Wishing for Gravestones
[colloquial title : taste love]
Authors Note : Spoilers for Order of the Phoenix. Huge spoilers. Go away if you haven't finished the book yet, or you're gonna wanna kill yourself. Also - minor slash lies ahead. You have been warned. All characters belong to the infallibally talented JK Rowling.
The sky was crying over Number Four, Privet Drive.
They were the big, heavy tears of low-slung summer rain cloud; the kind of raindrops that splashed when they hit the asphalt and the roof tile and the smooth glass windows. Dusk was falling fast, but it's descent could not be marked in the dark grey sky by the sixteen year old boy who sat with his back to the tool shed; soaked to the bone, and wishing for gravestones.
Harry Potter did not care that today was his birthday; in fact, he wished that it was not. He already felt older than time, for one thing. For another, today was nothing like his visions of his sweet sixteenth had been.
It had been pouring rain in much the same manner that day at Grimmauld Place; the sky dark and heavy and pelting warm August rain against the windowpanes of his godfather's home. Not that it had mattered much - ever since his arrival and subsequent internment at the headquarters of the Order of the Phoenix, Harry'd stopped caring about the weather almost completely. It didn't matter if it rained Hippogriffs, he wouldn't be going outside anyway...
Along this train of thought his mind had run for quite some time, as Harry sat staring blandly out the window of the bedroom he'd been sharing with Ron and stroking Hedwig absently with one hand. His thoughts spun around like sandpaper inside of his head, scraping away at his mood; once again, he was trapped. Once again, no one would tell him anything. Every time he tried to broach the subject of the Order with Lupin or Sirius or any adult, they simply told him that everything was taken care of... that he needn't worry.
Needn't worry. Voldemort's biding his time, but I needn't worry. Dementors nearly sucked my cousin's soul out not two blocks from my Aunt's house in Little Whinging, but I needn't worry. My scar hurts like hell, but I needn't worry...
With a disgruntled hoot, Hedwig dug her talons into Harry's leg before swooping from his lap unceremoniously - her feathers ruffled where he'd stroked her too hard - and cast him a reproachful glance upon landing on her perch.
"That's fine, just fine-- oh for Merlin's sake, Hedwig!" Harry sighed in exasperation as she turned her tail towards him. The world was against him, or so it seemed; and no one would tell him a thing...
A knock at the door startled him out of his musings; Harry muttered "it's open" without much conviction, his eyes still on the falling rain beyond the thin panel of glass that kept him prisoner from the outside world beyond. The outside world, where Voldemort was somewhere regrouping...
"I just came to see if -- of course. I shouldn't have bothered." Sirius's voice had a tone of exasperation to it that Harry could identify all too keenly with. He rattled the frame of the empty portrait on the wall, and when nothing happened, his godfather cast it a decidedly steely glare.
"I'm so glad that I can count on my beloved ancestors. OH WAIT--" the overdramatic shift in Sirius's tone caused Harry to finally turn 'round - "That's right. The majority of my ancestors are WORTHLESS OLD CODGERS WHO BLATANTLY IGNORE ME!" With another furious rattle of the picture frame, he added - somewhat more subdued, yet with perhaps more irritation. "Phineas, damn you, I KNOW you can hear me."
But it was no use. The portrait remained conspicuously empty, and Sirius, after a few more moments of glaring at it, dropped onto the end of Ron's bed with a sigh. Harry turned his chair away from the window to face his godfather.
"Phineas?"
"My great great grandfather. He was right famous, s'got portraits of himself hanging in all sorts of useful places." Sirius snorted. "You'd think he could have the decency to show up here once in awhile - at *least* when I call for him." With a role of his eyes that reminded Harry strongly of Hermione, Sirius flopped over backwards onto the bed, sprawled out on his back with his hands behind his head.
It was no secret to anyone that Harry's godfather was a good looking man. Good looking might, in fact, have been an understatement for Sirius. Sleek and slender of build with a symmetrical, finely carved face and piercing black eyes that peered from beneath a sheaf of dark and now silky hair, it was hard to imagine why Sirius had never married.
Harry was very startled and slightly unnerved to realize that he was staring at his godfather in much the same abandoned manner that he had a tendency to stare at Cho. He looked away and said quickly "Where are the other portraits?", not really caring about the answer. Sirius's chiseled features softened into a sarcastic and yet nevertheless somehow charming smile.
