Salvation Lost: July 1994

Disclaimer: I own nothing except any OCs.

Summary: What do you say to the daughter you abandoned? How can you ever make it all right? Sirius Black learns the hard way that sometimes there are things that you just can't fix. You can't go back.

Part of 'The Lost Years' series, set in July 1994 just after Sirius escapes the dementors and the Ministry at Hogwarts. Imagine he somehow found a way to reunite with the family he hasn't seen in twelve years, after all the truth has come out, at least to those who matter most, surely the first thing he'd do now is go to find them?

You don't know what to say to her, this girl you might as well have abandoned. Your daughter…

A girl you haven't seen in twelve years, not since that night, you remember it so clearly…. You heard the news from the Order, old Elphias flooing at two in the morning with a story of untold horror…you couldn't believe it. Lily and James' house destroyed, the dark mark hovering ominously in the sky, a silent testament to what everyone knew must have happened…and you panicked. Wrung every piece of garbled and frantic information out of him that you could then ran to get dressed as though the devil was at your heels, Crystal sleepily at first, and then with rising panic imperiously demanding to know what had happened.

You told her, watched the colour drain from her face and spared no venom as you rushed to grab a jacket. She grabbed you before you could leave, using your own momentum to spin you to face her just as you had done to her so many times before, roles inexplicably reversed.

Now you were holding all the cards and for once she wasn't and some dark Slytherin part of you that you've long tried to suppress, to deny the existence of revelled in it. She was afraid, for the first time you had ever seen her she was truly afraid; she didn't want you to leave. Her eyes were pleading, beseeching, saying what she herself never would, but you didn't falter, you couldn't you owed them that, Lily and James… revenge.

You needed to see for yourself, needed to know, and if it was what it sounded like, was what you couldn't even bear to think then… That rat was going to pay if it was the last thing you ever did and for once there was something more important to you than Crystal. If you were wrong, if you made a mistake and Peter was the spy and not Remus and you were to blame…. You needed to know, it was as simple as that and nothing she could say was ever going to change that. You had already given up everything for her, forsaken your friends for her. She owed you this, this one indulgence, this one unforgivable act when you knew, if this was true the last thing you should have been doing was leaving her, leaving your daughter unprotected. If the worst had happened, that morning could have been a massacre, you might never have seen her again…but part of you didn't care…you had to know.

And for once you saw fear, fear in the unconquerable Crystal Maycomb's eyes, unheard of… not fear of what was coming, but fear of you in those too knowing ocean blue depths. She always could read you far to well. You should have told her then, should have explained it to her before so she'd have some idea of what was happening that night but you didn't. Partly you'd done it to protect her and partly to protect them, its not as though you'd ever envisaged this happening, for all the good that did.

You didn't have the time to waste for words, for explanations that you knew you owed her, knew you needed to give. Hopefully there would be time for that later, but for that moment, every second was vital and you'd already wasted too long in that silent communication. Angrily you spun away from her. You couldn't deal with this and everything else, couldn't deal with her pain as well as your own, her hurt, hurt that you'd caused, you didn't have time!

She wrapped her arms around herself forlornly and you could have sworn you could taste the tang of salt in the air. She knew that something was deathly wrong, just not what. She could tell from the way you were acting, there was more to this than just the death of a few more friends. She was imagining the worst; you knew it. Murdered muggles, genocide, dead friends...all blurring together in a grisly mosaic. You couldn't find the words to tell her what you'd just figured out; it was worse than anything she could have imagined... You longed to take her in your arms and hold her, to kiss away her pain, and somehow wash away your own pain and guilt by doing something useful for someone, but you couldn't. In the years to come, that decision and every other would haunt you.

But you owed it to James, your brother in all but blood, your only brother now that Regulus was dead and she should have understood that! But your anger was misplaced and you knew it even then. She didn't know, you couldn't strike out at her, it wasn't fair. Just as you had lost Regulus, she had lost Abigail, the only sibling she had any real affection for. She knew how you felt, she always did….

