Chapter 2.
The next time Sirius sees Ginny, she's in his kitchen. It's two days after the night at the bar and now she's here.
His kitchen is also Harry's kitchen, so it's not weird for her to be here. It's not weird for her to spend the night with Harry. It's not weird for her to stay for breakfast or for Sirius to see her. Except, of course, for the numerous ways in which it is weird, today, specifically.
"Hi," she says from where she's sitting at the long wooden table that takes up most of the Grimmauld place kitchen.
"Hi," he responds, his eyes trained slightly to the left of her face. He's making a beeline for the coffeepot, just for something to do. He almost knocks over a chair in the process, the same one his cousin Tonks used to knock over all the time. He remembers Ginny laughing at that. She would've been, like, fourteen or something at the time. Merlin.
"Er, Harry's just getting dressed for work. He, uh, should be back any minute."
"Right."
He's about to pour his coffee, but he doesn't actually have a mug. He summons one from the cabinet across the room and naturally it hits Ginny in the head on its way over to him.
"Ow!"
"Shit," he mutters. "Are you alright?"
He's inexplicably rushing towards her, as if the gentle tap with the mug could have produced a life-threatening injury.
"I'm fine, Sirius," she says.
He nods stiffly and edges away from her, his face reddening with embarrassment.
Then she starts laughing. "I can't believe you hit me with a mug."
He laughs too, and they spend a moment on the cusp of hysteria.
"I'm sorry," he says, desisting, "for everything."
"Me too," she says, looking at the floor. "It was my fault, I shouldn't've… It was a momentary lapse. I won't do — anything like that again."
"It wasn't just your fault," he says. He's trying to make her feel better, doesn't want her to shoulder the blame alone, but for some reason he can't identify he leans closer to her as he says it. They're breathing the same air now, standing closer together than they have any right to be standing in the light of day.
"Morning, Sirius," Harry says casually as he strolls into the room.
Sirius and Ginny jump apart at the sound of his voice, like they've both been hit with electric-shock charms.
There is a too-long pause.
"Er, good morning," Ginny says meekly.
Harry furrows his brow and glances between them, from where he's still standing in the doorway. "I've already seen you this morning, Gin."
"Well, Sirius didn't say anything, and I thought somebody should."
"You're both being weird."
"No, we're not!" Sirius says, hurriedly and sharply and without permission from his brain, saying the exact thing someone being weird would say.
Harry's brow furrows even more, his eyes narrowing. Abruptly, he softens. "Oh, I see what's going on here," he says, heading towards the floo. He plants a quick kiss on Ginny's lips as he passes her. "Well, I'm off then. See you tonight."
Sirius just stares at his godson, confused as fuck.
"Oh, by the way, I liked that cake with the treacle icing they had at that Harpies party last month. Just so you know." Harry winks and disappears through the floo.
"What the fuck?" Sirius says when he's gone.
Ginny groans. "Harry's birthday is next week."
"And?"
Ginny groans louder. "He thinks we're planning him a party."
"Oh." Sirius supposes that's better than Harry knowing the truth, but it's still not ideal. "What are we going to do?"
"Plan a fucking birthday party." Ginny's looking at him like he's a moron, which, to be fair, he is.
A week later, Sirius is standing in the same spot in his kitchen, but this time there's a party going on around him. It's a good party, Ginny did a great job with it.
The official line, if anyone were to ask, is that he and Ginny planned this party together, through conspiratorial early morning kitchen conversations. In actuality, Sirius's only contributions were holding the party at his house and procuring the copious amounts of alcohol set up on the kitchen counter, most of which he intends to consume himself. The rest of the planning — including finding the weird treacle cake — was all Ginny.
Everyone's here — Harry's school friends, the entire Weasley family, Harry's colleagues at the auror office, a few Hollyhead Harpies players, the odd former Order member. There was a time when Sirius knew all the people in Harry's life. Now, he knows maybe half these people, but it's nice to see. Sirius had known that people would always love Harry as their hero, but he's glad to know that Harry's found so many people who don't just love him, they like him too.
"So. Picture this: Encourage-mints. They're like breath-mints but they tell you your hair looks good."