"I wish I could tell you - but Molly'll probably bite my head off. Honestly," he continued, staring so idly at the ceiling that Harry was not at all prepared for what he said next, "there are alot of things that I think you should know that I can't tell you."
"Well who's stopping you?" Harry cringed inwardly. He hadn't meant for the words to come out sounding as bitter as they had. Instead of looking stern, however, Sirius's expression was much akin to his own tone of voice.
"Everyone's stopping me from doing everything. Hell, I look out the window, and someone reminds me that I've got to stay here and lay low.
A few moments passed in silence, then, with Sirius glowering at the ceiling of the bedroom, and Harry feeling very strongly that if there was anyone in the world who understood how he felt, at this moment, it was Sirius and Sirius alone.
"Come on. Let's go for a walk."
Sirius glanced at him, smirked bitterly, turned his eyes back to the ceiling. "Sure, and we'll have a round of Quidditch while we're at it, then.."
"I'm serious," said Harry, rising from his chair. "I can't stand it anymore. You and I can both sneak out of Hogwarts with no problem, there's no reason that we can't sneak out of this place. We'll just have a go up and down the street, at least..."
He was about to launch into a spiel about how even at the Dursley's, at least he could walk around as he chose, but Sirius had leapt from the bed and was on his feet before Harry knew it; smiling the most beautiful, wicked smile he'd ever seen. Something deep in Harry's abdomen jerked, then went soft...
"You grow more like your father every day. Come on, then, before Molly's done with the doxies in the fourth floor lavatory."
It was no easy task sneaking down three flights of stairs and out the front door without meeting anyone else or arousing the frightful wails of the horrid old woman slumbering behind. On the second floor landing, Sirius peered around a corner before whipping one arm out and pinning Harry flat against the wall with a hush. There they waited in silence for Mundungus Fletcher to wind their way past them, obviously drunk, and muttering something about a shipment of contraband sneak-o-scopes. He took no notice of Harry and Sirius frozen in the shadows of the corner - and when the coast was clear, the two shared a sigh of relief and a conspirital chuckle before completing their descent unscathed and tiptoeing past the portrait of Sirius's mother.
The rain was even heavier now than it had been fifteen minutes ago - but once outside, Sirius tipped his face back to the rain and took a long, deep breath, letting it out with a satisfied sigh. "You know, you never realize how much you miss fresh air until..." and without completing what could have been an ominous, cruelly reminiscent sentence, he turned and grinned at his godson. "Well, we're both free men - temporarily. Pity to waste it standing here, eh?" And slinging an arm around Harry's shoulder, Sirius set off down the front path.
That arm was the nicest thing that Harry had ever felt.
They walked in silence for a few moments past the dirty muggle tenements before Sirius commented; "I wish there was something *here*, you know? Maybe the neighbors are having a party we could crash." For a moment, he seemed to listen intently, as though hoping to catch the sound of proceeding festivities. "I fancy some birthday cake about now, actually... too bad your birthday's past, Harry, we'd have an excuse to liven things up at home."
"I've never had a birthday party," Harry commented offhandedly.
"WHAT?!"
Sirius stopped dead in his tracks so fast that Harry had to turn round to look at him again. The rain had drenched the both of them; his godfathers robes were clinging to him, his hair wet and tousled and gleaming in silken strands before his eyes. "You've never had a proper birthday party?" he sputtered. "You mean to tell me that those rotten boors you live with have never seen to your birthday?"
"They give me old socks and ten pent pieces and the like, sometimes," Harry said with a shrug, feeling both oddly nervous and surprisingly warmed at Sirius's indignation.
"Well that settles it. When you turn sixteen - come hell or high water - I'm throwing you the party of your life." Sirius made the statement as though it were a vicious retort to the Dursleys. Harry found himself grinning.
"Your mother is going to LOVE that."
For a moment they merely looked at one another, each imagining in his own mind cheerfully setting off wizard crackers at Sirius's horrid, screeching old mother, and partaking in festivities with the woman wailing away in outrage behind her curtains. It was Sirius who began to laugh first, but once he had, it was contagious; before they knew it, they found themselves in an uproar of laughter over all the silent possibilities which Harry's now imminent sweet sixteenth held - which culminated in a downright smashing impression by Sirius of his mothers enraged moaning and involved something scandalous pertaining to a butterbeer bottle.
