Sirius Black had just escaped Azkaban and with a bit of temporary transfiguration he was taking a casual stroll around King's Cross, hoping to get another glimpse at his godson before he went to Hogwarts to hunt down Peter Pettigrew. He had meant to watch Harry Potter, but something else caught his eye.
He couldn't believe what he was seeing. That was Matty Clondon, the love of his life, and she had two identical twins, about two years younger than Harry, in tow. The girls were the spitting image of his cousin, Narcissa. Those had to be his kids. The question was how did he do anything about it since he was supposed to be a crazed mass murderer?
He watched the blonde twins pushing their carts eagerly. They must be in their first year. Only first years had so much eagerness and so much anxiety about going to Hogwarts. The girl in the pink jumper said, "Merryn, stop pushing! Mummy said you weren't supposed to push!"
The girl in the black jumper gave a nervous smirk that made him think very much of his own smirk replied with a haughty, "Maëlle, I'm not pushing. Mummy said you're not supposed to make things up. It's called lying and it's not good."
Sirius smirked to himself. The girl in black had definitely been pushing. Poor Matty had been saddled with two female incarnations of himself, or at least one. Maëlle looked like his side of the family in many ways, but she had innocence about her that Sirius had never had. That had to come from her mother.
"Both of you, please, just behave," muttered Matty, with a tired pleading. "This is bad enough without you bickering and misbehaving. Save it for the train when someone else has to deal with you."
He almost laughed out loud at that. Pulling out a Muggle paper, Sirius hid behind it casually as his children and their mother disappeared into the barrier between platforms nine and ten. Harry was completely forgotten for the moment. As soon as Matty came back out of the platform, he formulated a plan on the spot. As she neared his location, he began to whistle their song, from back in their days at Hogwarts. She froze when she came level to him, the sound of the melody reaching her ears. Her eyes widened and she turned to face him. Sirius lowered the newspaper and jerked his head toward a side room that seemed empty. Perhaps it was curiosity, but she went without question, and he followed her in, whistling the whole way.
As soon as he closed the door, however, he turned to her and frowned.
"I've missed you, Matty."
Her silvery eyes were wide with some sort of strong, but unreadable emotion as she whispered, "Is it really you, Sirius?"
With a sad smile, he nodded.
She came a step closer, and for one wild moment, he thought she was about to kiss him. That is, until the palm of her hand made stinging impact with his face.
"You were always too good at that," he winced.
"That's for Lily and James, you heartless, cruel…" she spat at him angrily, bringing her hand up to hit him once more, but this time he saw it coming. He grabbed both of her wrists sharply, holding them firmly, but not tightly. He would never hurt her.
"Matty, please, that wasn't me. It was Peter!"
"Peter?" she laughed hollowly. "You mean that poor man you killed? The one who was our friend? Tell me, was I on your list to kill as well? Or was I just a means to the end of everyone I cared about?"
Sirius winced as though she had dealt him another physical blow.
"Did you always blame me? Wasn't there ever a moment you thought that I was innocent?"
And the flicker of shame and hurt he saw in her eyes was enough.
"Love, believe me, I never did any of this to hurt you, and I never intended for anyone to get hurt. I changed at the last moment. I thought Remus was the spy, and I thought Voldemort would never expect them to have used Peter as a secret-keeper. It never occurred to me at the time that the little worm would be the spy himself." Sirius shook his head tiredly. "I went to confront him as soon as I pieced it all together, but he was too quick. He must have known I would come. He cut off a finger and transformed, blowing up half the street to hide his getaway, knowing I would be blamed for the deaths, and sent away without a trial. There were Death Eaters in Magical Law Enforcement. I never had a chance."
"So how did you escape?" she whispered, obviously not sure if she believed him.
"It's a long story, and we can't discuss all of it here, but I've found him, Matty! I've found Pettigrew! He's at Hogwarts."
"Oh no," muttered Matty, worried, obviously no longer doubting him. "But Harry, and our girls…. Oh, shit."
He very nearly smirked. Matty still had a mouth on her.
"I see being a mother hasn't sobered you up at all, darling."
"Yes, well, raising twins alone will do that to you," she spat at him bitterly.
"I didn't know they were coming," he said darkly. "If I had…"
"You wouldn't have done a damn thing differently, and you know it," she said with a sick sort of laugh. "You had to be in the thick of it, and that meant checking on everyone, and you know that once you knew what had happened to Lily and James your anger and guilt would have gotten to you, so even with knowing the twins were coming, you would have gone after Peter yourself on impulse anyway."
She was right, of course. Matty was always right.
"Well, yeah, I suppose. But I would have spent twelve years feeling guilty for that, rather than just vindictive at Peter."
"Then I'm sorry you didn't know," whispered Matty softly.
