Notes:
Hi.
Sorry for the delay, I have been ill this past week, but I'm better now. So don't worry. Still this chapter feels kind of boring, very little happens. I feel so bad about this.
SPIDERWEB
Chapter 19-Torturous friendship
Sirius leaned over Remus now unconscious and little by little getting more and more human, as the wolf's features faded.
Then, as he picked the man up against his chest to lift him in his arms, and despite the dark patches of blood on the werewolf's cheeks and around his mouth, despite the tracks of weariness and grief that framed his bruised eyelids, when Black looked down at Remus, he could not help but see the eleven-year-old boy he had meet his first year at Hogwarts.
That boy desperately longing to believe that he could have a friend who accepted what he was, but that did not trust it was possible, and that even two years later, still, sometimes, watched them as if they were going to leave him.
It was…
He grabbed Lupin a little tighter, rising to leave the sitting room.
Behind them the Death Eater's corpse looked with glassy eyes, as they left.
Little did Sirius care, if anything. No one would regret the death of a Death Eater of such a low rank.
House elves would take care of the trash.
oOo
Accommodating Remus in an empty room, so he could sleep and forget for a few hours, didn't take him long.
It took Sirius longer to find the aseptic room of the tiny private infirmary, which now belonged to him as the Dark Lord's executor. Just like all the other dependencies of the north wing of the palace, and their servants.
When opening the door signaled by a small plaque with the name; Infirmary, he found a space without windows, filled by a bed, a small table, the closet containing the medicines and a single chair, in which the Mediwizard had some empty vials, bandages, and a basin full of pink and dirty water, which he was already picking up to get clean.
When he looked up to see his new patron enter.
The man inclined his head politely. Serious and professional. He must have been in the second half of his thirties, and his deep, chocolate brown hair was beginning to show silvery strands at his temples.
Sirius returned the greeting, but did not entertain himself with more formalities.
"How is him?"
In the bed, under the blankets, a lump indicated the presence of someone lying face to the wall.
"I gave him esquelegrow for the clavicle, and a potion for blood regeneration. The wound in his side has been a bit more complex to deal with since it had touched several organs. But in two or three days he should be in working shape." Which did not exclude the patient from continuing to experience pain, but the Mediwizard had long since learned to estimate the time of recovery of the slaves in what was functional, and not in what was optimal for the convalescent.
Sirius nodded briefly, his gaze on the bed.
"And the shock?"
"Taken care of." Simple, cold. "Can I retire now?"
When The Executor gave his permission, Anthony closed his suitcase and left the room without looking back. He felt sorry for the boy inside, but did not intend to stay and see what was going to happen.
Too well he knew what to expect.
Sirius waited for the Mediwizard to leave, before closing the room with a web of anti-spy barriers.
And only when he was satisfied with the result, did he pocket his wand again, before falling into the chair by the bed. His shoulders, for the first time in hours, plunging precariously under a weight, he had not allowed anyone to see.
Beneath the blankets, Teddy held his breath. Yet...
"Teddy, I know you're awake. You don't have to hide." said in the soft, calm, and sympathetic tone of the uncle who had taught him to ride a broom. The one who had brought him sweets hidden in the pockets of his coat whenever he returned from his missions, when getting one was almost a miracle…
"Teddy?"
"How could you?" Teddy's voice cracked, but he wasn't going to cry. He was no child... yet, neither was he brave enough to get out of the blankets.
His face burned with shame and agony, wanting to hate the man who spoke to him, but unable to. The memories of his childhood didn't let him. And not being able to reject the one who had caused his mother's death, was killing him from the inside.
Sirius felt his fist want to close, furious, but he did not allow the gesture to materialize. He was furious, yes, but not at Teddy. And if he allowed anger to be reflected in his countenance, nothing he said would reach his godson. His second godson.
Harry ... Harry was gone, but he could still care for Teddy. Do for him what he had been unable to for his first baby boy.
"I don't expect you to understand. But I hope you will forgive me someday." he offered… since he couldn't speak the truth.
Teddy sat up straight. Those words awakening what was left of his rage under so much pain.
"FORGIVE YOU?! AFTER MOM'S DEAD!? After what you have done?!" His hands tightened convulsively on the sheets.