But she wasn't a mind reader, and if you wouldn't say then she couldn't help, and you didn't have the time or inclination to get into it then, gods forgive you. You turned to leave, to walk out perhaps forever, but something stopped you, not your frantic wife desperately trying to hold back tears…but Salena. Your daughter… the image of her sweet baby face flashing across your mind, like ambrosia of the gods. You were going out to find the bodies of your murdered friends and their infant son…if that was the case you needed…hope that the world hadn't really gone insane, proof that there was something pure and good worth living for. Something better than the world of fractured truths, shadows and fear that you and Crystal had carved out for yourselves, under the less than friendly gazes of your family.

So you swept up the staircase and into her room and looked at her. Just looked, just for a minute, brushing a downy soft curl off her face, and kissing her tenderly, your day old stubble scratching her delicate baby skin. She didn't wake, you knew it was selfish but you wanted her to, wanted to see her bright blue eyes, so like Crystal's, gazing up at you in innocent wonder, unaware and uncaring about who you were and what that meant. You were and are a Black, a killer if need be and capable of darker deeds than James ever knew, Remus suspected, but you know now only Peter knew the true darkness of your soul. If what you feared had come to pass, there would have been one more body by morning…and everything you'd ever wanted would still have been gone….

That thought almost broke you as you gazed at your tiny daughter, but quashing it down, you let the hate, the anger, the power fill your soul. You pulled the darkness around you like a cloak and swept out of the house to meet your destiny. You were so intent on it so focused that you barely even heard her begging you to stay, begging you to explain. It should have stung you, it was completely out of character, but you didn't listen, you shut down your heart. With a final resounding slam of the front door you grabbed your motorbike and flew away...and all hell broke loose.

You both found what you'd feared the most and what you'd hoped for. James and Lily dead but Harry mercifully alive. You finally realised that perhaps the prophecy had been true after all. It brought little comfort. You knelt by their bodies and wept, tears of joy, of grief…and of rage...and then you pulled yourself together and let the ice fill your heart, let the fury course through your veins.

You'd hoped the ride over would have sobered you up, but the rage, the hatred still burned, your whole nature screamed for vengeance, and you obeyed, obeyed the screaming of your blood. Half in a daze you handed over your bike to Hagrid and let him take poor Harry away. You had other things on your mind. It didn't take long for you to track Peter down, and the rest, as they say, is history. It still galls you to think that he finally managed to win, his first win and your first loss and it had to happen when the stakes were so incredibly high. The universe is a sick and twisted place, no wonder you were laughing when they dragged you away.

Does this girl, this stranger with your blood know that story? She must do, at least the basics, Harry does after all. You look at her and try desperately not to stare. This isn't the baby you left so long ago, that innocence you so cherished has long since fled. You always marvelled that someone like you could make something so innocent, you should have known that the taint of her blood would never have allowed her to stay that way and god knows you didn't help matters. Back then you never let yourself think that way; you had such high hopes for her, such grand dreams. She would be happy, free in a way that you and Crystal never were and you would protect her. It would seem then that you failed her on every level, this girl is hard, jaded…a Black. The one thing you never wanted her to be, to understand, what it means to truly be a part of your family, but she knows.

Her gaze does not flinch as your own, you know, less than friendly gaze interrogates her. She's survived worse and you know it. You want to curse at the world, curse Crystal, what the hell has she turned your precious daughter into? But you know, even without asking. Your gaze would have looked something like this girl's at thirteen. She raised her to be a part of your world. She's a pure blood, an aristocrat, throw her to the sharks and it's the sharks you should be concerned about. You know that, you can tell, but you never wanted this for her. This isn't what you fought so hard to see…but you knew…you knew if Crystal thought you'd betrayed her she'd go back to the only life she'd ever known, the only family she'd ever known and take your daughter with her. She'd always been so careful to never fully burn her bridges, always leaving room for retreat and you knew that. This shouldn't come as such a surprise, and yet it does.

