TITLE: Love To The Loveless Shown
AUTHOR: Salaxander
PAIRING: SS/RL, suggestion of SB/RL
SPOILERS: Possibly for PoA
RATING: R
DISCLAIMER: Not mine. But they could be *gets kleptomaniac look in her eyes*
SUMMARY: Is it love that is so cruel and all-consuming? Is it really passion that drives him to his downfall? Only Severus can say…
NOTES: This is R-rated for a reason. It's got a lot of swearing and contains slash. I.e. if you are easily offended, bugger off now mate.
_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ ~Now ~If you look at old pictures of Sirius Black a classically handsome man waves back; the man in the photograph is all straight Grecian nose, wavy hair that falls slightly below his collar, and dark, soulful eyes - puppy-dog eyes, they could be called. The man is tall and quite broad, good-natured but with a quick and sarcastic wit that can be seen lurking beneath the chocolate of those sparkling eyes. He is good-looking and if you look closely enough, your nose barely a millimetre away from the slick surface, you can tell that Sirius Black knows this. He has a confident air of a man that can meet everything face on, a man that you would not entrust with your life, and especially not your daughter, but one that you can implicitly trust to manage a respectable financial institution. Obviously, if you don't mind the impromptu holidays and the pretty female secretaries in short skirts...
However, the Sirius Black of the present is a changed man - prison has done awful things to him, and these are reflected on his thin, angry and haggard face. He has escaped from Azkaban with his sanity because he knows he is innocent, and this helped him combat the terrible years that he spent incarcerated and isolated in the forbidding, Dementor-ridden bowels of the island prison.
Sirius Black, through the twelve years of his imprisonment, has developed a sixth sense for trouble or danger, especially when those he loves are in peril. Now, what he sometimes considers an affliction, is directed towards his godson, Harry. The guilt he feels in the fate of the boy's parents means that he is even more terrified about the boy's safety. If he knows that Harry was safe, Sirius can sleep easier at night, even if he does scream and whimper in his nightmarish sleep. If the child is protected and cared for, everything that he had to endure is a little less painful, a little less torturous.
This evening, as he sits in a cave with stalactites dripping lime-water onto him, Sirius Black is worrying; the tell-tale sign is the vertical crease that sits uncomfortably between his dark eyebrows and the way his thin fingers twist around each other as if they are mice wrestling, never stilled. In his mind, Sirius can feel something terrible coming towards the school, and he knows that it is after Harry. He has owled Dumbledore, who replied that Harry is perfectly safe and there is nothing to be afraid of. Sirius knows that he should be comforted - who will protect Harry better than the only wizard that You-Know-Who is afraid of - but there is doubt in his mind.
Sirius Black tucks the edge of his blanket under him and tries to sleep. Silvery moonlight filters through the cave entrance, and it makes him think of his old friend Remus, who runs with the moon.