O0o0O

I smiled at Sirius, hugging him so tightly, that if I were any stronger, he would have suffocated by the end of the long hug. I didn't want to let him go.

"Well, er…" Sirius said, twisting out of my tight grip. "Bye."

"Bye? Sirius, do you think I'm just going to let you leave after hugging you for four minutes?" Instead of waiting for an answer, I dragged him inside. "I reckon you'll be around here a lot so I'll introduce you to my niece. She's scared of you."

Sirius raised his eyebrows. "Why?"

"She woke up to a man in a leather jacket getting off of a flying motorcycle in her front lawn. If I were in her place, I would've been scared too, Sirius." I said, leading him to the left, to Lina's room, where I was sure my niece had disobeyed my orders and wasn't asleep.

I was right. Lina was standing by the window and apparently had been watching Sirius and me. I was glad we didn't kiss or anything, because I wouldn't have wanted Lina to see that. "Lina, this is Sirius." I explained when she turned around to look at us. "Since he's my boy friend, you'll probably be seeing him around a lot. He's sleeping over tonight, but don't worry, he doesn't cause any physically damage." In my mind, I added 'But he can really mess with my head and cause emotional damage at times….'

"Are you sure?" Lina glanced at Sirius. "He looks mean."

"No, he's really as soft as a marshmallow." I smiled, grabbed Sirius's hand. "Good night, Lina." I shut the light off and closed the door, then looked at Sirius. "So are you sleeping over?" I asked.

"Do you want me to?" He asked.

"Duh."

"Then I'm sleeping over." Sirius picked my chin up and kissed my lips.

O0o0O

"You want sugar, Sirius?" I asked him as I mixed his coffee.

"How long have you known me, Taryn?"

"Seven years." I said as I mixed the sugar in. "But hated you until our sixth year." I handed him the mug of coffee.

Sirius kissed my lips to thank me. "Why did you stop hating me anyway?"

"You cornered me in the common room and kissed me, Sirius. No girl can resist that."

"But you still denied that you liked me, Taryn. You didn't realize I fancied you for a while." He laughed slightly.

I took a sip of my own coffee. "'Cause I was bloody stupid back then…"

"You couldn't have been if you started dating me."

"Took me a few years." I laughed.

Just after Taryn said that, Lina came into the room.

"Good morning, Lina." I greeted my niece.

"Aunt Taryn, can you take me to the mall to buy school clothes?"

"I don't have a car, Lina."

"So? We can walk!"

I groaned. "I'm really tired, Lina. I can't possibly walk to the mall. That's light years away!"

"Taryn, you woke up at ten. That means you had at least nine hours of sleep! What were you doing all night?"

Sirius chuckled into his coffee. "Sleeping, Lina." I told her, glancing over at Sirius.

Lina looked at us suspiciously. "Yeah, right." She turned around and walked out of the kitchen.

Once she was gone, Sirius looked at me. "Smart kid."

I nodded in agreement, walking over to him and sitting down on his lap. "You going anywhere today?"

"Yeah." Sirius said. "Meetin' some people at noon."

"Who? Is it somebody else?"

"Yeah. I'm dating twelve other babes right now." Sirius said jokingly.

"Do you want another cup of coffee before you leave?" I asked after a few moments.

"No thanks. I'll probably have more when I get there."

"'Kay." I said, then hugged him goodbye.

O0o0O

"Hey Prongs." Sirius said to James, sitting down in his chair at a meeting for the Order of the Phoenix.

"Hey Padfoot."

"Having fun on your honeymoon?"

"It's only been one day."

"So? That's twenty four hours, or 720 minutes." Sirius said.

"Well then, yes, I have had a lot of fun."

"Fun?"

"No, not fun fun. Just fun."

Sirius laughed. "Hah! I beat you to it!"

"You…" James trailed off when Albus Dumbledore walked into the room, and began the meeting.

O0o0O

"Ooh! Taryn, I want these pants!"

"Sure, Lina. Find some your size, and…"

"And I want this hat!"

"Okay…"

"And I need this Barbie backpack!"

"Sure, and nothing else. I already spent a weeks worth of money on you today." Taryn said, bringing the pants, hat and backpack to the cash register and paying for them.

When the two left the store, Lina asked Taryn, "Is that boy, Sirius, a vampire?"

"No, he isn't."

"How do you know?"

Taryn sighed. That day, she had already had to prove why he wasn't a zombie, murderer and dentist. "Because at Hogwarts, I've seen him eat garlic knots plenty of times."

"Real garlic knots?"

"Yes, Lina. Real garlic knots."

"Oh. Okay."

Taryn turned right into their front yard and walked into the small, one floor house. "Go put the clothes into your closet. I'll make you a snack."

O0o0O

"Siriuuuuuuus!" Yelled James from across the large room. "DUUUUCK!"

"What? Oh!" Sirius dropped to the floor just in time to dodge the red beam coming out of a Death Eater's wand.

Quickly getting up, he held up his wand. "Stupe-" Sirius stopped mid-spell when Edgar Bones shoved him aside in such a hurry that he fell down on top of him. The two men looked up at the green beam that had just missed Sirius and had hit another Death Eater, leaving the one that had cast the spell as the last one there.

