Denial
1,000 Hours — Green Day
Drucilla Topham saw the black dog approaching her before it noticed she saw it. Drucilla decided she was fascinated by Inigo Imago's book for her Divination detention essay and turned her back on the doorway. The huge black dog padded silently across the girls' dormitory and barked his tremendous bark. Drucilla startled and slammed the binding of her book into her leg. The dog licked her cheek and grinned at her. "Padfoot!" she shouted in the empty dorm, only half-angry. Padfoot put his front paws on her bed. They were muddy, like he'd been running through flowerbeds all afternoon.
"No! Bad dog! Get your paws down!" Padfoot clambered on her bed anyway and barked at her again. He thumped his tail on her pillow. Her Kneazle, Winchester popped his eye open at Padfoot. He gave a startled meow then dove under Lily Evans's bed. Drucilla harrumphed and returned to her Divination. Padfoot whined, then put his drooling jowls in her book.
"Sirius Hamish Black!" Drucilla yelled, fully angry now. Sirius transformed and was laughing hysterically. He howled and rolled on her bed, in the mud. "You're foul, Sirius. Honestly."
"You can't ignore me," Sirius said plainly. Drucilla glared at him, casually lying on her bed, playing with a worn leather strap on her book bag. "Come with us tonight."
"On a full moon?" Drucilla set down her book and chucked her detention essay from Professor Titspervert under Shauna Harrison's bed. She was intrigued, but still had her reservations about the idea.
"Yeah. I wish you were an Animagus, though. It'll be hard to keep Remus away from your human form. As lovely as it is," Sirius grinned.
Drucilla climbed on top of him. "Where'd you go last night?"
Sirius shrugged it away and sent his hand up Drucilla's shirt. "Nowhere. Just couldn't sleep." Sirius sat under her, and she gave him that small secret smile he loved, the one that seemed to know him so well, he'd never have to open his mouth for the rest of his life and she'd always know what he meant to say. Sirius took her hand and ran his thumb along hers and tried to find strength in the image of himself that he could see in her face.
She nodded. "Are you going to risk being seen in your dog form or are you staying up here with me until supper?" Drucilla kissed his neck.
"Hmm…I reckon I can stay for a bit," Sirius laughed lecherously and rolled them both over in her bed so he was on top of her.
Give Me Novacaine - Green Day
Sophia.
"Oh, honey," Drucilla said, searching his face, a fearsome mix of worry and love in her eyes. "Oh, baby, what's wrong? You look like you're dying."
She took his face in her hands and made him look in her eyes.
"Tell me. Tell me what's wrong."
Sirius wanted to hide from her. Her love hurt too much right now. He wanted to dissolve from her warm hands and find someplace dark and cavelike where no light or love could reach and he could curl into a ball and moan his grief and self-hatred into the black.
"Sirius," she whispered. She kissed his eyelids. "Sirius, talk to me. Please."
She pressed the heels of her hands against his temples, and her fingers dug through his hair and against his skull and she kissed him. Her tongue slid into his mouth and probed him, searching deep for the source of his pain, sucking at it, capable of turning into a scalpel if he needed and cutting his cancers away, sucking them back out of him.
"Tell me. Please, Sirius. Tell me."
And he knew, looking into her love, that he had to tell her everything or he'd be lost. He wasn't sure if she could save him, but he was positive that if he didn't open himself up to her now, he would definitely die.
So he told her.
He told her everything about that horrible day so many years ago. How Bella had frightened him, how he knew what Sophia was going to do and he didn't stop her. How he was constantly haunted by the image of her dead body in his dreams. And how his late uncle had placed the blame on his head.
"These are things I've done, Dru. And I can't undo them. And so," he said, with the dorm gone small and tight around them, "sometimes, I think I should go to Azkaban. I as good as killed Sophia Snape and I should go to jail because I think I belong there. No, honey, I do. I'm not fit for out here. I can't be trusted."
