That Night

"Where were you that night?" the shrill voice of the Ministry official was enough to break Sirius out of his slump, his daydream, of her.

"Mr Black, I will not ask you again." A new, even harder edge had been added to the words that were trying to break through him. This wasn't the first time, and certainly wasn't going to be the last, where he had been questioned about that night. Slowly, he turned his head and stared through her, coldly and blankly. It sent a chill running down her spine and the old Sirius would've smirked to see her turn away in discomfort.

"Mafalda, I hardly think he's going to answer your questions willingly," an exasperated, yet amused, giggle cut through the air like the slice of a knife.

"Looks like Azkaban has already started to affect him," sneered the second woman. Her high pitched tone burning in his ears. Sirius' eyes were drawn to the blob of ferocious pink, a stark contrast against the rest of the prison.

"Very well," a clipped tone echoed against the shabby walls loudly, causing stirs from the other inmates.

"There's always next time, Mr Black." The words went through one ear and out the other. "Maybe next time, we'll have a little extra help." She bitterly added under her breath, and that caught his attention.

Sirius couldn't talk about that night- physically couldn't. What was he supposed to say, that he already had? Everyone's opinions had already been constructed about the traitorous, murdering lunatic. That night...

One of the two most painful nights of his life, he had strangely enough been relieving feelings from the other excruciating night.

Sirius Black had never taken heed of anybody's words of warning- even Dumbledore's. That night, he had been with her. By her grave. Clearing out the growing debris and laying fresh, new poppies, her favourite, at her resting place.

At first, straight after she'd died- been murdered- Sirius hadn't been able to stand coming to her place of burial. The old wounds that had been reopened were helping to tip him further over the edge. His apartment hadn't been much better, everything had smelt like her. Traces of her lingered everywhere. It wasn't as if he could express any of this to anyone. Especially not now, here in Azkaban. Images of her, Marlene, plagued his mind, with her cute scrunched up face as she contemplated the reactions as she told Lily and the others about them.

They had been something, once. Sixth year- unsurprisingly both of their favourite years. After the messy break up, it was impossible for wither of them to even start to think about friendship, with all the hurt and lust and love that was still very much present in both of them.

It had snowed the night she came back to him. Not heavily, though. Beaten and bloodied, back from a mission, a mixture of dried blood and tears caked to her face.

Just sex.

That's what she had said she needed.

A distraction.

For both of them.

Thus came their second relationship, purely just sexual, of course. The last few weeks of their hidden relationship had been the best of Sirius' life, bliss, despite the hardships he had to deal with outside of the apartment walls. It had been like the old times; maybe even better.

Marlene had finally considered making their new relationship public- becoming an actual couple again. Then, she was murdered. Cruelly taken away from this world, her friends, from him. All in the name of something she cared and fought stubbornly for. Everything had shattered.

Sirius remembers clutching the letter he had received shortly after the...deaths. Lily Potter had only referred to her and the rest of her family as the 'McKinnons', not knowing the truth about the two of them. Still blindly believing Marlene and Sirius couldn't bear the sight of each other.

Is that what Sirius was supposed to tell them?