[pluh-ton-ik, pley-]
• purely spiritual; free from sensual desire
because really, it only takes someone who knows how to look to see that Sirius Black loves James Potter.
Sirius himself doesn't quite know what this feeling he has is, not until third year, when James races into the dormitory, eyes bright and smile contagious. "I've got it!" he cries, seizing Sirius' hands and dancing around the room wildly. "We'll become Animagi!" Sirius takes a long look into the gleaming hazel eyes of his best friend, who's just found away to make Remus's life so much easier. Oh, he thinks, as he laughs with James, so this is what love looks like?
He doesn't think other people feel in the same way he does, and he's sure that no one else sees love quite the same way. (He remembers the cold silences between his father and his mother, how his family works and how he swore at the age of ten that if that was love he wanted no part in it) It's probably just one more in a long list of things that are wrong with him (disgrace to the family, his father's voice echoes in his head. he ignores it) He feels no real need to tell James that he loves him, not when he can feel it in every smirk he shoots in the direction of his deer friend, when he has everything he wants in the answering grins James shoots his way. He knows James can't quite see it for what it is and is glad, because his love is not the same kind of love most people feel. His love is a hound's love- blind, devoted and eternal, and their friendship is something that people speak of years and years and years later, when their legacy is all that's left of them.
(When James and Remus and Peter stop speaking to him for a month after The Snape Incident, Sirius feels as though all the breath is gone from his lungs and it's like losing his family again, (you are no longer a brother to me) except this time it's all his fault. Weeks after they finally forgive him, Sirius still finds it hard to look James in the eye because what if all he sees there is rejection? He is sure it would destroy him to lose James again.)
He loves James and watches as James loves Lily and loves Lily as well. When they get married, they ask him when it's his turn, and he laughs his loud, barking laugh and asks why on earth he'd do such a thing when there are pretty girls around every corner and James and Lily waiting for him at home?
He loves James and he loves Lily and it is only natural that he loves Harry too. He's never seen himself as a father figure of any kind, but loving Harry is just as easy as loving James.
and then Sirius Black loses everything.
He is the first on the scene of course. the first after the betrayal and he scrambles through the rubble, he finds James lying dead on the floor and his heart shatters
because really, it only takes someone who knows how to look to see that Sirius Black loves James Potter.
the next days are a blur, and the years after that too.
and then there's a rat on a boy's shoulder and even through the haze of despair that he has lived with for how many years now? thirteen? he realizes what that means and even if James is gone and Lily is gone Harry isn't and he's all that Sirius has left to love, so he drags himself to his feet, puts his once brilliant mind to use and becomes the first man to escape Azkaban. Nobody seems to understand how, Sirius thinks grimly, as he reads a stolen Daily Prophet, not even Dumbledore, for all that he harps on the power of love. (Leave then! Leave and don't ever come back you wretched fool! He hears his mothers voice and doesn't bother trying to shut it away)
he comes so close. so close to family and love and James (Harry) that it physically hurts, but now all he can do is run, and he takes one last look at James (Harry), looks into his hazel (green) eyes and knows that he has to live for him.
so he runs and he hides and he fights and he dies and as he falls through the veil, he sees Harry's (James's?) horrified face over Bellatrix's shoulder and all he can think is, Oh. So that is what love looks like? And then he's gone, falling back endlessly back back back until he finally falls into a pair of familiar arms, and a familiar voice is buzzing in his ear but he can't quite understand what's being said because he's looking into a pair of hazel (hazel!) eyes for the first time in what seems like eternity and James Potter is there. James Potter. (James Potter!). And for the first time in fifteen years, Sirius Black begins to cry, and he hugs James tight to him, and moments later when he sees Lily, his arms open for her as well and he's finally home and this is all he's ever wanted, and the words come bubbling out, because he needs to say them after all these years, he needs him to know.
"I love you," Sirius Black tells his deerest friend, siriusly. He tells him because it is the truest thing about him, and he needs James to know. James smiles at him and says, "I know." and Sirius nods, satisfied. It's all he's ever needed, all he's ever wanted- for James to know that he is The Most Important. And now he does and Sirius Black can go back to loving James Potter the only way he has ever known how— with all his heart.
AN: Because I think Sirius Black takes everything to its utmost extreme, especially friendship. Just something I had running around in my brain. Reviews are always appreciated!