George Weasley has appeared at his elbow, holding a pumpkin juice and wearing a bright orange t-shirt. Between his hair, the shirt, and the juice, it's a lot of orange.
"I love it. Tell me everything," Sirius says instantly.
George gives him the full explanation, and Sirius thinks it's a great idea, honestly. Stupid, but great.
He's become friends with George over the last three years since he opened up his bike shop just a couple doors down from Weasleys' Wizard Wheezes. George was his first customer, actually. He told him he'd always wanted a motorbike like Sirius's, though he was a fan of all flying vehicles, really.
Since then, they've seen more of each other. They have the odd lunch in Diagon, occasionally catch a quidditch game after work. They talk business and quidditch mostly, it's nothing much really, but it's something he thinks both of them needed three years ago. And still need now, though George is doing much better than he was.
He quit drinking about a year ago, something Sirius has never managed to do. Never really tried to do, if he's honest. Or wanted to do.
George wanders off with a promise that he'll bring an Encourage-mint prototype to the Harpies' game later that week, which Sirius has said he'll join him at.
Sirius ventures out of the kitchen, figuring he should be a good host and actually talk to more than one of his guests. Both the upstairs and downstairs drawing rooms are packed with people, and for a moment Sirius ponders just packing up and moving to another house, because seriously, who needs two fucking drawing rooms, but then he notices Harry and Ginny standing together and all other thoughts disappear.
Harry's arm is wrapped around her waist and she's laughing at something he's said, leaning into him. They're standing with a group of their friends from school and they look perfectly happy. They look like they fit — both with each other and within their group, and he can tell that Ginny loves him. There's an ease and a comfort to the way she's standing with Harry, looking at him like she knows him, totally relaxed in his arms.
If Sirius didn't know better, he'd think they were the perfect couple. He had thought that until just over a week ago, and watching them now, he can't quite believe that last week at the bar really happened.
Looking at the two of them together makes Sirius a bit sick to his stomach. Partly because of the guilt at his role in coming between the beautiful young couple standing in front of him, but mostly because he now knows that this pretty picture is a lie.
Maybe not a complete lie, since that level of ease and comfort and fit can't be entirely faked — at least he doesn't think it can — but it's hard enough to watch that he goes to mingle in the other drawing room where he won't have to look at it.
Apparently, there is a reason to have two drawing rooms, if you're as fucked up as Sirius Black.
A while later, sometime around midnight, when the party is quieting but not yet quiet, Sirius goes upstairs. He's just going to the bathroom, but he also needs a break. He's very drunk, but there's not enough alcohol in the world to make social gatherings bearable for too long.
The door is closed, which is a surprise since this is the upstairs bathroom right across the hall from his bedroom. He waits for a minute, pacing outside the door, but he is fundamentally an impatient person, so he knocks.
Or, rather, he goes to knock, but before his fist meets the door, the door flies open and someone comes barreling out of the room, almost crashing into his chest.
It's Ginny, because of course it fucking is. Literally who else could it be in Sirius's tragically absurd life.
"Christ," she mutters, her exit blocked by Sirius, who for some unidentifiable reason is standing stupidly still. Her face is puffy, eyes bloodshot, and she looks like she's just redone her makeup.
"Is everything alright?"
"Bloody perfect," she says, trying to push past him.
He starts to let her go, but he grabs her wrist and pulls her back around to face him.
"Hey, did something happen? You can tell me, you know."
She gives him the saddest half-smile in the world. "Tonight was perfect. Harry was so happy."
"And?"
"And I thought about how I could spend the rest of my life making Harry happy." Her voice catches and stutters. "And then I had to come up here because I couldn't breathe."
Sirius desperately wants to hold her, so he does. He wraps his arms around her and she presses her face into his chest.
When Ginny raises her head, she looks him in the eye, but doesn't back away. She lets him keep holding her.
"I love him," she says. "I really do. I love him so much."
"I know you do."
"I don't think it's normal to have panic attacks when you think about spending the rest of your life with the person you love."
"I lost track of what normal is a long time ago."
He wipes off a bit of mascara smudged under her eye with his thumb.
She closes her eyes and leans ever-so-slightly against where his hand touches her face.
"I have to get back," she says.
Sirius nods and lets her go.
After the party, things go back to normal. Mostly.
