Disclaimer: Harry Potter is, sadly, still not mine.
A/N: Finally, something. does posting dance So, I am aware that this story (if you can even call it that) is...not my best. However, I have not uploaded anything in ages and I just wanted to asure you all that I am not dead. Also, Sirius is by far my favorite character, and I was appalled at the fact that I have not yet written anything about him. Currently, I'm working on something humorous between him and James, so look for that soon.
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As Good As it Gets
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Sirius stared at the letter on the coffee table. It looked so innocent, just a piece of parchment covered in delicate, curvy script. But he knew better. The message it bared was a proverbial bombshell in disguise.
So, his brother Regulus was dead. Well, that was only to be expected. No one betrayed Voldemort and lived to do so again. He was not surprised, either, by the noticeable lack of remorse, of any emotion, really, that he felt at this revelation. Sirius was an Auror, one of the best. He had become accustomed to hiding his emotions on the job, but now it seemed that the job followed him everywhere, and so did the coldness. He could laugh with his friends, but the smile did not thaw the ice in his eyes or chase away the wicked fingers groping at his heart.
James had brought up his detachment one time. Sirius never could hide anything from his closest friend, his real brother in every way that mattered.
"You've been so distant lately. Is something up, Padfoot?"
"No." he had lied. "I'm fine." The words had sounded foreign to his ears.
"You sure? Do you want to talk about it?"
Once again, "No."
Sirius knew that he had sounded cruel, but he couldn't quite bring himself to explain, or to care all that much. And besides, James could never understand. James, with his perfect house and perfect pregnant wife and perfect jobs teaching Defense Against the Dark Arts at Hogwarts. These were bitter thoughts, but Sirius would not or could not push them away because even though it was not a nice feeling, bitterness was one of the last emotions he had left.
At the Auror Academy, they had taught him that feelings had no place in his line of work. They taught him to detach, and it was how he thrived. Sirius thought about his classmates, and how few of them had actually made it through the rigorous tests. He remembered all those who had fallen, the heroes, because they who stood up against Darkness were all heroes, who went down in a blaze of glory. How many more would have to die? His colleagues, his friends, his fellow Order members, his brother – how many more would be sacrificed in the name of war?
War. It was still astounding to him how many people had a misguided, preconceived notion of war. Sirius used to dream of glory; of fighting and saving and winning. And he had thought it would be glorious. But as he watched James come home bloody and Remus' hair become steadily more gray and Lily's once pristine face become wrinkled with worry and himself slowly fall into the abyss, Sirius wasn't so sure anymore. If this was what glory was, he didn't want it. He didn't want to be on auto-pilot anymore. He wanted to feel.
The Wizarding World was slowly deteriorating, and really they were just pretending when they said there was still hope to defeat Voldemort. They needed a miracle. And sometimes, when he got home late at night from yet another mission, bruised and beaten and lucky to be alive, Sirius couldn't help but wonder if maybe this, this empty shell of an actual life, was as good as it gets.
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