Star Crossed
Chapter One
The End
… Sirius's Story …
All the time he had been in Azkaban, Sirius had been unable to think of anything in his life that he had enjoyed. He had forgotten most everything that had happened to him, except for all his unhappy experiences of course.
One of these unhappy experiences always reminded him of something good, though. Rather, this particular unhappy experience reminded him of someone good. Someone who embodied a majority of his good memories. The majority of these memories had been swept away, but he had never really forgotten – thanks to that day, about a month after he had been sentenced to a life sentence in Azkaban.
Sirius found himself thinking about that day a lot now, just to make sure that he wouldn't forget.
One day, he thought, one day, I'm going to find her and explain everything, and one day I'll make her understand …
Sirius had known, back when they had caught him, that he'd never be able to prove his innocence. He vowed that someday he would, but he knew that he'd have to wait for that day. Sirius hadn't been thinking of much but Lily, James, and Peter. He didn't have the time, and he didn't really have the ability to think of anything let alone anyone else.
That changed when Cecilia Donnelly came to visit Sirius after about a month into his imprisonment.
Sirius had woke that morning, freezing cold: a Dementor was entering his cell. He was scared stiff – why was the bloody creature there that early? For a moment he thought it was there to give him the Kiss, but he forced the thought down with some common sense.
He was escorted out of the main jail into the Warden's chambers, which were far away from where the Dementors stayed. They put him in a room and left the area, going back to the jail. Sirius was feeling like himself again. That infernal cold was seeping away, and he could remember things. He spent his fifteen minutes of waiting just thinking. He thought about his favorite books (the ones with happy endings), he thought about days he had spent as a dog bugging people all around London, he thought about days spent at the Potter homestead, and there he stopped. The Potters … swallowing his grief, Sirius thought about their wedding. He thought about the summers he had spent as a teenager at James' house. He thought about their days at school, excluding Peter's involvement in them. Sighing, he decided to think about other things, like kittens and puppies. At that moment, the Warden opened the door.
The job of Warden was equivalent to that of Jury Duty, which Sirius had learned about in Muggle Studies (he was smart enough to study International Muggle Studies, and he also had Lily to help him). They only did the job for about a week and this week, it was somebody Sirius knew: Priscilla Pine. She had been on the Quidditch team with James and had been the previous captain. Although not surprised, Black was disconcerted at the way she glared at him. Of course, the way that Sirius had glared at Peter had been much worse.
"You have a visitor," Priscilla said scathingly. "You should really thank her when she comes in. It was by her special request that you two have this meeting outside the presence of the Dementors."
"Will do," Sirius said tiredly.
Priscilla stepped aside and let his visitor in. All Sirius could do as soon as he saw who had come was stare and blink. Priscilla closed the door behind Cecilia and Sirius stood up nervously.
Cecilia walked up to Sirius and he held his breath. She slapped him – hard.
Sirius staggered. He really shouldn't have been surprised – Cecilia had been a good friend with Lily, a bridesmaid in the Potters' wedding. What had he been expecting, a kiss?
Looking back at Cecilia, he saw that her eyes were full of tears. Looking a little more closely, he wouldn't have been surprised if she had been crying a whole month. There were bags under her eyes so dark it looked like she hadn't slept for weeks. Surprisingly enough, Sirius still saw her as the most beautiful woman on Earth.
"How could you?" she said.
She didn't yell. She didn't even hiss. Even so, Sirius felt like he had been stabbed in the heart. He even felt guilty, even though he knew that he was innocent. He was innocent. This thought made him angry. The love of his life assumed that he had condemned his best friends to death. How could she?
Sirius turned his back on her and walked away, to angry to speak. Turning sharply around he said, "How could I what?" He knew it would make her mad, but at the moment he didn't care.
"You betrayed them!" Cecy nearly screamed. "All this time, you kept saying it was Remus … you betrayed him too! What's worse, you murdered Peter! What possessed you to do it?"
"I never said Remus was the spy!" Sirius exclaimed. "Don't accuse me of that, when you know very well that I didn't say that. I'm sorry that Remus got the blame. It shouldn't have happened."
"You let me believe that he was betraying Lily and James!"
"Because I believed it too!"