"Cheers," he said wheezily, leaning on his knee with one hand to catch his breath and slapping Harry heartily on the shoulder with the other. "I haven't had that good a laugh in ages..."
The hand on his shoulder did not go away - strong and warm through his soaked and chilly robes - and suddenly, Harry wondered how he'd ever compared Grimmauld Place to Privet Drive. There was no Sirius at Privet Drive. There was no handsome, laughing face, no warm strong hands or arms, no one to laugh with. For the second time that afternoon, Harry lapsed into gazing at his godfather - only realizing a few moments later that Sirius was gazing back at him in much the same manner.
"You really do look just like your father," he said softly.
Then he put his arm around Harry's shoulder again - but it was different this time, somehow closer and warmer and more... personal. "I expect we should head back, they're sure to come screaming after us if they notice we're gone--"
"Sirius?" said Harry. "I missed you. Alot."
The arm around his shoulders tightened, and Harry let himself lean into the embrace.
"I missed you too, love."
Love. Yes. That's right, thought Harry. Sirius loves me.
... and as though he were replying to Harry's thoughts rather than furthering his previous statement, Sirius added, "More than you will ever know."
Harry didn't know where the tears came from; they welled so quickly and unexpectedly that he had no time to choke them back. Fifteen years and now, finally - he had Love. Of course the Weasleys loved him, and Hermione, but somehow this was different. This was complete, undivided, wholehearted - something just for him. After all these long years, he had someone to take care of him.
"I want to sleep in your room, from now on."
The words left Harry's mouth as he thought them - and where the thought had come from, he did not know. He only knew that, in this moment, separation from the warm body next to him seemed stingingly isolated. Fifteen years worth of hunger and hollowness was now pressing down with all its weight upon him, and only by leaning against Sirius could he bear it, or so it seemed. Staring at his shoes, he wished that he could suck the words back into his mouth - they sounded weak and helpless now that they'd been formed. Sirius would think he was being utterly babyish, now...
But another strong arm turned him, wound around him - and now he was caught in a full embrace by his godfather, and there was nothing to do except melt into it; a longing that he found had been dying for nurture, yet had never really known he possessed until this moment. "I'd like that..." whispered Sirius. "That'll be just fine."
Harry had never truly been held before in his life, except when Mrs. Weasley had comforted him after the Triwizard Tournament - but even so, this was an embrace like none he had ever felt before. It was so warm in Sirius's arms that the fact that they were soaked didn't matter in the least. He let himself cry against Sirius's chest; cry, finally, for all the times he'd held the tears back. He cried in sheer relief that, finally, there was a shoulder there to cry on - and that the shoulder Loved him.
When Sirius laid his cheek against his godson's hair, Harry felt truly Safe for the first time in his entire life.
How long they stood there like that, Harry didn't know. He only raised his head from his godfather's chest when Sirius's fingers gently coaxed at his chin. Harry was not sure how to respond - no one had touched him this tenderly before, and he swallowed hard, keeping his eyes turned down and away even as Sirius lifted his face.
"No one's ever told you that you're beautiful before, have they?" asked Sirius softly, his eyes full of a gentle sadness when Harry finally met them momentarily. Looking away again, Harry shook his head just a bit, feeling the color rise to his cheeks. For a moment Sirius tensed, as though he thought he'd done something wrong, and began to withdraw his hand from the side of Harry's face.
"No," said Harry quietly - and before Sirius could draw back, he covered the hand against his face with his own. "But it's nice when you say it." He looked at Sirius dead on, now, and in earnest. Truth be told, Harry didn't know what he was feeling in those moments.
He only knew that when Sirius leaned in to kiss him, it seemed more right than anything else which had ever happened to him. He did not stop to consider the fact that Sirius was a man, and a man twenty years his senior; this was love, and it was all that Harry needed. Those soft and silken lips brushed his, pressed into them gently - Sirius was still cradling Harry's face in his hand, and Harry tightened his fingers over his godfather's as the kiss opened, deepened… now he could taste him, yes, taste love…
It seemed to go on forever - and yet when their lips parted, it was over entirely too fast for Harry. His first kiss; on this dirty, soaking street with the rain pouring down, and with Sirius. His beloved Sirius. Silent in one another's arms they stood, forehead to forehead, for quite some time.
