The twenty fourth time I shared a bed with Sirius Black was three weeks after Harry was born. Lily was stressed, shouting and snapping every time I spoke, every time I breathed. We argued, it seemed, constantly and I couldn't cope, neither of us could cope, not with Harry so close and so fragile. Finally, she took Harry and went. I'd come home from work and found a note on the dining table telling me she was leaving me, that we'd been young and reckless and rushed when we should have waited. Maybe that was the war talking, the desperate desire to experience life before it ended had pushed us into something that maybe we shouldn't have got into.
Something inside me snapped when I read that. I crumpled the note in my hand and stumbled towards the fireplace, grabbing floo powder as I passed and yelling out the name of Sirius' flat before I even knew what I was doing. I fell through the fireplace on the other side, hoping to anything that he was home.
'Prongs,' he was shocked, and rightly so. I had interrupted him at rather an inconvenient time. There was a girl, not someone I knew; straddling him and his tongue had been quite firmly down her throat when I had so rudely interrupted. As soon as he saw my face, however, he stood up, pushing the girl down onto the sofa next to him. She looked rather disgruntled.
'What's happened?' he asked. I sank down onto his floor, ignorant of the woman telling Sirius that she wouldn't be back and leaving, slamming the door behind her. He seemed about as interested in her at that point as I was. I held out the note to him silently, not trusting myself to speak at that point. He took it and read it quickly before crumpling it back up and throwing it into a corner and sitting down next to me, pulling me into his arms.
The scent of Sirius overwhelmed me, a scent that I was so accustomed to. Its familiarity pushed me over the brink. Tears began to fall and I sobbed into his shoulder as he held me in silence, knowing that no words could help. She didn't love me, she didn't want me, and she'd taken my son away. I buried myself in Sirius' presence, trying to hide from everything.
The tears stopped eventually and he let me go. I sat up groggily.
'I love Lily,' I said, feeling the need to say it, feeling that he needed to hear it, needed to know what was going on in my mind. I owed him that at least.
'I know.' He answered simply; open, ready to hear what I needed to say.
'I've loved her since forever. I just...I didn't realise it would be like this. Having Harry, I love him more than anything, but...it's all the time. I haven't slept in weeks. Lily's snapping at everything I say. I fell in love with her before I knew her properly, or she's changed, or I've changed. I still love her, of course I do, but...she's not the Lily Evans I fell in love with anymore. She's...I don't know. Maybe it's my own fault. Maybe it is me that's changed. Maybe it's me that's wrong. Maybe she made a mistake in thinking she loved me. Maybe I'm just unlovable...'
'No,' he said it quietly, in a deadly serious voice that stilled my heart. I blinked up at him, shocked out of my ranting by the fierceness of his gaze. I leant towards him, tears stilled, seeing in that gaze more pain than I had ever seen there before. I cupped his face in my hands.
'What is it? Padfoot?' I asked, not knowing how to help him, not knowing what to do to stop that huge well of pain from hurting him anymore. He closed his eyes.
'I can't Prongs.' He choked, trying to bury the pain, trying to turn away from me and push it further into himself. We didn't do that. I couldn't let him do that. I still don't know why I did it, but I leant further towards him and before I knew it we were kissing, passionately, desperately. He pulled back, looking away. I reached out, forcing him to meet my gaze.
'I love you,' he said. And suddenly I realised that I'd know that for ages. Ever since the first night he'd let me into his bed, I'd known he loved me, and so I told him so.
'I know,' I replied, running a hand through his hair. He pushed me away, tears beginning to leak from his eyes.
'You love Lily,' he said, pain laced through his voice as he said it, but we both knew it was true.
'I know,' I replied, stupidly, not knowing what else to do, what else to say to ease his pain. His tears were coming faster now and I ached to make it all better for him.
'Padfoot, Sirius, listen to me. I love Lily, that doesn't mean,' I took a deep breath, considering the damage all of this could do to everything I held dear, to my family, my son, but then I looked back into Sirius' eyes and knew I was right, 'That doesn't mean I don't love you too.'
'As a brother. As a friend. I love you as more than that James.' He spat out, turning away from me. I sighed and spoke to his back.
'I do love you as a brother. And I love you as a friend. But I set not limits on my love. I love you as everything you want me to love you as, no matter how much I deny it. You and me, Padfoot, it's like we're the same person. With you, there's never anything that I can't show. I know you, better than I know anyone else in the whole world. I love Lily, yes, like I would love a pretty flower that bloomed outside my window. She was never really here for me, never real. You, you were with me every time I needed a friend. You've seen me at my lowest, you've seen my cruelty and my harshness, my stupidity and my arrogance and I've seen yours. I know you Sirius, and to know someone as completely as I know you is to love them.'
I sat there for a moment. Even I hadn't known that I'd had those thoughts. And yet, nothing I'd said could be a lie. It was all true, every word. I reached out a hand, laying it on Sirius' back. He turned quickly and threw himself on me in a tangle of limbs, lips and tongues. He pulled back after a moment and grinned at me.
'You have no idea how long I've wanted to hear that,' he murmured, holding me as tightly as I held him.
'Probably not, I tend to be a bit clueless.' I grinned at him, he wrapped me in his arms again, pulling me upright and propelling me to what I knew was his bedroom. I reached out, suddenly afraid, grabbing his hand and he looked at me. His eyes told me everything I needed to know. This was Sirius. He'd held me when I cried, he'd let me see his tears, he'd shared my bed countless times, and I had shared his, he'd let me treat his wounds when nobody else could get near him, he'd clung on to life for my sake, he'd stroked my hair when I was mindless with pain, hell, he'd even been the first person I kissed. He was nothing to fear. There was nothing of me that I couldn't trust him with.
And so I went. And I realised in that night everything that I had been missing out on for the many nights previously. I realised what it was to love and be loved in return, to give everything and trust everything without fear, without reservation. I realised that I loved Sirius just as deeply as he loved me, that I always had, even before I'd known what love really was. I realised what perfection and wholeness and wonder and all those cliché things really were. I could have had this for years, but I would have it from now, and that made up for it. I could have his love.
The next day I received Dumbledore's owl. He told Lily and I about the prophecy. We had to take Harry and go into hiding, together, as a family. Nobody but the secret keeper could be allowed to know where we were. We could see no-one.
And so I moved back in with Lily, sleeping in separate beds, barely talking, ignoring each other whenever possible, but I still loved the idea that I had fallen for all those years before. I knew now that it was the idea of Lily that I loved, not the person. Harry held my life together, Harry and the memories of Sirius that night, the hope that after the war we could come together again, this time forever. I lived as half a person, waiting for him to complete me again. Then Halloween came and everything ended in the rushing sound of death on wings.
I never saw Sirius again.
A/N- Thank you all for sticking by this story, for all the wonderful reviews and people being interested, you really helped me to keep writing. I'm really glad you all enjoyed it. And I am sorry. Believe me, I am.