"What the hell are you talking about?"
Sirius was about to tell her. As angry as she was making him right now, he loved her too dearly to lie to her. He sighed, knowing she wouldn't understand. "Look," he said impatiently, "are you happy now? I'm miserable here. I'm supposedly paying my due. If you wanted to make sure that I'm paying for my actions, I guess that you're well satisfied. Just leave."
"No," Cecy said, quivering with either rage or possiblygrief. "What are you talking about?"
"What? Being miserable? I would have thought that obvious."
"What do you mean by you believed that Remus was the spy?" Cecy said. "It was you!"
Sirius sighed. He didn't want to explain this to her. "Why don't you just go? It's obvious that I no longer mean anything to you. Why do you give a shit about anything I say?"
"Just answer the question, Sirius!"
"I can't."
"Fine. Then answer this: why did you do it? Why did you betray us all?"
And so we reach the moment of truth, Sirius thought. Looking Cecy straight in the eye, he said quietly, "You wouldn't believe me if I told you."
"You're probably right. But I still want an answer."
"If you wanted me to suffer, mission accomplished, all right? I know you think I'm a murderer. I now know that you think I'm the scum of life. You probably know how much that's killing me right now."
Cecy stared at him. Sirius expected her to scream and shout all the reasons he was supposed to be the scum of life. She didn't. Instead, in barely more than a whisper, she said, "You don't know how much I hate you right now."
"Thanks, Cecy," Sirius responded, sitting down heavily in his chair.
"I don't understand it," Cecy said, stammering in a very un-Cecy like way. She was usually so certain and calm. Sirius looked up at her, wondering if it was possible that the smallest bit of her still loved him. It was probably wishful thinking.
"I just don't understand it," Cecy continued. "I came here – I thought – I expected to find … some … I don't know, monster sitting in that chair." She glared at Sirius. "And instead, I come here and I find that you're still a … a … you're still … Sirius. You're still a person. You don't know how much I'm hating you for that."
"You're not making much sense," Sirius said.
Cecy sat down opposite of Sirius. She put her elbows on the table and put her face in her hands. "It wasn't supposed to happen like this," she said, her words coming out muffled. "You were supposed to sit there, looking cool and evil, and tell me that you actually hated James' innards, and that you never really loved me – that you only pretended so that Lily wouldn't keep you away from the family because you didn't get along with her friends."
"If that's what you expected, why did you come?"
She sniffed and turned her face up at Sirius. "As stupid as it seems, I wanted you to say that." She looked surprised at this revelation herself."You were supposed to be evil – a monster, someone I wouldn't mind hating."
"And I'm not?"
Tears welled up in her eyes again. "No," she said. "You're still Sirius. You're still the man I love. But now the man I love is a man capable of murdering his best friends. And you still think of them as your friends. You're confusing me, Sirius. I know that you loved them, just as I know that you love me. How could you do it? How could you betray them? That's all I want to know."
There was a silence. Well, Sirius thought, now or never. "I didn't betray them."
There was another silence. Then, "What?"
Sirius sighed. "Look, I didn't do it. Don't ask me how – you won't believe me. But I would have expected you of all people to know that I wouldn't be capable of that."
"Don't turn this around on me, Sirius," Cecy said warningly. "You say something like that, you better be able to back it up."
"I can't."
"Can't what?"
"Prove it. If I could, do you think I would have let them drag me here?"
"What do you mean?"
"The evidence is gone," Sirius said. "It ran off on its four revolting pink feet, swishing its furless tail behind it."
"What?"
"It was Peter."
"What?"
"Peter sold Lily and James to Voldemort. It was him that had been passing information to him for a year. It wasn't me, and it wasn't Remus. It was Peter. Why do you think I attacked him? If I was really 'in' with Voldemort, what the hell would I want with Peter?"
"Peter found you!"
"Do you honestly believe that he was capable of doing that?" Sirius asked her. "My parents couldn't find me when I ran off to James' place when I was sixteen. Peter wouldn't be able to track me down, even if I wanted him to find me."
"Don't you dare… Peter wasn't ... it wasn't his fault!" Cecy cried, but Sirius could see she was confused.
"Peter isn't dead," Sirius said to her.