Sirius started to get up to do something about the Death Eater, but Edgar pulled him down, seeing that Gideon Prewett was already taking care of that.

Sirius and Edgar slowly crawled away from them backwards, facing the ceiling. "Bones, I think I broke my arm." Sirius muttered, falling down onto it as Gideon dragged away the Death Eater.

"Ah, that's nothing. Last month, I broke both."

"Yeah I remember."

"You should. It was partly your fault after all."

"Listen, Edgar, I did not mean to trip you. Snivellus pushed me." Sirius said before muttering something about the bad getting worse by the minute.

O0o0O

A day went by and Taryn waited patiently for Sirius to come visit her. After all, she hadn't told him to come back, and didn't expect him to either. Honestly, she wasn't so pathetic, and didn't mind, because she knew that he would want to. He was probably too. She couldn't blame him. She was busy too, with getting Lina ready for school and everything like that.

Lina went to a boarding school that had classes on weekends, but had longer breaks. She started school mid-October and ended it mid-July, which left a three-month break for her, three months for Taryn to have to deal with a nine year old witch all summer, to deal with the occasional slip of magic coming out, to deal with the spark of mischief in her eyes…

Taryn sighed; lying down on the grass, listening to the sound of Only the Good Die Young coming out of the headphones attached to her CD player. "You get a nice white dress and a party on your confirmation…" She sighed, tapping her fingers on the grass to the beat, looking up at the bright sky, the places where the blue met the white of the clouds reminding her of the color of Sirius's eyes. She knew them well, having stared at them for probably a total of two days in her life. She could get lost in them. It was almost as if they were in front of her….

"Sirius?" Taryn sat up.

"You know, babe, you've got the smallest house, but the biggest backyard." Sirius said, looking around.

"Yeah, I know."

"And a pool…"

"Sirius, tell me one reason that I would need a bigger house. After all, it's only Lina and me living there, and you sometimes."

"Me?"

"Yeah, of course. Do you really think I could spend more than two days without you, Black? You gotta admit, you're…" Taryn paused to look at his hair, then eyes, then the rest of his face, then down at his muscles, then back up at said, "Good looking."

"Is that the only reason you like me?"

"Of course not, Sirius. I like you 'cause you're funny, smart, interesting, brave, kind…" Taryn grabbed his shoulders and playfully tackled him to the ground. "Sensitive, understanding…" She stopped, seeing how Sirius had closed his eyes, looking in pain. "You okay, buddy?"

Sirius opened his eyes and nodded slowly. "Yeah, Tar' I'm… fine."

"Are you sure?" Taryn said, crawling off of him.

Sirius nodded again, barely moving his head this time. "Yeah. I'm just tired." He pulled himself up to a sitting position.

"Sirius, I am not going to fall for that big, fat lie." She looked straight into his eyes and she said that quietly, yet seriously. "I am worried sick for you right now, so tell me what the hell is wrong."

Sirius avoided looking at her by burying his face in his hands as he muttered, "I can't."

"Why not?"

Sirius didn't answer. Instead, he just stood up, and pulling her up with him. He began to walk toward the back door to the house.

"Where are you taking me?"

He didn't answer, again. Sirius brought her inside, and into the living room, letting her sit down on the couch, and he sat down next to her. "I love you, Taryn, and you know that. You've known it for so long, and even though I know there's been times were you've questioned it, but I thought you should know, that no matter what, no matter when, no matter where, I'll always love you."

Taryn didn't even blink as she said in a rasping, quiet voice, "How do you know?"

"Because I do. I just know. It's this feeling I get whenever I see you, that… Well, it makes me wish that nothing will ever happen to you, that you'll always be happy and that we'll always be happy, 'cause that's what I've always wanted to be- we, not you and me, but we, us, both of us." He was speaking without a bit of uncertainty in his voice. "Listen, Taryn, I would do anything for you. Anything, as long as it's something I know you wouldn't end up regretting, and this secret, is something that would put you in danger if you knew it. Taryn, you have to trust me. Do you trust me?"

After about a minute of silence, Taryn answered. "You should know that I trust you more than I trust myself, that I think of you above myself." Tears came into her eyes. "You are all that keeps me alive right now, Sirius. Lily's on her honeymoon; mum and dad are in Quebec; Lina's a real pain; Rachel is in the hospital; I spent all my money on a nine year old and…" She wrapped her arms around Sirius and sobbed into his shirt.

Rachel was Taryn's sister. Sirius, James, Lily, Remus and Peter all knew that she had been in the hospital for a few months, but none of them liked to mention it, because Taryn had had a close relationship with her sister, and had helped her through many hard times in her life, including her husband's death. This was the reason that she was caring for Lina; there was nobody else to.

Sirius ran his fingers through Taryn's long, dark blonde hair. She was sobbing harder than ever, and it was hard to just sit there and let her cry… It was torture.

O0o0O

Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter and all that stuff.

I think I'm done with the story and it's going to have 20 chapters, but I don't know because last time I ended the story, I ended up writing nine more chapters!

Please review…