Sirius goes to work, and he comes home. He goes to a couple quidditch games with George, has lunch with his cousin Andromeda and her grandson — who's looking more and more like Remus all the time, except with purple hair. He sees Harry for dinner most nights and breakfast most mornings. Sometimes Ginny's at his house, but he's never alone with her and they've gotten better at remembering what normal was like, how they used to talk to each other. Polite, friendly, detached.
Sirius still drinks too much. He still goes to muggle bars. He's still not okay.
On September 1, there's a wedding. Ron and Hermione are getting married at the Burrow, eleven years to the day after they first met. Harry and Ginny are the best man and the maid of honour. Sirius is also present.
The ceremony is all twinkling lights and white flowers and love and faithful souls and bonded for life. It's nice, sort of. It's the kind of thing that's impossible not to be at least a little bit moved by. The tiniest bit of hope for his cynical, pessimistic heart.
The reception is lovely as well, though it involves a lot of small-talk and dancing, neither of which Sirius particularly enjoys. He does enjoy an open bar however, so at least there's that.
Sometime late in the evening, Sirius slips out of the large tent on the Burrow's lawn, intending to just stop for a moment of air. He stands on the grass, tinted blue with the darkness, and breathes deeply as he looks up at the sky.
It's a full moon tonight. That used to mean everything to him, but now it doesn't matter at all.
Now, the moon is just the moon.
Another version of himself is tearing through the woods, running on four legs, chasing after a wolf and a stag, with a rat clinging to the fur on his back.
He's the only one left now. The moon is just the moon and Sirius is alone.
He walks away from the tent, heading toward the house for no other reason than that it's the first destination he sees. He has to get away from it - away from the tent full of happy people who aren't alone, who don't understand the specific aching in his chest that comes from being the only one left.
Sirius goes in through the mudroom door and weaves his way past the heaps of wedding preparation detritus, before sinking down into the living room couch. He heaves his way through one or two dry, racking sobs. He doesn't have it in him to cry actual tears, not again, not anymore.
He sits there in the dark, hiding. From the moon and from the wedding guests with their small talk and dancing and happiness. He wishes he could hide from the memories. He wishes that he'd thought to bring a bottle of firewhisky with him from the tent, because this is too much feeling and he wants to make it stop.
Sirius doesn't know how long he sits there, but at some point a light gets flicked on and Ginny is there. Just standing in the newly illuminated living room, holding a bottle of firewhisky and glaring at him through puffy eyes.
"Why is it always you?" she says accusingly, a hand on her hip.
"Me?" He's being intentionally obtuse. He knows what she means, obviously. He does seem to have a newfound knack for being in the places she tries to escape to.
"Yes, you. What the fuck are you even doing here?"
"Same as you, probably."
"And what am I doing, exactly?"
"Hiding." He pats the spot on the sofa next to him. "Hide with me for a minute. And pass me that."
She does, handing him the bottle of firewhisky as she flops down next to him, her long periwinkle dress fanning out over the floor. He takes a long swig from the bottle and passes it back to her. She does the same.
"What are you hiding from?" she asks him.
"Oh, you know, happy people. The moon."
"The moon?"
"It's full tonight."
She doesn't ask him to elaborate. Instead, she rolls her eyes and says, "Fucking happy people." They share a laugh and take another swig each from the bottle. "They keep asking me if Harry and I will be the next to get married."
"Harry looked just like James did when he got married, standing up there in his dress robes."
"I mean, I'm only twenty-one! And I have a career!"
"I was supposed to be a best man only once, you know. I was James's, James was going to be Remus's and Remus would be Peter's. Peter was supposed to be mine. James died before Remus got married, so I had to be his. Then he fucking died too. "
He takes an extra large sip of firewhisky before passing the bottle back to Ginny.
"Why do people think my relationship is their business? And why is Harry so fucking fine with it?"
"He's twenty-two. Older than James ever was."
"I think he's going to propose." Quieter, now. She's looking down at her hands.
"I would have liked to have gotten married, I think."
"I'm not sure I'll be able to say no when he does. I — don't know if I even want to say no. I don't want to say yes either, but what other option is there?"
"I'd be a terrible husband, I'm sure. Probably a good thing no poor witch is stuck with me."
