Authors note: Thank you all for your patience. I know it's been a while since my last update, and I've left you on quite the dark note but aside from my delightful obsession with all things harry potter my final course examinations did not leave much time for writing but I'm now on break for the next few weeks so expect more consistent updates. Cheers!
Sirius is used a Hermione. Used to Maxima. Accustomed to dealing with her, he knows despite their history she will come to him. With her he is assured that his comfort is worth something. But with Harry he is not sure of anything. He doesn't not know if he will come to him at all, and if he does Sirius doesn't know what to say.
Sirius stands outside the room that harry has occupied since leaving school his hand raised to a hesitant knock. What do you say to someone who has lost his best friend, what do you say to someone who has lost hope?
Sirius raps is knuckles on the door, once, twice and thrice. He waited, he wasn't used to asking permission to enter, but it felt too invasive to waltz in with no warning these days.
"come in" Harry responds gruffly, and Sirius enters enthusiastically. Harry is lying on his bed levitating a feather from a broken pillow, incinerating it and doing it all over again. Clothing is strewn across the room and half drunken cups of tea and dirty plates cover the desk.
"Harry!" he greets him, blatantly ignoring the first size hole in the wall, at least he hadn't started shouting yet. Sirius really did not know how to go back and forth with harry when he was like that. Not for the first time, Sirius really wished for Lily and James to help him.
Harry does not look up or offer any form of acknowledgment.
"Fancy a fly, or a quick game of quittage? I might even be able to convince Hermione to referee" Sirius says trying to be encouraging.
"she has time for that does she" Harry responds bitterly, and Sirius knows he said the wrong thing.
"Harry-" he starts but is cut off.
"I know, I know" he holds his hands up in mock surrender "its not her fault"
This time harry sets the enflamed feather propelling into the wall, scorching the surrounding wallpaper before the fire dissipates.
Sirius watches in crooked picture frame harry and Ron and Hermione throw snowballs laughing.
Harry glares at him, seeing where Sirius was looking. He moves quick and throws the picture into the rubbish, the glass breaking upon impact.
"Harry-" Sirius tries again attempting to bring him out of the fit of rage he could see building. Sirius was familiar with this kind of anger, the guilt, he had let it eat him alive for years.
"it won't bloody bring him back, now will it" Harry speaks coldly before launching back onto his bed.
He have been gifted with graduation from Hogwarts after the funeral. His scores curved up towards what they believed he was capable of had he written exams. But Harry had been devastated, the only home he had ever had, now, unsafe. He had been cycling between fits of anger and grief since.
Molly and Arthur had offered him a place in their home but harry hadn't wanted to stay. The guilt was too much, and he couldn't bare to sleep in the room that had once belonged to Ron. Sirius had taken him in, despite the complications of Harrys anger at Hermione.
"Harry mate" Sirius tries again trying to call attention from the boy "Look at me!"
The chandelier is spinning and the mirror shatters.
"didn't like the paint" Sirius asks calling into attention the fist marks and holes in the wall. Sirius laughs attempting to lighten the mood, but Harry doesn't deem the joke with a reaction.
"Mate, I haven't seen you for days you don't show up for meals you don't talk to me don't talk to anyone else hell you don't even say words to Hermione say something let me in." Sirius says sitting backwards on the chair to face harry.
"Hermione?" Harry laughs, but the sound is cold and unamused.
"You want to talk about her. Sure lets have at it" Sirius winces at his tone.
"Hermione who has been my friend of years, brown hair, and brown eyes constantly reading books or nagging about course work. Her, she decides to skip her last year to play house, or whatever it is that she does. Nothing that matters" Harry spits it out.
"so no, I don't fancy a chat with her. Not when she would've saved his life, been faster on the draw. But Ron is dead"
Sirius clutches his first tightly trying to reel in his anger. "she would have died too."
"wha-" Harry starts but Sirius interrupts.
"Had hermione have been there, you would have lost them both. She would have died for you. You think she doesn't feel that same guilt? You think she isn't grieving. He was her best friend too." He hisses
Harry opens his mouth to respond but Sirius continues.
"you want to pity yourself. Poor, poor harry potter. Be by guest, allow yourself to rot in this bedroom, ignore the sacrifice of your parents who died so you could live" Sirius face is red and harry has moved to sit facing him, his back against the wall.
"you don't get to drag her down too. She has been through too much and has too little left." Harry looked at his godfather open mouthed; he had never been on the other side of a cross Sirius and did not wish to be again.
"you will fix that wall, tidy this room and show up for supper. You will eat with your housemates, and you will converse with them. I will not support you drowning in your own misery, am I clear?"
The indignant look is clear from Harrys face and he nods sincerely. "Yes"
Sirius sighs "I know this is hard, and no one blames you but yourself, but that guilt is your burden to bear. We all have them. If you lay too long in the darkness it will consume you"
Harry hesitates but then replies "how do I continue on" he voice is filled with sadness, and pain of that beyond his age. Some many depend on him; it was easy to drown in the expectation. In the regret. He didn't know how to do it without Ron.
Sirius smiles painfully "there is so much of life left to live. You have yet to be in love. There is happiness left for you. I know it. You will find a lovely bird, and if somehow she can put up with your sorry arse you will marry her. We will win this war. But you need to get yourself together, be the respectable Harry Potter that your beau" He winks "will shack down with".
There is a long pause and Sirius is almost sure Harry wants nothing to do with him. That it'll be just like any other day Sirius talks and nobody listens. But on this particular day Harry looks at him he turns away from the fist hole in the wall in the disarray of the bedroom to Sirius
"What's for supper?" harry asks and serious so shocked he almost falls over.
"Chips and some fish Remus caught down by the lake" He replies carefully.
"if you can keep a secret, we might be able to nick some sweets from Remus' honeyduke stash." Harry grins and nods and this was at least some progress.
Sirius thinks back to Hermione, who had covered the war room with arithmetic and charm creation. Her future was dark indeed, but Harry's that was something he could save.