Lulworth Beach
He hears the crash of waves against a rocky cliff and smells the salty tang of fresh sea air.
'Thank you', Lyraa turns and smiles at him, 'for bringing me here.' She looks particularly odd against the bleak landscape, a bright yellow blur against the stormy Atlantic. He watches as she stands knee deep in the surf and plays a childish game, jumping over each wavelet as it reaches her. He is filled suddenly, with an inexplicable urge to knock her over. So he does that and Lyraa is buried in the waves for just a few moments and then she comes up, spluttering and coughing and squealing.
'Ack! You son of a bachelor, what did you do that for?!'
'Fancy', Sirius replies laughing, 'the look on your face!' and slowly a very wet Lyraa begins laughing too, drinking in Sirius' contagious merriment.
They'd had precious few reasons to laugh over the past few weeks. Voldemort had seemed somehow to learn most of the Order's secret information and now they were threatened by the prospect of a traitor in their midst. As if that wasn't bad enough, the Death Eaters had attacked and killed the McKimmons and the Bones. Hence Sirius' attempt to cheer them both up: a trip to Lulworth.
But the dreary panorama and the dementor breath air saps their smiles and within minutes they are sitting in the waves and thinking morbid thoughts again.
'What if we're next?' Sirius asks, throat dry, voicing a fear that's been bothering him for some time.
Lyraa stares into the seabed and trails her fingers through the soft sand before answering, 'It should either be the both of us, or me first. I don't think I could handle it if you were gone first', she turns the full intensity of her gaze on Sirius and he feels like he is drowning in those wells of black. Drowning without escape, but oh, what a wonderful feeling!
Lyraa breaks eye contact and stares away into the distance hugging her knees. The splashing of the waves seem inordinately loud and Sirius' thoughts are in turmoil now. I owe it to her. All these years, she's stuck with me and not once has she asked me what's next. I ought to tell her. Implying it is simply not good enough anymore.
'Lyraa', he calls, his voice is ragged and he's breathing hard. He splashes around in the waves to sit facing her. 'I know I've never said it and.. but you probably already know it and it's clichéd but I can't write a speech, you know that and..', he pauses and gasps silently, 'I love you.'
Lyraa smiles prettily, as if she's just received confirmation of something she always knew, 'Likewise', she says happily and then quietly, 'we'll make it through, Snuffles.'
So there they are, two still-teenagers, just a year out of Hogwarts, committed to fighting a war that threatens to sweep them and everything they value away, but right then, proclaiming their love for each other seems most important to them. Dumbledore would perhaps have agreed.
~•~
The crash of waves against the rocky walls of his cell awake Sirius and he is greeted not by the smell of sea air but by the cold breath of death, rancour and decay. He gets up, startled back to reality. It had been a particularly vivid dream. He could almost smell Lyraa's lemony perfume.
And 10 years from then, here I am, he thinks bitterly, glaring at the dank walls of his cell in Azkaban.
Lyraa gone, Lily and James gone, all killed. He, incarcerated in this hellhole, for a crime he never committed.
He couldn't remember the last time he had cried. Not at Lyraa's funeral and not when he'd been arrested. But now he allows his despair to consume him and he sobs as he feels his heart breaking and hopes sleep will carry him away, back into the world of dreams where perhaps he might see Lyraa again.
Fin.