mirrored side.
Sirius watched as James listlessly ran three fingertips along the top edge of the tombstone before dropping to his knees, trailing his hand down the front to rest on the P beginning "Potter." Sirius took a shuffling half-step across the earth, packed down by weather, gravity, and footsteps but not yet producing even a wisp of grass or weed. He knelt just behind James' left shoulder and caught his eye in the reflective front of the stone, slowly reaching out to place a hand on James' shoulder. James dropped his gaze, bowed his head, and shook it slightly.
"I didn't think…I don't know. This is stupid. I just…I didn't think I'd be as sad as I am," he mumbled. "I thought I'd be sad, but I always thought…I don't know. Everybody dies, right?"
"They're your parents," Sirius said softly. "It's different."
"Yeah, I guess it is. It was stupid. I loved them. Of course I'm sad." James turned his head slightly to look at Sirius over his shoulder as Sirius dropped his hand.
"Of course you are," Sirius agreed. "I am too."
"I guess I just thought…you weren't so sad when your dad died," James murmured, turning back to stare at the tombstone. "But your dad was also a heartless git and he tried to kill you, so I guess you were about as sad as you could be."
Sirius nodded silently. He glanced up at the sky, at the dark clouds beginning to move in, before looking back at James.
James ran a hand through hair that already stood on end. "I just keep thinking…" He turned back to look at Sirius. "I always said I wouldn't take them for granted. Not after seeing how your parents were. But…I did it anyway. I just…they were supposed to be here for a long time."
"You didn't…you loved them, Prongs," Sirius soothed. "They knew that. Everyone knew that."
"I keep thinking all of these things I should've asked them. The baby's coming in a month. I was supposed to ask my dad how to teach him how to fly and ask mum how to make bangers and mash. How am I supposed to be a good dad if I don't know how to do anything?" James demanded.
"You're going to be a great dad. Just do everything your parents did, and the kid will turn out great," Sirius supplied. "And besides, Lily knows how to make bangers and mash, and everyone knows you're a disaster in the kitchen."
James laughed shakily. "You're not a lot better. You set my kitchen on fire last week!"
"At least your mum didn't tell me that I needed to get married before I planned to move out or else I'd die of starvation."
"The only reason you don't starve is because you keep coming round my house every night for dinner," James retorted. He stood up, brushing the dirt off the front of his robes, before reaching out to touch the top of the headstone again.
Sirius stood too, and moved to stand next to James. He tried pointedly not to think of the last few weeks, of visiting James' parents almost daily, of the weakness, of the pockmarked, green-tinged skin that now lay just a couple meters below their feet.
Thunder thrummed through his chest, almost too distant to be heard at all, and pieces of the sky began to fall. James lowered his gaze once more, and Sirius stepped back to give him a moment to say goodbye. After a few silent seconds, James turned to join Sirius, but not before Sirius saw three drops land on the coarse edge of the tombstone directly below James' eyes.
Sirius rattled the keys in the lock of the door to his flat, kicked the door twice and finally managed to force the key to turn. He walked in as he tried to remove his key from the lock, pausing to give it an almighty tug as it stuck yet again. Finally extricating it, he slammed the door shut with no small amount of force and snapped the lock closed, chained the top, and kicked the door once more for good measure.
He reached to flick the light switch, sighing when the few bare bulbs in the apartment all flickered twice before shutting off. He sighed and waved his wand to light several candles about the room. There were many perks to renting a muggle flat, electricity even being one of them, but magic made the power go spotty more often than not.
"Bollocks," he muttered as he stomped through the kitchen and rummaged in the pantry for something suitable for dinner. He'd turned down James' invitation, though he knew James had been joking about his constant presence at the Potter household for meals. James needed to go home and let Lily comfort him, and Sirius didn't want to interfere with that. Besides, he had his own thoughts to muddle through.
He found two slices of bread that were not yet molded and made himself a peanut butter sandwich, served with a side of firewhiskey, eaten from the safety of the sunken couch that matched the rest of the flat in its decrepitude. After eating his sandwich and downing his first two tumblers of firewhiskey, doubtlessly not the last, he stretched out on the sofa, propping his feet on the arm of one end because it was several inches too short for his tall frame. He stared up at the ceiling for a long moment before closing his eyes.
When his father died two years ago, many people apologized for his loss. They offered condolence, and he ate like a king for a week on the things people brought him, unbidden, out of pity. Even the people who knew his history, the ones who knew his parents, even the ones who should have realized that he wasn't sad, they all still murmured uncomfortable commiseration. It was only James, Remus, Peter, and Lily who even bothered to ask how he really felt. And he told them. He was not sad. He wasn't even perturbed. Mostly he was just empty.
But he wasn't empty in the way people seemed to think he was. He wasn't numb. There just wasn't a lot to feel. Like James, there was a feeling he was expecting, and like James, it was not what he actually felt. Though in James' case, he had expected more acceptance than sadness, and in Sirius' case, he had expected more relief than apathy. It didn't take a genius to see who was the better person of the two, Sirius thought darkly. He had expected to feel better once his father was dead. He had expected that whenever he heard that news, a smile would carve his face into two unequal halves, a grotesque image to show the world what a bad son he really was. But it didn't. When he received a letter from his mother to that effect, he didn't feel anything at all. There was no less evil in the world for his father being dead, just hundreds more clamoring to fill in the gap. It wasn't a victory. It wasn't even really a wash.
He felt it when James' dad died. Felt it like a punch to the solar plexus, the air gushing from his lungs even as he reached out for James, who had to feel ten times worse. Maybe James' dad was the closest thing to a father Sirius had ever had, but he was the only one James had ever had. Whatever Sirius was feeling, it was less than nothing compared to what James was feeling. Sirius was basically adopted, yes, but James was flesh and blood, and that made all the difference.
When James' mother had gone less than a week later, they were both too wrung out to feel much of anything else anyway. It was just one more thing, like the fact that it was raining or the fact that a niffler had left holes in the yard or the fact that last night James knocked over a glass of red wine and they hadn't gotten it out of the carpet yet. It just was. And that made Sirius feel all the worse because Mrs. Potter was like a mother to him and it should've hurt just as much, but it didn't because everything already felt raw.
James was doing well, all things considered, Sirius thought, pouring what was left of the firewhiskey into his tumbler and drinking half of it in one gulp. He had Lily to comfort him, he had the Order to keep him busy, he had Sirius to make him laugh and Remus to offer bits of philosophy, and he had Peter to just listen to him, and he had the baby to look forward to. It was hard, but James was getting through it, perhaps more easily than anyone could have hoped. And maybe he had taken Sirius up to the cemetery several times because he couldn't stand to go alone, but wasn't that better than withdrawing? It was, Sirius decided. It was better than what he himself was doing right this moment, downing the rest of his firewhiskey in his scarcely lit flat all alone. So he hauled himself off the couch before the alcohol could really kick in, and he grabbed his keys off the scarred kitchen table and stomped out of the flat, locking the door and kicking it three times in the process, before disapparating to go to a proper bar where at least he couldn't be accused of drinking alone.