A/N: Hello, everyone. Let me first do a quick disclaimer: ALL characters in this story, as well as most places, objects -the whole wonderful world- belongs to J.K. Rowling. I am merely exploring it;)
To introduce this story, all I can say is that it is the Lily & James story that has been floating around in my head since I was twelve years old. Except. Years later now, just as I was beginning to write it, I was struck by a sudden interesting twist. Sirius Black has always been my favorite character of the prequel gang, and I couldn't resist shifting the normal parameters of Lily and James stories here. It is not an A/U story because I am not going to change any of the 'facts' from the Harry Potter series- I am merely writing the story of his parents, keeping in mind that love is messy, and there are certain ordeals that once they are finally worked through- you just don't trouble kids with until they're old enough to understand.
This will be quite long... I was initially planning to span the gang's last year of Hogwarts all the way through the fateful Halloween night in Godric's Hollow, but after I started I quickly realized that the last year of Hogwarts alone is going to be enough for a novel-lenth fic!
So I hope you bear with the first couple of chapters, which are a little heavy on the backstory and character development, and enjoy.
- V
The Unbridled
Prologue
"There are as many forms of love as there are moments in time."
- Jane Austen
The selfish heart is a twisted cloth, and its black and white beats will pump stale and bitter blood.
The true heart however, knows no boundaries. And if left alone, to be open and broken, healed and swollen- again and again in a cycle as necessary and beautiful as the living breath- it can know love over and over, in a hundred different colors; each as lovely as the one before it, and the one that will come next.
It is we who choose how selfishly to put forth our hearts, and in doing so we make a choice that can forever decide the shade of our lives.
Did they love in color? Is the question that matters- when a life is cut short.
One day he would look back on this time in his life with wizened fondness.
Sirius had taken to telling himself this at steady intervals throughout the day- every time he felt that suffocating panic tightening down inside his chest.
He would imagine himself, old and withered, covered in age spots (while still retaining an impossible je ne sais quoi) and laughing uproariously at the tribulations of his youth.
He would be just like the old Italian men he remembered from the one (disastrous) family holiday the Blacks had taken together. The city had been so-so, his family had achieved the impossible and had been a hundred times more nightmarish than they were within the confines of Grimmauld Place, and the weather had been uncharacteristically gloomy. But Sirius had loved spending mornings by the seaside with those old Italian men; listening to them recollect in broken and humorous English, the tales of Romances Passed.
He imagined himself in an ancient rocking chair, with an audience of whipper-snapping-youths, regaling with great affection the story of those few short months when he was practically still a kid, when all he could think about day and night was the love of his best friend's life.
It would be a silly and lively tale, he told himself, with a slapstick ending of Shakespearian proportions, that the ancient Mr. Black would remember as a wee misstep onto the peel of a banana- in a life otherwise full of enlightened decisions.
He tried to imagine how it would feel; to be on the other side of this mountain, looking back on his own foolishness. Perhaps if he could just experience the feeling once in his head, he could grab hold of it- force it into pre-mature existence.
As the mountain herself was sitting beside him, however, this proved to be impossible.
She was telling a story of her own to the other Gryffindors at the breakfast table, and her voice and her very proximity made him feel disoriented and full of a dangerous electric charge. On her other side, James was chiming in, and everyone else was laughing appreciatively.
She nudged Sirius in the ribs, prompting him to add to the tale, and inadvertently sending an aching jolt down his spine; clouding his mind with the urge to grab her.
The automated part of his brain managed to pick up on which story they were telling, The Incident of the Megaphone Mistletoe at Slughorn's Christmas Party, and he dragged himself into action.
Squaring his shoulders, he bolstered his energy and forced himself to recount the end with a booming laugh.
Yes, repeated that small optimistic part of him that grew more and more doubtful all the time,
One day.