Gray eyes met silver and he realized the pain his imprisonment had truly caused her. Before he realized what was happening, tears were flowing down his face freely, and Matty, unable to properly embrace him with her wrists still in his grasp, pressed her body firmly against his and nuzzled her face into his chest.
After a few moments of standing like that, she stepped back cautiously.
"Better now?" she whispered, eyes wide and child-like.
"Better now," he muttered with a sad smile, kissing her forehead gently.
"I want to help you," she whispered.
"But you have a job, a life…"
"I write for the Quibbler," she snorted. "Xenophilius wouldn't notice if I suddenly disappeared for five years and popped up out of the blue. He'd thought I'd just taken a spontaneous vacation."
"And your friends, darling?" he implored. "Won't they come looking for you?"
Matty gave a hollow laugh that Sirius found rather unnerving.
"Love, the only friend I've got left who wasn't killed, disappeared, or thrown in jail during the war is Remus, and he's teaching at Hogwarts this year. He won't come looking for me."
Sirius nodded sadly and said, "How is Remus?"
Matty shrugged.
"He's been better, to be sure, but then we all have. But he's certainly been worse. He comes and plays with the girls at the better parts of the month." She paused for a moment, biting her lip and not meeting his eyes. "When they were little, they called him daddy. We explained as best as we could that he wasn't, but that just created more questions that I didn't know how to answer." Her eyes filled quickly with tears. "How do you tell your daughters that their daddy is in jail and doesn't know they exist, so he can't miss them or love them or anything?"
Sirius snapped. He let go of her wrists, hugged her tightly to him, and whispered, "We need to get out of King's Cross before my shoddy transfiguration job wears off. Can you Apparate us somewhere near Hogsmeade? I can find us a place to stay near there."
Eyes still filled with tears, Matty took his hand and turned on her heal, taking them from King's Cross station to a spot near the Shrieking Shack, which, as could be expected, was incredibly devoid of people, as there were no curious students to come touring as of yet. Sirius gave her a sad smile and said, "Ah, yes, our first kiss," before transforming into a large, black hound and leading her off toward the shack with an eagerly wagging tail. With a sad, reminiscent smile, Matty followed him, reaching down to pet his head as she went.
Once inside the shack, he transformed back into himself, his real self, and Matty shrank back a little from the sight of him as the Azkaban-worn Sirius from the wanted posters. The sadness in her eyes was apparent, but she just nodded and said, "Well, you've looked a lot better, love, I'm not going to lie."
Sirius just ignored his looks for the moment. He wanted to talk about his daughters.
"C'mon, love, let's talk about something other than me. Firstly, why did you name our children after your crazy sisters?"
"Because," she said with a fidgety manner, "my crazy sisters died in the war, just a few days after you were taken to Azkaban."
"Oh, Matty," he whispered, suddenly feeling incredibly guilty. "If I had known, I wouldn't have asked, you know that…"
"I know," she whispered back, sitting on his lap on the four-poster bed he had just sat on. "And I know you didn't really think my sisters were crazy."
Actually, he did, but now was probably not the best of times to tell her that. In fact, there was probably never going to be a good time to tell her that. He would have to permanently amend his memories of them. At least they had nice names.
"Well, I can't complain too much," he mused. "They look just like my crazy cousin."
"Yeah," muttered Matty bitterly. "My children had to turn out the spitting image of my childhood enemy. That's what I get for falling for the Black Sheep."
He winced at that nickname. He had never liked it because it gave him a sort of eternal tie to his family, who he had happily denounced, and they had, seemingly, happily denounced him as well. If it wasn't for that stupid nickname, everyone would be happy. Probably his cousin Bella's doing, but he didn't want to think about his childhood at the moment. He had his children to think about.
"Tell me about them, please," he whispered, lying down on the bed and pulling Matty back with him, stroking her hair gently.
"Well," she said with a smirk, "I think Merryn is going to drive McGonagall up the wall in a very similar fashion to her father…"
Sirius smirked back.
"What, she's going to lay all the birds and make the cranky old bird jealous?"
Matty swatted him playfully with the back of her hand, but they knew exactly what Matty had meant. Merryn was playful, rash, and a tiny bit sadistic. She would have fit in with the heads of the Marauders back in the day. She was likely to be a bully if her sister couldn't mitigate things.
"Maëlle, on the other hand," Matty went on, "was the perfect child to raise. She is sweet, good-natured, a bit shy, and has a fabulous sense of justice. That girl can do just about everything perfectly except keep her sister in line."
"So basically," said Sirius, another smirk on his lips, "they're you and me to the core, except they ought not be shagging any time soon."
"Or ever," said Matty with a nod.
