Written for the Headcannon Boot Camp Challenge on HPFFC!

Pairing: Blackinnon. (Sirius Black and Marlene McKinnon.)

Prompt used: 46. Home

Note: These chapters are not in order, they are just random drabbles on their lives.

Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter.

Home

Home was something he'd always struggled with – and with a family like his, it wasn't a surprise. The closest he can remember getting to any sort of homely feeling was when he was very young, and his brother even younger. It was before their parents wrapped their dark fingers around their minds, when they were still learning that they weren't invincible.

It was late, very late, and Regulus had woken him after the younger boy had had a particularly bad nightmare. Sirius, being Sirius, hadn't even thought twice about sliding out of bed to help distract his younger brother from his tears. They'd managed to sweet talk his favourite house elf into bringing them a platter of finger foods – sandwiches and little cakes – and snuck into the attic.

In the attic the two boys found many treasures. Later, when Sirius goes back, he finds the dark magic hidden up there, along with much condemning paperwork against the family, but for now the boys find great glee in the objects they find; an old blunt sword, a small wooden chest with a cracked antique pipe sitting inside, a moving portrait of a great-great-grandfather (though the inscription has been scratched off so they can't tell who it really is).

Playing up in the attic of the childhood home had given him a few hours of peace, peace he rare found downstairs in his own bedroom. Up there it was just the two brothers pretending a couple of old quills were wands and telling epic stories together.

It will always be one night Sirius holds dearly, for it never happened again. It would be years until he felt that again – but there was a time where he was certain he wouldn't feel that again in his life time.

Of course, Sirius had a habit of being wrong, and for that – for once – he is glad.

The feeling of home hits him again, suddenly, when he is sixteen and sitting in the common room in the Gryffindor tower. There are three boys placed lazily around the fireplace, and a couple of girls sit on the carpet with books spread out around them.

It hits him when he hears the boys laughing, when the girls tease, and when the blonde head leaning back against his legs turns to give him a bright smile that stretches her face and sends her eyes sparking in mirth.

It's as he runs a golden curl through his fingers and finds himself chortling with the group that he realises this is better. This really is his home, for home with where the heart is, and these people together held his heart safely.

End.

Author's note:

Hi! It's been one helluva while! I won't bore you with a long note on where I've been and why it's been so long - life takes over. I do however just want to let you (anyone who reads this because it's literally been forever) know that I have been haunted by this challenge the whole time I've been MIA.

I feel like I've lost my touch with writing inspiration. So my plan is to push myself to finish these prompts, to challenge my creativity and see if I can drag it out of the depths of my fizzling brain.

Wish me luck!