Even years after the war had been won, life after the veil wasn't so easy for Sirius. He tried not to think about it, but no matter how hard he tried and how much he drank, he couldn't.
It was after a particularly difficult day. Hermione had found him passed out by the settee.
She looked at him for a few seconds, putting herself in his shoes; how difficult it must have been for him. "Sirius, darling, come on." Setting down two vials of sober potion and calming draught, she helped lift him up to head upstairs.
"…wasn't always this way, kitten." "…not who I am." She didn't really know what he was trying to say, but his words hurt all the same. "I know, Sirius. I know. Let's get you cleaned up."
After helping him with his potions, and getting a shower ready for him, they were laying in bed. He held her as close as he physically could. Afraid, somehow, that if he didn't, she would disappear, just as all those he loved had. Just as he had.
She'd fallen asleep in his arms. Her face on his chest, with only the sound of her faint breathing filling their room. He was looking at her, committing her face to memory. Making sure that when he closed his eyes, he saw her. Always her.
His fingers traced her skin, connecting the freckles under her eyes into shapes. A triangle, a diamond. Until…how had he never noticed? Had it always been there? His breath caught in his throat.
There, staring back at him, in her freckles was, unmistakably, the Canis Major constellation. A perfect series of dots splattered on her face, that once connected, spelled him.
He'd made jokes of his name before, never really letting those around him know that he'd hated his name. It was a reminder of the family he came from. The values they held. How'd they hated muggles. Muggleborns. People like her.
But now, seeing his name in her freckles, on the stars on her face, he found that he didn't hate it.
Not at all.