And finally they made their way back home, through the downpour.
That night, Harry had slept beside Sirius - lulled asleep by soft kisses, and gentle fingers in his hair. And each night after, whenever he could, he snuck from his room after Ron was asleep and curled up next to his godfather; savoring the feeling of falling asleep in someone's arms, of being kissed awake in the wee hours of the morning to sneak back to his bed. No more than these gentle kisses and touches passed between them, and they were just that - gentle. There was no fire in the nights that they spent beside each other, only soft understanding and much needed comfort. Harry got the distinct impression that Sirius took as much solace from it as he did; his godfather never let go of him during the night, but held him close even in his sleep, tightening his arms each time that Harry shifted.
The Order never knew. And now they never would.
Because there was no more Sirius, was there? Sirius was dead. They were supposed to be together at this very moment, squirting his mother's howling portrait with butterbeer and laughing as the sun went down, with the promise of another warm night cuddled together beneath the quilts of Sirius's old four poster drifting pleasantly before them. He was supposed to be looking at that handsome face, head thrown back with that signature canine laughter, black eyes sparkling. His hand should be in Harry's right now.
But that hand was cold, and dead, and somewhere unreachable. Sirius's body had never been recovered. He was simply gone; gone forever through that whispering black curtain, without so much as a gravestone.
Harry sat with his back to the tool shed, the rain dripping off his nose and glasses, wishing for that gravestone. If only he had someplace to go, some way to feel just a little closer to Sirius. He had no shoulder to cry on, anymore. At least he should have a gravestone.
But there was nothing, nothing, nothing but the old letters he'd received over the years, and a few of Sirius's old cloaks that he'd managed to salvage before Kreacher had burned them. He had slept with one of them wrapped in his arms the night before, his face buried in the wool that still smelled ever so faintly of his godfather. He'd wanted to cry, then, but the cloak seemed to precious to tarnish with tears. What if they washed away the last bit of Sirius's essence that he had left?
No cloak could hold him. No cloak could kiss him. No cloak could understand him.
Sirius was gone forever.
And as the sky cried over Number Four, Privet Drive, Harry Potter buried his face in his arms and cried with it.
[colloquial title : taste love]
Authors Note : Spoilers for Order of the Phoenix. Huge spoilers. Go away if you haven't finished the book yet, or you're gonna wanna kill yourself. Also - minor slash lies ahead. You have been warned. All characters belong to the infallibally talented JK Rowling.
The sky was crying over Number Four, Privet Drive.
They were the big, heavy tears of low-slung summer rain cloud; the kind of raindrops that splashed when they hit the asphalt and the roof tile and the smooth glass windows. Dusk was falling fast, but it's descent could not be marked in the dark grey sky by the sixteen year old boy who sat with his back to the tool shed; soaked to the bone, and wishing for gravestones.
Harry Potter did not care that today was his birthday; in fact, he wished that it was not. He already felt older than time, for one thing. For another, today was nothing like his visions of his sweet sixteenth had been.
It had been pouring rain in much the same manner that day at Grimmauld Place; the sky dark and heavy and pelting warm August rain against the windowpanes of his godfather's home. Not that it had mattered much - ever since his arrival and subsequent internment at the headquarters of the Order of the Phoenix, Harry'd stopped caring about the weather almost completely. It didn't matter if it rained Hippogriffs, he wouldn't be going outside anyway...
Along this train of thought his mind had run for quite some time, as Harry sat staring blandly out the window of the bedroom he'd been sharing with Ron and stroking Hedwig absently with one hand. His thoughts spun around like sandpaper inside of his head, scraping away at his mood; once again, he was trapped. Once again, no one would tell him anything. Every time he tried to broach the subject of the Order with Lupin or Sirius or any adult, they simply told him that everything was taken care of... that he needn't worry.
Needn't worry. Voldemort's biding his time, but I needn't worry. Dementors nearly sucked my cousin's soul out not two blocks from my Aunt's house in Little Whinging, but I needn't worry. My scar hurts like hell, but I needn't worry...
With a disgruntled hoot, Hedwig dug her talons into Harry's leg before swooping from his lap unceremoniously - her feathers ruffled where he'd stroked her too hard - and cast him a reproachful glance upon landing on her perch.