"How is that possible?" she asked. "Eyewitnesses said he just disappeared. Records say that there was no trace of anyone having Apparated during that time. He didn't just vanish into thin air!"
"Peter had his ways," Sirius said.
"You just said he was incompetent."
"Yes, but this was a skill that James and I taught him ourselves," Sirius said. "He was an illegal Animagi."
"What?"
"Yeah," Sirius said. "He disappeared all right. He disappeared right down into the sewer, with all the other rats."
"But … Peter?" Cecy asked. "He became an Animagi? With only your help, and James' help?"
"Yes," Sirius said.
Cecy blinked at him. Sirius saw that she was having her doubts about the original story, as released by the Ministry.
"James and I became Animagi too. Now that I can prove," Sirius said, promptly turning into his bear sized dog shape. Resuming his human form, he asked, "Well? Do you believe me?"
"Almost," Cecy said. "But I can't quite believe that Peter could turn himself into a rat."
"Why not?" Sirius asked. "Why do you think there were no remains found?"
At this time, Sirius realized that something was wrong.
Cecy's expression turned from confused to angry and cold.
"No remains?" she asked.
"N-none," Sirius said, "right?"
Cecy didn't say anything.
"Right, Cecy?" Sirius said. "You believe me, right?"
"They found a finger," Cecy said flatly.
"What?"
"The biggest bit of him they could find," Cecy continued, "was his finger."
Sirius stared at her. He didn't get it. How was that possible?
"You know what I think?" Cecy said. "I think that you're really who you seem to be, but somehow, someway, your family must have gotten to you. How else would you have gotten the idea to turn the Potters in to Voldemort? And now you're saying you didn't do it. Why lie like that, when you did do it? You're in denial. You just can't live with yourself, knowing what you've done. Now, instead of Remus, poor Peter gets the blame. No, Sirius, you aren't evil. You're just weak."
Again, all Sirius could do was stare. He was sure he looked like an idiot, but he couldn't help it. He didn't get it.
"I'm sorry, Sirius," Cecy said, still coldy, but with genuine regret in her tone, "but I can't believe you. You just gave me false hope and took it away. How cruel can you be? No. I'm sorry. I can't buy that story." She said this last part more to herself than to Sirius.
"But you can buy the fact that I still love you, right?" Sirius said, sadly. "I always will. If you still love me, try and keep the faith that one day I'll prove my innocence. I swear."
Cecy blinked at him. Then, ignoring his last statement, she said, "Thank you for this lovely chat. I know now that I'm done with you."
Sirius felt his heart stop. It just ... stopped beating. He wondered whether or not it still worked. Perhaps the cogs froze?
Cecy continued, "Good-bye, love, this is the last time you'll ever see me." Cecy wiped the last of her tears away, making it clear that they were the last tears she'd ever shed over Sirius Black.
Sirius was still sitting there, waiting for his heart to start again.What the hell is wrong? Sirius thought. The screws have to start moving sometime. Don't tell me my heart isbroken, because that would be very inconvenient.
Cecy turned away, but then she stopped. Sirius felt his heart not only start beating again, but beat twice as fast as normal. Doubletime, he thought.
Cecy looked at Sirius, looking sad, but without the tears. She squatted next to his chair and he looked down at her.
"I can't say that I'm still going to love you forever," Cecy said. "I know I swore that I would, which goes show that swearing isn't a good thing. I'm breaking that oath, I hope you don't mind. Maybe time will prove that I'm never going to love anyone else but you. Maybe time will prove that you were only my first love, but certainly not the best or the only. I don't know. You'll probably never know the final verdict. There's nothing I can tell you, really. I can say, … " she paused, searching for the right words, "I can say that I'll always love what we were. But we've had our chance. Now it's time that we say good-bye."
She held his hand and kissed him softly. She left the room and Sirius realized that she left something with him. Opening his hand, he saw the glint of a diamond in his palm … her engagement ring.
That was the last time he ever saw Cecilia Donnelly.
Author's Note: Well, how was it? Review please! And keep reading - Lupin's back story is coming next! The End, Part Two is already in progress! The full story idea for Star Crossed is nearly done too, I just have to write it
