A/N: Had a little read of PoA the other day and realised I'd made some mistakes regarding canon. Apparently, Sirius had no bars on his cell in Azkaban and so subsequently didn't starve himself to slip through them. I could've sworn it though. Where the hell do I get this crap? So, um, sorry about that.
Also, dialogue taken straight from PoA and is obviously not mine. (Because if it was, Remus and Sirius would have stabbed Peter in the head and run away to make sweet love somewhere deep within in the castle.)
9. blood
Maybe I need you the way that big moon needs that open sea,
maybe I didn't even know I was here 'til I saw you holding me.
Give me one room to come home to,
Give me the palm of your hand;
Every strand of my hair is a kite string
and I have been blue in the face with your sky...
The shack is dustier than he remembers, and he has the urge to fall to the floor and make angels in the thick coat of dust that sings fifteen years at his aching bones. Fifteen years of iron bars and rasping breaths that suck his happiness out through his teeth; fifteen years of nothing.
The Weasley boy moans softly in the corner. His cries are desperate and his blood still lingers on Sirius' tongue, but he knows he has him there, Pettigrew, the rat. He would kill him, he would kill him rightnowthisminute –
But Harry is coming. Harry, Harry, thirteen year old Harry, with James' hair and Lily's eyes and his very own recklessness; Harry is coming.
And then suddenly he is here, and he is violent and loud and Sirius says, "I thought you'd come and help your friend. Your father would have done the same for me," but Harry screams, "HE KILLED MY MUM AND DAD," at his friends and Sirius is numb.
This is wrong, all wrong, but he knew it would be, didn't he? Everything is wrong, everything has been wrong for so long because of him. That's why Sirius is here.
Harry is livid – so very like his father – and there is a struggle, his wand is in Sirius' face and Sirius can't think of the words to tell him he is wrong because, really, he's not. It is Sirius' fault but if he could explain, if he could only tell Harry -
And then fucking Remus is there and Sirius forgets how to think at all.
Remus snatches wands from small hands attached to confused teenagers, and walks to Sirius' side, and Sirius can feel his fingers shaking, his heart pounding in chest, and knows he has never felt this lost before.
"Where is he, Sirius?"
Sirius points at the rat in the Weasley boy's lap and Remus understands instantly.
Remus always does.
And when he pulls Sirius from the floor and wraps him up in his arms like a welcome back and a forgive me all in one, Sirius knows that maybe not everything is as hopeless as it was.
(He tries to ignore how much Remus smells like home.)