"Yeah, each other or any boys. Until I'm dead," muttered Sirius, thinking through the prospect of his offspring becoming the object of affection for some boy like Sirius had been in his school days, with pretty much only one thing on his mind, and that one thing had no place in real life outside the broom cupboard. His little girls would not have their hearts broken in such a way without consequences.
"Well, you know, Sirius, at the rate you're going, they could be off the hook pretty quick. Breaking out of Azkaban? On the run from dementors? Which will be surrounding Hogwarts this year, by the way, since the whole world thinks you're out to kill Harry."
Sirius shook his head helplessly and looked down at Matty, tears forming behind his eyes, brushing the hair gently out of her face before kissing her nose.
"I've missed you every day since I left and I've never stopped regretting leaving you."
Matty's pretty silver eyes filled with tears as well, and there were no more words. Twelve years apart, twelve years of no way to work through the complex web of emotions and insinuations, could not be worked through with words. They were worked through, instead, with kisses and touches. Clothes were not necessary for such discussions, in fact they were typically a hindrance, and both parties understood this, removing them as quickly as possible.
Sirius ran his hands hungrily along her bare skin, relishing in its smoothness under his rough hands. He trailed kisses along the body that had once been his to kiss like this whenever he wanted. It felt and tasted exactly as he remembered, just as good, just as sweet. The lips he had kissed so many times were just as warm and inviting as they had always been.
"I've missed your body," he muttered into her ear before running his tongue along the shell of it. "I've missed your taste. I've missed the feel of you wriggling under me like you're doing now. Merlin, I've missed you, Matty."
There was nothing she could say. Matty moaned as he finally moved his hands to cup her breasts, breasts that hadn't been touched by a man in far too long, in twelve years.
"Did you have someone while I was gone?" muttered Sirius as he trailed hot, open-mouthed kisses down her neck to her collarbone where he began to nip and nibble softly.
"N-no," she gasped. "Remus and I went on a couple of dates, but it was all wrong. There was never anyone for me b-b-but you."
He smirked against the skin of her breast, her left nipple caught firmly between his teeth. She was his. She would always be his. Even when she thought he was a crazed mass murderer responsible for the deaths of their best friends, she still couldn't be with anyone but him. She was his.
"I'm glad to see I still have that sort of power over you, darling," he murmured after releasing her nipple from the grasp of his teeth, which she whined at the loss of. "I'm glad to know you're still very much mine."
She whined louder this time, and not from loss, but rather from need and arousal as he mashed his pelvis against hers.
"I haven't forgotten, you know," he muttered, struggling himself to make coherent thoughts. "I can still satisfy you, I promise."
"I never doubted that," she gasped.
And yet she had doubted his innocence. If he wasn't so incredibly aroused, he would take that as a kind of insult. Right now, he needed her far too much to care. He wasn't sure if it was a good or bad thing that his sexual prowess never came into question, even when the thought he was a spy for Voldemort and a betrayer of his friends was still on the table. Really, neither thing should have ever been brought to question, but at least he was one for two. It could always be worse.
"There's so many things I want to do with you," he muttered, "and when I kill Peter and turn in his body, I'll have all the time in the world to do everything and anything I want to your gorgeous body, darling."
Matty moaned as he nipped and sucked at her throat, his fingers making their way between her legs.
"You'll have children to look after then."
"They're not babies," he muttered. "We won't be on call all night for feeding and stuff. And when they're away at Hogwarts we'll have so much time to ourselves…"
"Mmm…. Oh, Sirius, that's nice."
"Glad you think so, love," he muttered. "What would you like next?"
Her silver eyes met his gray ones hungrily.
"I want you, Sirius."
"That's not very specific, darling," he said with a smirk. "What do you want from me?"
"Unh, Sirius, please… I want… I need… Unh, I need you inside me, please!"
Yes, Sirius had missed this. For now, Peter could wait. For now, the world could wait. Right now, Matty Clondon was in his arms for the first time in twelve years and he was going to make her remember why she had become his lover in the first place. He had her writhing and whining now, but he wasn't going to be satisfied with that. He might be twelve years out of practice, but Sirius Black was going to prove he still knew how to make a girl scream.
Three and a half hours later, Sirius and Matty lay tangled up in each other, sweaty, exhausted, and completely sated. Sirius was holding her body against his as he languidly kissed her neck. She had her eyes closed in comfortable pleasure as she ran her fingers along the tattoos on his back, which were new. He had had a few on his chest, but he must have done the others himself while he was in jail. Twelve years of nothing else to do might do that to a man. But how had he done his own back? Sirius would never cease to amaze her.
"Sirius?" she whispered softly, nuzzling her face into his thin, skeletal neck.
"Yes, love?"
"I'm so sorry I doubted you."
"It's all right, love," he whispered. "I have you now, and I'm never letting go of you again."