"That's fine, just fine-- oh for Merlin's sake, Hedwig!" Harry sighed in exasperation as she turned her tail towards him. The world was against him, or so it seemed; and no one would tell him a thing...
A knock at the door startled him out of his musings; Harry muttered "it's open" without much conviction, his eyes still on the falling rain beyond the thin panel of glass that kept him prisoner from the outside world beyond. The outside world, where Voldemort was somewhere regrouping...
"I just came to see if -- of course. I shouldn't have bothered." Sirius's voice had a tone of exasperation to it that Harry could identify all too keenly with. He rattled the frame of the empty portrait on the wall, and when nothing happened, his godfather cast it a decidedly steely glare.
"I'm so glad that I can count on my beloved ancestors. OH WAIT--" the overdramatic shift in Sirius's tone caused Harry to finally turn 'round - "That's right. The majority of my ancestors are WORTHLESS OLD CODGERS WHO BLATANTLY IGNORE ME!" With another furious rattle of the picture frame, he added - somewhat more subdued, yet with perhaps more irritation. "Phineas, damn you, I KNOW you can hear me."
But it was no use. The portrait remained conspicuously empty, and Sirius, after a few more moments of glaring at it, dropped onto the end of Ron's bed with a sigh. Harry turned his chair away from the window to face his godfather.
"Phineas?"
"My great great grandfather. He was right famous, s'got portraits of himself hanging in all sorts of useful places." Sirius snorted. "You'd think he could have the decency to show up here once in awhile - at *least* when I call for him." With a role of his eyes that reminded Harry strongly of Hermione, Sirius flopped over backwards onto the bed, sprawled out on his back with his hands behind his head.
It was no secret to anyone that Harry's godfather was a good looking man. Good looking might, in fact, have been an understatement for Sirius. Sleek and slender of build with a symmetrical, finely carved face and piercing black eyes that peered from beneath a sheaf of dark and now silky hair, it was hard to imagine why Sirius had never married.
Harry was very startled and slightly unnerved to realize that he was staring at his godfather in much the same abandoned manner that he had a tendency to stare at Cho. He looked away and said quickly "Where are the other portraits?", not really caring about the answer. Sirius's chiseled features softened into a sarcastic and yet nevertheless somehow charming smile.
"I wish I could tell you - but Molly'll probably bite my head off. Honestly," he continued, staring so idly at the ceiling that Harry was not at all prepared for what he said next, "there are alot of things that I think you should know that I can't tell you."
"Well who's stopping you?" Harry cringed inwardly. He hadn't meant for the words to come out sounding as bitter as they had. Instead of looking stern, however, Sirius's expression was much akin to his own tone of voice.
"Everyone's stopping me from doing everything. Hell, I look out the window, and someone reminds me that I've got to stay here and lay low.
A few moments passed in silence, then, with Sirius glowering at the ceiling of the bedroom, and Harry feeling very strongly that if there was anyone in the world who understood how he felt, at this moment, it was Sirius and Sirius alone.
"Come on. Let's go for a walk."
Sirius glanced at him, smirked bitterly, turned his eyes back to the ceiling. "Sure, and we'll have a round of Quidditch while we're at it, then.."
"I'm serious," said Harry, rising from his chair. "I can't stand it anymore. You and I can both sneak out of Hogwarts with no problem, there's no reason that we can't sneak out of this place. We'll just have a go up and down the street, at least..."
He was about to launch into a spiel about how even at the Dursley's, at least he could walk around as he chose, but Sirius had leapt from the bed and was on his feet before Harry knew it; smiling the most beautiful, wicked smile he'd ever seen. Something deep in Harry's abdomen jerked, then went soft...
"You grow more like your father every day. Come on, then, before Molly's done with the doxies in the fourth floor lavatory."
It was no easy task sneaking down three flights of stairs and out the front door without meeting anyone else or arousing the frightful wails of the horrid old woman slumbering behind. On the second floor landing, Sirius peered around a corner before whipping one arm out and pinning Harry flat against the wall with a hush. There they waited in silence for Mundungus Fletcher to wind their way past them, obviously drunk, and muttering something about a shipment of contraband sneak-o-scopes. He took no notice of Harry and Sirius frozen in the shadows of the corner - and when the coast was clear, the two shared a sigh of relief and a conspirital chuckle before completing their descent unscathed and tiptoeing past the portrait of Sirius's mother.