His voice sounded like someone else's. It sounded so far from the one he usually heard leaving his lips that he wondered if Drucilla saw a stranger before her, a carbon Sirius, a Sirius vanishing into the ether.
Her face was dry and composed, though, so still she could have been posing for a painting. Chin lifted up, eyes clear and unreadable.
Drucilla reached up and began unbuttoning his shirt, and Sirius watched her deft fingers, his body numb. She opened the shirt and pushed it halfway off his shoulders and then she placed her cheek to it, her ear over the centre of his chest.
He said, "I just—."
"Shh," she whispered. "I want to hear your heart." Her hands slid along his ribcage and then up his back, and she pressed the side of her head tighter against his chest. She closed her eyes, and a tiny smile curled up her lips.
They lay that way for a while. When she pulled away, Sirius could still feel her cheek on his chest like a permanent mark. She climbed out from under him and sat on the floor before him and looked into his face.
"It's okay, Sirius," she whispered. "It wasn't your fault."
"What?" Sirius asked. "What are you talking about?"
"Hey, Sirius, I don't know a lot. But all this Sophia shit, it's not your fault."
Sirius whispered, "Yeah, I know that." He looked away.
"Look at me, honey. It's not your fault."
"I know," Sirius said casually.
"No," Drucilla said. "It's not your fault."
"I know," Sirius shrugged, ready to get off the subject and back to the fun they were having.
"No, no. You don't," she shook her head once, holding him in her calm eyes. "It's not your fault."
"I know," Sirius stood.
Drucilla stood also. "It's not your fault." She was determined to get through to him.
"All right," Sirius went for the door, but she grabbed his hand.
"It's not your fault, baby." Sirius stopped and looked at her hand. His mood was changing. "It's not your fault," she whispered.
"Don't fuck with me," Sirius whispered quickly.
She approached him. "It's not your fault."
"Don't fuck with me, all right?" Sirius shoved her away before he could stop himself. She stumbled back to the bed, but walked back. "Don't fuck with me, Drucilla. Not you." Sirius felt like he was crushed under blocks of granite.
Drucilla put her hand on the back of his neck and stroked him with her thumb, "It's not your fault." Sirius put his face in his hands and sobbed. "It's not your fault," she whispered.
Sirius hugged her and cried on her shoulder. "Oh, my God! I'm so sorry! My God!"
Drucilla held him close and let him cry. "Fuck them, okay?" She patted his back as he clawed at her to get a tighter hold.
"Everyone makes mistakes. Everyone. Great men try to make things right. And that's all that matters. That's what great love is. That's why you are a great man."
Sirius felt blinded. He said, "No."
"Severus once told me about his sister, you know," Drucilla said, her words like darts now.
"Don't—."
"He told me that, Sirius, and I thought what kind of brother says those thing about his sister? How fucking gutless do you have to be to tell those kind of tales? And why would he tell me? Huh, Sirius? Why would he run to me?"
Sirius had an idea—he'd always had an idea about Severus Snape and the way that he looked at her sometimes—but he didn't say anything.
Drucilla smiled, as if she could see the answer on his face. "He tried to convince me that it was your fault. But he couldn't. I'm not stupid."
She was never that.
"I couldn't believe that you were anything like them."
His voice cracked around the words: "Why not?"
Drucilla cocked her head at him as if the answer should have been obvious. She stood, looking up at him with that curious glare and she kicked off her house shoes. She unzipped her skirt and stepped out of it. She removed her shirt and bra. She pulled Sirius to her bed. She pressed him to her body and she kissed his damp cheekbones.
"They," she said, "are weak."
"Who's they?"
"Everyone," she said. "Everyone but us."
She pushed Sirius's shirt off his shoulders and Sirius could see her face down at Hogsmeade Lake the first night they'd ever gone out. She'd asked him if Dark magic was in his blood, and Sirius had convinced her that it wasn't, because he thought that was the answer she was looking for. Only now, a year and a half later, did he understand that all she'd wanted from him was the truth. Whatever his answer had been, she would have adapted to it. She'd build their lives accordingly.
