Hello and welcome to Desperate Romantics, take two. I've been dying to write SB again so here I am. If you read the incomplete first version at all you may recognise some of the first few chapters, and characters (only now with a little twist!).

The poetry verse is from Dante Gabriel Rossetti's "The Portrait".

I do not own anything in the Harry Potter universe that is canon, nor do I own any characters named by JK but here acting non-canon. I do not own DGR's poetry, aaand I do not own things like Mrs Black's portrait and so on. Nothing is mine, apart from the OCs. And there are very few of those. Well, obviously the writing is mine. Hurrah!

Enjoy x

This is her picture as she was

It seems a thing to wonder on

As though mine image in the glass

Should tarry when myself are gone.

I stare until she seems to stir

Until mine own eyes aver

That now, even now, the sweet lips part

To breathe the sweet words of the heart

And yet the earth is over her.

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Sirius Black tilted his head to the side a little as he looked over the photographs in his bedroom. His old bedroom, the one he had abandoned some twenty years ago. It was October of 1995, and Grimmauld place was completely empty. There were to be no order meetings for the rest of the week, and the company he so craved was to be denied - his Godson, Harry, was in school.

His hands were jammed in the pockets of his trousers, twitching a little as he desired to reach out and touch the moving pictures, but he resisted for fear that his touch might damage them after all these years. A young bespectacled boy grinned up at him from one. It was the only picture Sirius had of his best friend alone. Some people had laughed when they knew the two boys had a picture of the other, taken after Hogwarts. Whilst James had Lily, sometimes it was the thought of their friendship, of fighting to remain alive to have that friendship, that got them out of bed and to Order meetings way back when.

A slight smile formed on his sunken features as he found the picture of the four of them, a pang of shadowy anger in his heart when he saw the chubby, watery-eyed boy looking hopefully at the camera. Sirius had mostly managed to stop re-living that night in his mind, but he knew that if he ever saw that little rat again, he wouldn't escape as he had two years ago. He felt a little sad looking at the young Remus, a lot less scarred and tired than he looked now. They had accepted his condition without so much as a second thought, and put their own lives in danger for him, and yet they were the only ones. He knew the troubles that his friend was going through currently, trying to find a job.

There were many other pictures like this scattered across the walls, including cut outs from muggle magazines, most of them featuring motorbikes with some media-attractive blonde woman draped over one, or sprawled on the front of a supercar. These had been placed mainly to cause irritation to his maniacal parents, but the idea of a non-moving picture was also rather amusing to his fourteen-year old brain, when he had taken it upon himself to start re-decorating.

A few pictures had been taken down. Whilst Sirius had placed permanent sticking charms on most of the pictures, there were a few that he had not. He had removed them himself when he was twenty-one, the night he went to the Potters, the night they died. The thirty-six year old man thought quickly to himself. Where had he put them? There had been about six pictures, and a couple of sketches. He hadn't really been in to art, but there was just something captivating about the subject that he had wanted to immortalise.

"Damn it!" Sirius yelled, throwing the snapped wood to the floor in frustration. The sky gave a loud rumble, as though it were feeling his emotions. He wasn't entirely sure how it had happened, but now his wand was laying in pieces on the ground at his feet. One minute, he and James had been pretending to sword fight with them, and the next, his was in pieces.

"Sorry, mate." James said, a little regretfully. "I think my wand had enough." A slight smile twitched at his lips, however he did not laugh. He knew that Sirius had little money of his own, since his family mostly refused to give him any, and that they were not likely to buy him a new one were they to learn how his old one had broken.

Later at lunch on that Saturday, an unfamiliar owl swooped towards where Sirius was sat at the table. It was carrying a long, thin package, which when hastily unwrapped, was found to contain a brand new wand. He picked it up, and smiled as the warmth spread through his fingers, a shower of sparks emitting from its tip. He knew that the wand chose the wizard, of course, but usually you had to visit Ollivanders.

"Hey, there's a note," Remus noticed, quickly whipping it from the box and reading over it, before giving it to Sirius, who had been glaring at him.

Sirius - Sorry to hear about your other wand. I decided to send it like this since it might have looked a little odd to your crazy friends. I am smiling at you. V. X

Sirius looked up and along the table at his friend, who true to her letter, was smiling. He offered one back, the familiar stomach turning sensation returning.

Sirius walked to the bedside cabinet, pulling open the bottom drawer to pull out the old wand box. He held it carefully and placed it delicately on his bed. Lifting the lid, he found what he had expected to. The pictures. He smiled as he saw her again, long dark hair swaying behind her in one as he was twirling her. It was from the Christmas Ball in their sixth year, and he remembered now how she had looked, how she had smelt. He sighed, taking up the scrappy sketches from the bottom of the box, and looked at them. They weren't bad for a seventeen year old who had never drawn before in his life.

He placed the photographs back into the box rather sadly. He imagined that by now she would be settled, with a family, never giving her teenage love a second thought. Sirius didn't even really know why he suddenly was. Fifteen years separated them; she would be a completely different person by now. Sirius wasn't aware if he had changed a lot, the few years he now had out of Azkaban had much of his old self seeping in, but he was sure that she would have. This thought in his mind, he crossed to the mirror, brushing away the dust with a hand. "Man, I look rough." He said quietly to himself, frowning as he looked over the man before him. His hair hung at his shoulders, a little shorter than it had been on escaping Azkaban but too long nonetheless. His grey eyes were dull, and his brow had fallen a little, making the frown he now wore even more noticeable. Of course, the traces of the glory days still remained, a perfectly straight nose, cheekbones that could've been carved by angels. A lopsided, defeated smile appeared on his lips – it was forced, this was true, but when he made faces like that, the youth that should've remained shone through.

He was not old, and yet felt it at times. Mrs Black started screeching from the hallway.

Downstairs, the doorbell had rang. Being nobody else around, Kreacher went to the door and clicked it open, hinges screeching in protest as he did so. "Mr Black?" There was a hooded figure at the door, face hiden in the fabric's shadow. The voice was low, and Kreacher cared not if it were male or female, as they enquired after Sirius. "You'll have to wait." Kreacher half hissed, and stood back to allow the person in, letting them into the sitting room to wait.