The rain was even heavier now than it had been fifteen minutes ago - but once outside, Sirius tipped his face back to the rain and took a long, deep breath, letting it out with a satisfied sigh. "You know, you never realize how much you miss fresh air until..." and without completing what could have been an ominous, cruelly reminiscent sentence, he turned and grinned at his godson. "Well, we're both free men - temporarily. Pity to waste it standing here, eh?" And slinging an arm around Harry's shoulder, Sirius set off down the front path.
That arm was the nicest thing that Harry had ever felt.
They walked in silence for a few moments past the dirty muggle tenements before Sirius commented; "I wish there was something *here*, you know? Maybe the neighbors are having a party we could crash." For a moment, he seemed to listen intently, as though hoping to catch the sound of proceeding festivities. "I fancy some birthday cake about now, actually... too bad your birthday's past, Harry, we'd have an excuse to liven things up at home."
"I've never had a birthday party," Harry commented offhandedly.
"WHAT?!"
Sirius stopped dead in his tracks so fast that Harry had to turn round to look at him again. The rain had drenched the both of them; his godfathers robes were clinging to him, his hair wet and tousled and gleaming in silken strands before his eyes. "You've never had a proper birthday party?" he sputtered. "You mean to tell me that those rotten boors you live with have never seen to your birthday?"
"They give me old socks and ten pent pieces and the like, sometimes," Harry said with a shrug, feeling both oddly nervous and surprisingly warmed at Sirius's indignation.
"Well that settles it. When you turn sixteen - come hell or high water - I'm throwing you the party of your life." Sirius made the statement as though it were a vicious retort to the Dursleys. Harry found himself grinning.
"Your mother is going to LOVE that."
For a moment they merely looked at one another, each imagining in his own mind cheerfully setting off wizard crackers at Sirius's horrid, screeching old mother, and partaking in festivities with the woman wailing away in outrage behind her curtains. It was Sirius who began to laugh first, but once he had, it was contagious; before they knew it, they found themselves in an uproar of laughter over all the silent possibilities which Harry's now imminent sweet sixteenth held - which culminated in a downright smashing impression by Sirius of his mothers enraged moaning and involved something scandalous pertaining to a butterbeer bottle.
"Cheers," he said wheezily, leaning on his knee with one hand to catch his breath and slapping Harry heartily on the shoulder with the other. "I haven't had that good a laugh in ages..."
The hand on his shoulder did not go away - strong and warm through his soaked and chilly robes - and suddenly, Harry wondered how he'd ever compared Grimmauld Place to Privet Drive. There was no Sirius at Privet Drive. There was no handsome, laughing face, no warm strong hands or arms, no one to laugh with. For the second time that afternoon, Harry lapsed into gazing at his godfather - only realizing a few moments later that Sirius was gazing back at him in much the same manner.
"You really do look just like your father," he said softly.
Then he put his arm around Harry's shoulder again - but it was different this time, somehow closer and warmer and more... personal. "I expect we should head back, they're sure to come screaming after us if they notice we're gone--"
"Sirius?" said Harry. "I missed you. Alot."
The arm around his shoulders tightened, and Harry let himself lean into the embrace.
"I missed you too, love."
Love. Yes. That's right, thought Harry. Sirius loves me.
... and as though he were replying to Harry's thoughts rather than furthering his previous statement, Sirius added, "More than you will ever know."
Harry didn't know where the tears came from; they welled so quickly and unexpectedly that he had no time to choke them back. Fifteen years and now, finally - he had Love. Of course the Weasleys loved him, and Hermione, but somehow this was different. This was complete, undivided, wholehearted - something just for him. After all these long years, he had someone to take care of him.
"I want to sleep in your room, from now on."
The words left Harry's mouth as he thought them - and where the thought had come from, he did not know. He only knew that, in this moment, separation from the warm body next to him seemed stingingly isolated. Fifteen years worth of hunger and hollowness was now pressing down with all its weight upon him, and only by leaning against Sirius could he bear it, or so it seemed. Staring at his shoes, he wished that he could suck the words back into his mouth - they sounded weak and helpless now that they'd been formed. Sirius would think he was being utterly babyish, now...
But another strong arm turned him, wound around him - and now he was caught in a full embrace by his godfather, and there was nothing to do except melt into it; a longing that he found had been dying for nurture, yet had never really known he possessed until this moment. "I'd like that..." whispered Sirius. "That'll be just fine."