"We are not weak," she said, and Sirius felt the desire take hold in him as if it had been building since birth. If he could have eaten her alive without causing her pain, he would have devoured her organs, sunk his teeth into her throat.
"We will never be weak." She sat on the bed, her legs dangling off the side.
Sirius looked at Drucilla as he stepped out of his trousers, aware that this was temporary, that he was merely blocking the pain of his past and future, ducking from it into Drucilla's strength and flesh. But that would do for today. Maybe not tomorrow or in the days to come. But definitely for this afternoon, it would provide. And wasn't that how all recoveries started? With small steps?
Drucilla placed her hands on his hips, her nails digging into the flesh near his spine.
"When we're done, Pad?"
"Yeah?" Sirius felt drunk with her.
"Make sure you clean the mud off my blankets."
When they were done, Sirius asked her, "So you're coming tonight, right?"
"Aye. I'll be there."
Just before Sirius left an hour later, Drucilla leaned over, put her hand on his back, kissed his cheek, and whispered, "I love you, Sirius Black."
Drucilla gave Padfoot an odd look as he turned back to look at her. He'd never seen a look like that on anyone's face before. A look that told him she was preparing to never see him again.
Brain Damage — Pink Floyd
The full moon rose at 7:48, but Drucilla and Sirius met James and Peter in the Entrance Hall at 9:30. James threw his Invisibility Cloak over the four of them, and Sirius snogged Drucilla. They walked out to the Whomping Willow and Wormtail scampered up the trunk to the knot. He pushed it in to freeze the branches and the four of them dashed through the maze, the boys transforming and running ahead of Drucilla. When she arrived in the parlour of the Shrieking Shack, they'd already gone out the door of the Shack and into a sleeping Hogsmeade. She finally caught up with them in front of Dervish and Banges.
"A right lot of idiots, you are," Drucilla grumbled. Padfoot and Prongs flanked Drucilla. Wormtail was hitching a ride on Prongs's head.
'Lo, Drucilla, said Moony, telepathically.
"Hello, Moony," Drucilla replied, bored. She held out her hand and twitched herself a cigarette. She flicked the end of it and it lit. Taking a drag, she noticed something out of the corner of her eye in the alley between two of the shops, but ignored it as light playing tricks. As they walked the streets of Hogsmeade, Drucilla began to realise they were being followed and wandered away from the group. Prongs and Padfoot were busy keeping Moony away from a passing patron of the Hog's Head and so they didn't see fearless Drucilla walk down an alley behind the Hog's Head to investigate the shadows she'd seen and the noises she'd heard.
"Hello?" Drucilla asked quietly. She started humming an old song, 'Early One Morning,' to calm her nerves. She turned back, but then felt someone sneak up on her.
"Oh, Sirius, you're not funny!" She turned and saw her assailant. She screamed a blood-curdling scream.
Ghost of You — My Chemical Romance
Moony, Wormtail, Padfoot, and Prongs heard the scream. The four of them split up to find its source, but it took a few minutes before they finally found it. Prongs went down the alley first. Padfoot and Wormtail were close behind him. Prongs lowered his antlers and stared unblinking at a shadow at the end of the alley. The figure that had attacked Drucilla was smoking a half-gone cigarette and leaning against the right side of the alley. Padfoot barked at him, then growled as he crawled under Prongs and approached Drucilla. Prongs stood fast with his antlers still lowered at the smoking figure. Wormtail scurried down the alley and nipped at the figure's ankles. Moony rounded the corner at the far end of the alley and roared. He pulled the figure out into the moonlight. The vampire dropped his cigarette as he stared a werewolf in the eye. Moony roared again and brought the vampire within inches of his jaw. He threw the vampire to the ground. Prongs leapt over Padfoot, Wormtail, and Drucilla and chased it alongside Moony into the mountains behind the village.