This refined haughty creature in front of you is your daughter. She's beautiful, ethereal, aristocratic, you recognise yourself in her, before Azkaban, the cheekbones, the too proud tilt of the head, the whisper of challenge in the eyes, the smirk which is at once too impulsive and too guarded. She's everything you never wanted her to be and more. You see your pain reflected in those too familiar cerulean eyes, Crystal's eyes. She's just a child…and yet she's not.

Somehow you've managed to miss her entire childhood and come back to a girl on the cusp of womanhood. You know nothing about her, have no idea how to deal with her, and something about her stance, her gaze tells you implicitly that she is never going to forgive you for it. She blames you, not that she shouldn't, who else is there to blame? You were never there; you deserve it though it kills something inside thought long dead to see the smouldering accusation in those jaded depths.

She's seen too much, you know it already, but hadn't you at thirteen? She might as well have lived your life, only her's is worse. She grew up in the shadow of the last war, a generation risen from the ashes growing up with the stigma of a father like you. You don't doubt that she's tough, you can see it, arrogant too, so sure of herself and yet…so afraid. You see the uncertainty; lurking far beneath the cool surface in those too knowing eyes, see the worry, the fear she's trying so desperately to hide. She's good, you'll give her that, better than you ever were at hiding things at thirteen, wearing a mask, but then she's Crystal's daughter too and she always was composed, icy, in control. You know already that she has your impetuousness, your sharp tongue desperate to spit venom and heedless of the consequences, you can see her now swallowing some sarcastic retort as she waits in vein for you to say something. You won't, you don't have the words.

But honestly what can you say? I'm sorry I abandoned you. You know that sorry's not enough, know that she won't accept it but you need to say it, if only to have the words thrown back in your face.

You look away, unable to bear her own frank appraisal of you. The gods only knows what she'll see, Azkaban didn't just break your body it broke your mind too. You don't even want to think about just what horrors she'll be able to divine from your hollow, haunted gaze.

Uncertain she flicks her eyes towards Crystal, unconsciously looking for reassurance about this stranger, this unknown quantity, her father…You flinch, again you shouldn't be surprised, and yet you are. You're strangers and she's little more than a child, a very guarded child but still just a child. Your child, though it sure as hell doesn't feel that way.

You always heard parents speaking about 'bonds' with their children and laughed, you sure as hell never felt one with your parents…but Salena… Salena was different. From the moment she was born you felt it. Unconditional love, devotion unlike anything you'd ever felt before… You expected to feel that again, but all you feel is disconnected, longing and desperation for that closeness to return bubbling beneath the surface, but it won't. It's too late and you both know it.

You feel it pass between you like an electric current, an instinctive understanding, perhaps the only one you will ever share. This relationship is beyond salvation, the years in Azkaban have changed you both and you both know it, you will never have that closeness back again and you mourn its passing…but you can't go back. All you are is two strangers with some blood in common.

You didn't feel this rising despair with Harry, but then he's not your son and you can see James in him, shining so brightly that it almost blinds you. You know how to deal with James' son, but your daughter is another matter… You have no idea how to deal with a teenage girl, no idea how to deal with a reflection of yourself that you never wanted to see again. Gods this is hopeless! You feel it even now, and part of you wants to give up. You aren't that energetic young man anymore ready to take on the world and change everything, you feel a thousand, broken down and old having just watched all hopes of salvation vanish. You changed nothing; you couldn't even change your own daughter, let alone the world.

Yet you can't give up, perhaps there truly is nothing left to save, but does that mean it has to be over? She's still so young, there's still so much time… perhaps something new can be built over the ruins of the old. You know she won't be willing and you're so tired that you're not sure you have the strength to even try. But here you are, together again, yet in every way that matters still apart. You won't let it end like this, you won't let it just be over even if you don't know how to make this right, or even if its possible to do so. Where there is life, there's hope. This isn't finished, not yet.

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