Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter.
Notes: I wrote this a while ago, and I don't think I had any idea what I was talking about. But here it is anyways.
The night is cool and calm, sky tinged with fiery twilight and small puffy grey clouds below him. Air that feels alive in his lungs, and he drinks it in like he would a butterbeer. The city below him is blinking with lights, hundreds of tiny stars flashing on and off, soon spacing themselves out. A savory night, a night to remember. When he thinks back on this in the future it will seem ironic, but Sirius is content now, some sort of ethereal calm that comes with flying on a motorcycle in the sky.
Godric's Hollow isn't far away, and when he gets there the stars are spread so far apart he can barely see them anymore. James has always liked the country.
The air is beginning to feel cold, and Sirius sees goose bumps on his skin but gives them no heed. He welcomes the cold, tonight, because it emphasizes that he is alive and adds to his sense of well-being, though there should be panic rising in his veins.
The house carries the same calm about it. Thin, and silent, and completely still. Empty, a shell with nothing left. Sirius gulps, and shivers a shiver that has nothing to do with the cold. He doesn't have to look up to know.
It doesn't hit him for a second, because the calm still lingers in his skin. The air tells him it will be all right, and he considers closing his eyes, letting the feeling sweep him away, blind him. But Sirius Black isn't one to close his eyes.
He keeps them open and runs, shouts, curses at the top of his lungs. It's a detachment from his body that Sirius can't comprehend – he doesn't know what he's saying, it just flies from his mouth in a roar and jumble of words.
But it's all right, really. Ironic? He doesn't remember the meaning of the word anymore, just that it fits. Some sort of false irony, living only in his mind. Because Sirius is not really losing his best friend. He lost him the day Lily said I do. Or before that, maybe, when Sirius first noticed the glow in James' eyes, the way his tousled, unruly hair blew in the wind. The way he stood, confident, one hand on his hip and the other on his broom or his snitch or something he had stolen from Snape. Then Sirius had tried to figure out if it was reciprocated - no one could imagine the fluttering in his stomach when James winked, when James listened to Sirius but no one else. The way he only mussed his hair when Sirius was nearby.
And then came stuttered words and burning eyes, and an oddly quiet James. And suddenly Lily, and rejection, and thoughts that Sirius blocks from his mind.
He hasn't lost his friend.
The boy is still alive. Sitting on the doorstep, crying. He looks like James, a little bit, and Sirius holds him and cries, because no matter how much he denies it he loves James. And he laughs, because it's funny, the irony of it. Only he doesn't know what irony it is.
Holding the baby and laughing. Him and Harry, the only things left of James.