Padfoot sniffed Drucilla. He snorted. She didn't smell right. He nuzzled her head, hoping for her to open her eyes, and whimpered. He licked her cheek and tasted blood. Padfoot instantly hated the taste and shook his head. He howled loudly and Prongs and Moony raced back to the alley. Sirius transformed and Prongs stepped between him and Moony. He looked mournfully at the stag. Sirius kneeled next to Drucilla.
"Drucilla, wake up," he jostled her shoulders. Her eyes stayed closed. More blood streamed out of her neck. "Drucilla, come on. Wake up. Wake up! This isn't funny anymore! Wake up, Dru! For God's sake!" The realisation washed over him and it made him more hysterical and louder. "No! Wake up, Dru! Stop this, please! DON'T DO THIS TO ME!" Sirius screamed so loudly, his voice hurt. Several residents opened their windows to try to find the idiot screaming at the top of his voice in the middle of the night.
James quickly transformed and said, "You take her. We'll stay."
Prongs, Moony, and Wormtail walked off into the night and Sirius gently cradled Drucilla on the interminable journey to the hospital wing.
Sirius was difficult to awaken the next morning. He sat up and stared at the empty cot next to his own. Drucilla had been there last night until Madame Pomfrey woke him to tell him that she'd died. He stood and tripped over James, waking the older boy.
"Gerroff!" James shouted. He opened his eyes and saw a devastated Sirius standing over him. "Oh, sorry."
"She's gone," Sirius whispered.
"Ah, Padfoot, I'm sorry. Truly, I am," James said, putting his hand on Sirius's shoulder. Sirius shrugged and took a step away from James.
"Don't touch me. Everything I touch turns to shit," Sirius said hoarsely, his throat still burned from the night before. He walked out of the hospital wing.
Are We The Waiting — Green Day
He didn't remember how he ended up in the Gryffindor common room, but fell into a nearby chair, Drucilla's chair, and stared blankly out the window at the sunny day he had chosen to ignore until Lily walked in, crying. She threw her arms around Sirius and sobbed. Lily tried to speak, but only said half-words. She kept sobbing on him until he patted her back. Lily was satisfied she'd comforted him enough, and left for the girls' dormitory.
That night, at dinner, Sirius picked at his food. He couldn't bring a spoon of food to his lips without feeling guilty. He pushed his plate away and folded his arms around himself tightly. He ignored his friends' consolations, and the rest of the school's noise.
He ignored James talking to Remus and Peter, "You should have seen him last night. He held her like she was only sleeping. McGonagall came to see what had happened and Sirius told her not to worry and asked her when Drucilla," James's voice began to falter, "would wake up." James cleared his throat, "Excuse me. McGonagall left then and Dumbledore came. Madame Pomfrey started to wash most of the, er, the—the blood off Drucilla's neck and face, but Sirius took over, being incredibly careful with her. Pomfrey forced Sirius to put her down on the cot next to him, and Sirius tucked her in and kissed her on the cheek." Lily sobbed but held herself together. "He turned to Dumbledore and said, 'We'll see you in the morning.' Sirius went to sleep then. He was probably asleep for only an hour last night. It was odd. I got there just as Pomfrey told him she'd died, but he…didn't react. It was like he wouldn't believe it."
Sirius ignored Dumbledore's speech to welcome the holidaying students back to Hogwarts. Sirius completely tuned out the entire meal, until, as nearly an afterthought, Dumbledore said, "I regret to announce that one of our students was attacked and murdered on the school grounds last night."
Lily sobbed and broke down on James's shoulder. Remus and Peter looked sadly at Sirius and the empty seat next to him. The rest of the seventh-year Gryffindors finally made the total of Drucilla's absence from the table.
"Miss Drucilla Topham, a seventh-year Gryffindor, was attacked by a vampire near the Whomping Willow. One can only guess her reasons for rule-breaking, but her failure to defend herself was not completely her own fault. As such, Professor Lomper will begin teaching Vampire defence classes for the next three weeks in her Defence Against the Dark Arts classes," Dumbledore's speech halted when he saw Sirius Black had vanished from the Great Hall.