Harry had never truly been held before in his life, except when Mrs. Weasley had comforted him after the Triwizard Tournament - but even so, this was an embrace like none he had ever felt before. It was so warm in Sirius's arms that the fact that they were soaked didn't matter in the least. He let himself cry against Sirius's chest; cry, finally, for all the times he'd held the tears back. He cried in sheer relief that, finally, there was a shoulder there to cry on - and that the shoulder Loved him.
When Sirius laid his cheek against his godson's hair, Harry felt truly Safe for the first time in his entire life.
How long they stood there like that, Harry didn't know. He only raised his head from his godfather's chest when Sirius's fingers gently coaxed at his chin. Harry was not sure how to respond - no one had touched him this tenderly before, and he swallowed hard, keeping his eyes turned down and away even as Sirius lifted his face.
"No one's ever told you that you're beautiful before, have they?" asked Sirius softly, his eyes full of a gentle sadness when Harry finally met them momentarily. Looking away again, Harry shook his head just a bit, feeling the color rise to his cheeks. For a moment Sirius tensed, as though he thought he'd done something wrong, and began to withdraw his hand from the side of Harry's face.
"No," said Harry quietly - and before Sirius could draw back, he covered the hand against his face with his own. "But it's nice when you say it." He looked at Sirius dead on, now, and in earnest. Truth be told, Harry didn't know what he was feeling in those moments.
He only knew that when Sirius leaned in to kiss him, it seemed more right than anything else which had ever happened to him. He did not stop to consider the fact that Sirius was a man, and a man twenty years his senior; this was love, and it was all that Harry needed. Those soft and silken lips brushed his, pressed into them gently - Sirius was still cradling Harry's face in his hand, and Harry tightened his fingers over his godfather's as the kiss opened, deepened… now he could taste him, yes, taste love…
It seemed to go on forever - and yet when their lips parted, it was over entirely too fast for Harry. His first kiss; on this dirty, soaking street with the rain pouring down, and with Sirius. His beloved Sirius. Silent in one another's arms they stood, forehead to forehead, for quite some time.
And finally they made their way back home, through the downpour.
That night, Harry had slept beside Sirius - lulled asleep by soft kisses, and gentle fingers in his hair. And each night after, whenever he could, he snuck from his room after Ron was asleep and curled up next to his godfather; savoring the feeling of falling asleep in someone's arms, of being kissed awake in the wee hours of the morning to sneak back to his bed. No more than these gentle kisses and touches passed between them, and they were just that - gentle. There was no fire in the nights that they spent beside each other, only soft understanding and much needed comfort. Harry got the distinct impression that Sirius took as much solace from it as he did; his godfather never let go of him during the night, but held him close even in his sleep, tightening his arms each time that Harry shifted.
The Order never knew. And now they never would.
Because there was no more Sirius, was there? Sirius was dead. They were supposed to be together at this very moment, squirting his mother's howling portrait with butterbeer and laughing as the sun went down, with the promise of another warm night cuddled together beneath the quilts of Sirius's old four poster drifting pleasantly before them. He was supposed to be looking at that handsome face, head thrown back with that signature canine laughter, black eyes sparkling. His hand should be in Harry's right now.
But that hand was cold, and dead, and somewhere unreachable. Sirius's body had never been recovered. He was simply gone; gone forever through that whispering black curtain, without so much as a gravestone.
Harry sat with his back to the tool shed, the rain dripping off his nose and glasses, wishing for that gravestone. If only he had someplace to go, some way to feel just a little closer to Sirius. He had no shoulder to cry on, anymore. At least he should have a gravestone.
But there was nothing, nothing, nothing but the old letters he'd received over the years, and a few of Sirius's old cloaks that he'd managed to salvage before Kreacher had burned them. He had slept with one of them wrapped in his arms the night before, his face buried in the wool that still smelled ever so faintly of his godfather. He'd wanted to cry, then, but the cloak seemed to precious to tarnish with tears. What if they washed away the last bit of Sirius's essence that he had left?
No cloak could hold him. No cloak could kiss him. No cloak could understand him.
Sirius was gone forever.
And as the sky cried over Number Four, Privet Drive, Harry Potter buried his face in his arms and cried with it.