Disclaimer: Harry Potter is not mine. Title is not mine either. It's from a Tegan and Sara song of the same name. There is a line borrowed/adapted from the Pride and Prejudice movie in here, as well as a fairly obvious reference to The Sound of Music, but I just watched it two nights ago and I couldn't resist.
A/N: Well, after much too long, I'm back. This was my attempt to characterize Sirius Black (whom I absolutely adore), because so many people get him wrong. He is NOT a lothario! He is NOT giddy! Sometimes, these takes on his personality can work, though they are not canon. But giddy!Sirius should not exist. Ever.
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I Won't Be Left
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I won't be left, dancing alone, to songs of the past.
James Potter loved Lily Evans. Sirius Black hated her. Of course, he would never dare voice these sentiments out loud, but they were there all the same and they grew stronger each time he witnessed the red head holding James's hand or kissing his cheek or laughing at one of his (often lame) jokes.
Sirius knew that he should like Lily. He knew that she was beautiful and kind and too intelligent for her own good. Yes, he knew all these things, but he chose to ignore them and instead concentrate on the despairing fact that she was stealing his best friend, his brother really, right out from under his nose. And there was nothing he could do about it. Lily would always be able to give James a relationship on a level that he himself could not, because he did not have breasts or silky red hair or any other parts of the female anatomy that James seemed to find attractive.
Sirius remembered one instance a few months ago that had made him reflect upon his own love life, when his melancholies were noticed by Remus, the ever observant Marauder and the only one of them any good at talking about feelings. Remus seemed to know how Sirius felt without having to ask, as he always did, and had proceeded to extol the virtues of Lily Evans and remind Sirius of all the apparently endless reasons why she was good for James. Sirius' eyes, which always appeared cold and disinterested to the casual observer, never failed to thoroughly observe his surroundings and pick up on details that others usually overlooked. Consequently, he detected an unusual spark in Remus' eyes that night when he was talking about a certain Miss Evans. His sharp ears heard a slightly wistful tone in Moony's voice, as though perhaps Remus wished he was the one who had the lovely Lily hanging off his arm.
Why was it that all his friends were falling in love with Evans? Was Peter next? The idea was ludicrous, yet Sirius couldn't help but wonder. Remus had said that he would understand one day when he fell in love himself, and Sirius had laughed in his face. The eldest Black son vowed a long time ago never to fall into love's trap, never to marry, never to bother himself with the fairer sex. Love only made you weak, made you foolish and forced you to sacrifice your dreams for the sake of another. Really, Sirius thought, love was a bunch of smelly hippogriff droppings.
Girls were always following him around, a fact he had never noticed until James pointed it out in their sixth year. Sirius had told him he was crazy, but upon closer inspection he noticed the blonde who always waited in the shadows outside the Transfiguration classroom and then followed him to lunch, the brunette who tried to burn a hole in the back of his head with her staring every Potions class, and dozens of other infatuated floozies. This discovery had only served to cement his opinion that women were silly and insipid creatures. Sirius could boast of knowing no more than half a dozen women who were truly of any value, though one of them was Professor McGonagall and she was hardly someone he was going to pursue a relationship with.
In fact, Sirius had had only three girlfriends in his entire life, and each relationship lasted about two seconds and was a complete waste of time. Sirius knew he was good looking, what with his classically handsome and aristocratic face, prominent cheekbones, and long elegant hair that fell gracefully into his monochromatic gray eyes. He suspected that James secretly hated him for this last fact, because he was forever waging a hopeless and slightly pathetic battle with his own unruly locks. The point, though, was that Sirius's arrogance was not unfounded, yet his position as an object of considerable lust, as Peter called it, always left him a bit puzzled.
But, as he realized his musings had wandered a little more than slightly off point, Sirius came back to the topic at hand: Lily oh so fucking perfect Evans. On this less than fine rainy day, Sirius sat watching her whisper with James from his customary spot across the table, and wished that one of the floating candles that adorned the Great Hall would fall and catch her hair on fire. Who did she think she was? It should be him sitting there whispering, plotting and conspiring with James. He was the best friend, he was the one who had been there to pick up the pieces for the past seven years when Lily had thrown James's heart on the ground, stomped on it and then kicked the broken shards into the corner like they didn't matter.
It was almost graduation, and although scared was not a word in Sirius Black's vocabulary, he was a bit apprehensive of what the future would bring. Was he doomed forever to be the third wheel? Would James forget about him and run off to Austria and have a family of seven singing children? Or, perhaps worst of all, would James keep him around out of pity; invite him to family dinners and then laugh at him after he left?
Each possibility was troubling, and he despised Lily because she would be the cause of every single one of them. But in the end, he was a Marauder, faithful no matter what, and James loved Lily Evans, so Sirius would smile and pretend to love her too. Though he was not above anonymously slipping spiders in between her sheets while she was sleeping.
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Yes, I am well aware that this is not that good. I know that it went off topic in the middle. But, it's my first attempt at writing in months, and I was a bit scared to post it, but I figured the best way to get over my newfound fear of writing was just to "take the plunge", so to speak.
Review! tell me if you agree with how I picture Sirius.
