Summary: Before Sirius died he wrote a letter for someone who many never even knew still existed …

Her hand shook as she picked up the letter from the large wooden table in the basement kitchen of 12 Grimmauld Place. The writing on the front of it was so familiar to her. Holding the letter in her hand showed just how much she was shaking. The tanned face had drained of colour as she pressed her lips together in a thin line her watery eyes travelling over the words that addressed her, Serena Rosa White Black … my White Rose among the Black Flowers. Her eyes glanced up into the eyes of Remus Lupin who was sitting on the opposite side of the table. He gave her a soft but watery smile and her eyes returned to the letter. Shakily she turned it over and opened it. Her eyes travelled over to black letter on the parchment.

My dear darling Serena,

I have started writing this letter so many times and so many times I have screwed up the paper and thrown it away. Being stuck back here, back in this house that I loathe and being so far from you my wife and our baby girl I felt that I needed to write to you, to tell you that I want you to come here and be with me so I can hold you close and smell your hair. I want you to be here so we can lie together like we use to and watch the sunset and then try to count the stars as they appear in the sky.

I think of the stars we use to try and count every time I think of you. I believe the stars are the endless reasons why I love you, I may try to start counting them but by the end I can no longer think because there are too many reasons to mention. You are the greatest thing that has ever happened to me and you have given me nothing but happiness and laughter over the years I have known you. On our wedding day I thought that I couldn't love you any more than I already did but you gave me my daughter, my darling child who has grown up into such a beautiful woman, just like you, her mother.

I don't even know what to write in this letter but I want to tell you all the things I have thought about recently whilst we have been apart. I long to be with you and speak to you about endless nonsensical stuff that we use to speak about, the things that never really mattered but were always fun to laugh at later on, like now as I write. I want to sit upon a chair and hold you on my knee curled up like you use to do. I was going through my old room the other day when I found the floor board under which I kept all my letters that were sent to me by you guys over the summer. I found several that were sent to me during my last year here including a letter from you and James. The two of you spoke about pranks we planned to play, things we were going to do, teachers we were going to annoy and all the time through that letter you kept saying that you couldn't wait to see me. That is what I want to say now, I can't wait to see you, to touch you, to smell your hair, to taste your lips and to hear your voice. I cannot wait for you my darling.

My mind keeps going back to Hogwarts and to the moments we first met. Our first train journey to Hogwarts when you and James came into my compartment where I sat with Lily. I couldn't believe at first that you were a White and that you would sit with me, a Black, in the same compartment. At first I was wary of you. I had heard so much of the White family and I knew how much my own family despised them but then you turned out to be one of the funniest, smartest girls I'd ever met.

All that time at Hogwarts you were my best friend's best friend. We were known as the two best friends of James "Prongs" Potter but yet we did not know each other all that well for the first four years. You use to hang out in our common room all the time even though you were a Ravenclaw and I was always in admiration of your intelligence and wit. I really liked you. I know now that it was always you that I liked even though I never really realised it at the time. You were always there, you always were right into the thick of us, the marauders. You understood James better than anyone, you took every joke I made and laughed, you took the time to study with Remus even though you never needed to and you even cheered up Peter. You knew us all, every time we were up to something you were always there but never did you try to stop us, you were there to encourage us, laugh with us and even help us. You were a marauder.

The first moment I knew I liked you was that night I found you by the lake, you looked so beautiful with you brown hair out over your shoulder and your emerald eyes gleaming with tears over your father's recent passing. You stood ankle deep in the lake you cloak wrapped around your shoulders to keep you warm. Yet till this day I know I could never have guessed exactly how much I would love you. With each passing day my love for you grows and grows. Every memory I have increases my love. You are the one and only love of my life and maybe I didn't always show it. I have loved you since that practical joke went wrong and you accepted me to be the only one by your side forever. It was such a big step at seventeen, such a big decision to make whether I would just tell you I had been joking or to go on with it as though I had meant it. I never thought I would settle down and to my eyes I never thought you would either. Yet I knew that I loved you and I still do to this day.

Our wedding day was nothing short of perfect because it was you standing by my side. You made my life so wonderful that day. You were and still are the most beautiful thing to ever enter my sight. That day I knew your dress was beautiful, I knew your hair was perfect and I knew that for once you had had your nails manicured to stop them looking bitten as they usually did but you could have been dressed in rag with your hair a mess and your nails bitten down to the skin and I would still not have been able to keep my eyes off of you. You are the most perfect thing in my life and our family is the most important thing to me.

I still have one photo of you, me and Kerr as a baby which they let me keep whilst in Azkaban. I still have it even now set on the table before me. It is worn and been mended several times but I still hold it close to my heart as if it were just newly taken. I kept it with me the whole time I was in Azkaban and I wouldn't ever let anyone see it or know that I had it. I kept it hidden on me at all times. Every time I look at you, young, fresh-faced and happy I believe that we will be like that when we are together again.

Together again? A free man? It'll be strange to be a free man again to share a bed with the woman I love. It'll be strange to be a family again. I never really had a proper family but with you and Kerr I am complete. When Voldemort is defeated and I am proved innocent you and I, Kerr and Harry will be a family. We will look after Harry just like James and Lily wanted us too. We will be together eventually my dearest Serena, forsaking all other, till death do us part. I meant every word at our wedding, every word I said then I mean it more and more with each passing moment that I think of you. I cannot wait to tell Harry all about you, to let him know that you knew James before even I did. Do you think that we could have another child? Do you think it would be possible for us?

I started this letter to tell you that I love you and I think that I haven't even done my feelings even a little bit of justice, there are not enough words in the world to express my love for you, to express my feelings for you. I love you forever till the ends of the earth and beyond. I can't wait for the end of this war, for the day that you and I will lie together again to watch the sunset and try to count the stars. I can't wait to see you and my daughter again, to hold you in my arms like I have done so many times, to twirl you around your hair flying out behind you. I love you more than the earth and I gladly admit it to everyone. I love you Serena Rosa White Black, the light of my life, the rose in my thorns, the beauty of my depths, I will love you for now and for all eternity or may I forever rot in hell. I love you the way you love me. I love you more than I can tell you.

I was thinking that I should finish my letter here because nothing else I can say can express my feelings anymore. I can't wait to hold you again and I hope you know that I love you and nothing can stop me loving you.

Shit, Harry's at the Ministry, I'll write later.

The letter fell to the table as Serena Rosa White Black sank into the chair shaking with the sobs, her cheeks shinning with the tears that would stain them. Across the table Remus Lupin sat where he had sat as he watched Sirius write the letter to her. His eyes held remorse and sympathy for the woman who cried as though her heart had shattered there and then. He didn't move to comfort her for he knew that she would only shake him off. Then to his ears came the soft sound of her voice and for a fleeting moment he thought she was talking to him but as he listened her trembling voice made his heart ache all the more for her.

'I love you too, Sirius, more than I can say.'