He recognizes the absurdity of them having two separate conversations at once, talking near each other, instead of with each other. But he doesn't think he would have said half of this if she'd been asking questions, responding, making eye contact — any of the normal conversational features.
"Does it get easier?" she asks, after they run out of separate things to say. "Faking it?"
"It's easy to do, if that's what you mean. It's not difficult to act like a professional, well-adjusted, normal person during the hours of the day when I need to."
"That's not really what I mean," she says. "I'm already good at pretending."
"That you are," he acknowledges. "I had no idea until — I knew. But, no. It doesn't stop being exhausting."
He looks at her, finally. She's already looking at him, and their eyes meet.
"Give me the firewhisky," she sighs.
She drinks for a long moment and when she's done, she slides closer to him on the couch. She rests her hand on top of his, gently. Strokes her fingers in a delicate pattern. He freezes.
"I don't want to fake it anymore tonight," she says. Her voice is quiet, but steady, dripping with authority and certainty.
He stares at her for just a second. "Fuck it," he mutters, then crashes his lips against hers.
Her lips part, and he puts himself between them. His lips, his tongue, his mouth, he puts everything into the kiss. It's like he's drowning and she's saving him.
Like he's dying of thirst and she's a fountain of clear water.
He slides a hand over the edge of her dress and comes to rest in the valley of her waist. She shifts towards him so she's half straddling him, one knee between his thighs. Ginny strokes a hand over his lower abdomen, causing him to shudder and grip even tighter to where he's holding her hair.
She runs her hand lower, stroking him through his trousers. He lets out a low groan and kisses her even harder.
"Hold on," she says, pulling away and grinning wickedly as she wraps her hands around both his wrists. The next moment they're bending through space.
She's apparated them to a bedroom. It's dark, but the window is open and there's enough light from the full moon that he can tell that the room contains a neatly made single bed, a cluttered bookshelf, and barely enough room to stand up. The walls are plastered with quidditch posters and Gryffindor colours.
"My old room," she says in explanation.
They had stumbled apart on landing the apparition, but now he takes a step towards her and she does the same, closing the gap. Their movements are slow. Deliberate. Where before they were falling blindly into each other, now they're choosing this.
This is no accident, no mistake, no trick of alcohol and misery. He wants this. She wants this. They're doing this terrible thing together, on purpose.
They kiss again, slower and softer than before. Everything around them is still. Silent, but for the sound of their lips pushing against each other and pulling apart.
She eases his outer robes off his shoulders and lets them fall to the floor. Then, she untucks his shirt from his trousers and he watches, his forehead pressed against hers, as she undoes the buttons, one by one. Her breaths are hot and fast against his face.
He shrugs out of his shirt and spins her around so her back is pressed against his front. He allows his hands to roam over her body and grope at her breasts through the rich fabric of her dress. He presses his lips just below her ear and works his way down her neck, licking and sucking and biting.
He's gentle. He does nothing that would leave a mark.
She keens at his touch and presses her hips back against him. He unzips her dress and slides the straps from her shoulders, letting it pool on the floor.
Ginny turns around and backs towards the bed, dragging him with her. They lose the rest of their clothing and she lies on her back. He follows, brushing a strand of hair off her face as he settles over her and presses his mouth to hers.
They stay locked in a deep kiss as he sinks smoothly into her.
The sex is deep and slow, all longing and quiet desperation. There's nothing in the world but the way she feels, the sounds of her delicate gasps and fervent moans, the way her face looks in the moonlight when she comes, head rolling back against the mattress.
He loses himself completely as he spills inside her, his fist clutched desperately around a wad of sheets.
It's only after, when the pleasure is starting to wane, that he remembers that this wasn't allowed. It had been like they were just two people, a man and a woman, but actually, they're two people who should never have been together.
Sirius clings to that feeling as he kisses Ginny one last time, still connected to her for one final, aching moment.
a/n: Thank you so much for reading! Please leave a review (I love reviews!) or connect with me on tumblr (diana-skye).
Next update coming earlier than planned, on Tuesday! (because I apparently don't know how to read a calendar, and didn't realize next Friday is Christmas! And this story, uh, seems somehow wrong for a Christmas day release lol)