One Tender Memory
Summary: His evenings are spent alone.
The others in the house knew how he spent his evenings. Surly at dinner and rarely coming out of the attic during daylight unless Molly dragged him to help her clean. In those moments he was possibly worse than at dinner, muttering to himself and bellowing at random family heirlooms. His late evenings, however, were quieter. He'd sit, and think of the house he was held inside day and night, he would think of Harry and worry for his Godson. He would try to make sense of all that he was told and not allowed to see. And then, in his lone moments, sitting in the kitchen or next to Buckbeak's sleeping form, he would think of those lost all ready. Of men he'd gone to school with, ones who'd helped him survive the first two decades of his life and who had helped him torture the ghosts that chilled the air of Hogwarts. He thought of the girls he'd fancied in school, how some of them had followed him and coo'ed at him and he never really cared for any of it. He thought of the life of poor Harry, no longer a little boy, grown so much just since Sirius had come back into his life. He thought of the misery and the hope that Harry had carried with him all these years, and Sirius sometimes blamed himself for that. No, not sometimes.
He would flick his wand to make tea or pour another fire whiskey, and the casual movement of his wrist would remind him of James. The way James was casual and talented in everything he did. He would sit and miss his best friend; he would feel 22.
But then Sirius' thoughts would rest on one particular loss. A witch so highly spoken of that in life he had never been able to appreciate her. The witch who had – in his young mind – stolen his best friend and taken the attention of any room they all happened to be in together. At this point he would take a drink of whatever he had with him. He would wonder what they had done their last evening. He had seen James earlier that day, in the morning, and had met Lily and little Harry at a small wizarding cafe just outside of London in the afternoon. They'd never been on what one would call friendly terms, but they were all becoming so much closer as the war raged around them. Sirius had lost close friends and lovers all ready by then; they all had the same fears and tensions, and so even though they still clashed almost daily he and Lily had created a tenuous sort of friendship. They respected each others abilities and opinions and kept to light discussion or talk of the war.
That very afternoon, sitting with cups of tea, Harry laughing with a new toy James had fashioned for him, they had shared some of their worst fears. Lily had broken her normally cool and unaffected demeanor for just a moment and no more than four tears had escaped her emerald coloured eyes. He had tried to reach out for her but the noise of him moving seemed the break the spell that had come over her and Lily shook her head and smiled, "I'm being silly," she said. She quickly wiped the all ready drying tear line from her cheek and finished her tea. "I should be going, James will be home soon and he worries if he gets there and we aren't around." She hesitated, "We all worry when we're missing someone these days, don't we?" And she leaned in ever so gently and kissed him lightly on the cheek. It was possibly the most friendly and the most tender she'd ever been in Sirius' presence and now, years later he sits and touches the cheek that she had kissed. He feels his own, newly formed streak of a tear.