Teddy's hair looked limp and deadly gray, framing his immense and colorless eyes, making them seem much larger and tragic.
The bandages that enveloped his slender naked torso were as white as his skin, and just as fragile.
Sirius felt how the facade he had been sporting so long, began to collapse with the desire to embrace that boy, who was like the son he never had.
He had never been able to see Teddy suffer, and in that regard, as in many others, the last hours had been a personal hell, which still seemed unable to end.
"Teddy ..." He reached out to comfort him.
"DON'T!" the boy pulled away like a hunted animal. "You got the Death Eaters in Hogwarts! You betrayed Draco! You fooled Daddy into telling things you should not have known!" Tears spilled over his puffy eyes, and rolled down his cheeks, as he shook, trying to contain them. "You ... you ...!" he broke completely down, covering his face with his hands, trying to stifle the violent sobs making his whole body tremble, finally sinking into the open arms of his godfather. His last words a barely discernible murmur. "… I trusted you…"
Teddy had never felt so small, nor so distressed, as at that moment, when he could only think of his mother's disjointed face, before the green light of the curses and the orange reflections of the flames had settled on her skin. Images repeating and repeating in his head, behind his eyes, in his very bones; increasingly distorted and monstrous pictures, degrading like a photocopy of a photocopy of a photocopy, burning like acid.
The weight of the hatred he could not feel adding grams every time he recalled the scene, increasing the enormous burden that was gradually crushing him.
oOo
(Sirius)
It was as if all the guilt and grief he had been repressing suddenly escaped in a sweeping torrent, to crush Sirius, once Teddy collapsed against his chest, burying his face in the robe that smelled of slightly wilted things, dog and soap, heartbreaking sobs that turned into hysterical murmurs racking his frame.
Sirius embraced the boy tightly against his body, caressing his sweat-soaked hair, trying to relieve a suffering that was impossible to alleviate.
And yet, despite what he had done, of what he was still going to do, Teddy kept letting him hug him.
Black wasn't sure that he could do anything to break the affection of his nephew. And knowing that he had betrayed someone who loved him so much, soon became his own kind of pain. He felt rotten inside, full of slippery worms of spite, and whispering insects of lies ... he could not let go.
Sirius could only try to calm Teddy, as guilt swallowed him in the increasingly violent sobs of the little boy. And he swallowed up the truth like a bitter syrup, so as not to give it voice.
oOo
(Teddy)
His breathing became hysterical, and he began to feel himself choking on his own saliva, unable to swallow.
A large, paternal hand settled on the curve of his back, softly patting, helping catch his breath, even if slowly, as he closed his eyes and fists, catching his godfather's robe in his fingers, afraid that when he let it go, the man might disappear and abandon him.
oOo
Sirius had believed he had been immunized to the pain of others years ago.
A decade in prison, the loss of his first godson, and the long war that followed, had exhausted his ability to empathize until it was almost unusable. Yet, a tenacious root of sensitivity refused to die, clinging tightly to those few people he still cared for.
Probably because of the rarity of those moments when he could really suffer seeing the agony of another, and because of the dearness of those who were currently able to achieve that effect, the few occasions in which it happened, the sensation was intense.
Almost like rocking the same wounds as the other.
It wasn't nice. But he usually knew what to do to relieve them; With Remus, it was company and hours of remembering youthful moments long past. With Draco, it was expensive alcohol and calm back nights playing magic chess. With Hermione, the last book that would have managed to plunder from his latest mission. With Minerva, calm afternoons by the fire.
With Teddy, Rose and Hugo, there was always a toy, a story, a joke, he could get out from what was left of his dry sense of humor.
With all of them there were always words, and the physical closeness of a loved one, to compete with the last wounds offered by the war. But now, none of his methods could make any difference for Teddy.
Neither the jokes, nor the toys, nor the company, could alleviate the weight of what he had seen, oppressive and terrible. A burden Teddy should never have had to bear.
Sirius felt the snake-like scaly rings of self-disgust, curl around the ventricles of his heart, and rest on his lungs. Teddy's pain echoed in his own flesh, along with Harry's much older echo ...
The only difference was that Teddy was still alive, so that Sirius could contemplate how he was falling apart into particles, until he died. A death of the soul, not so evident, but just as harmful as that of the body. So easy to see in the tension of the infantile anatomy ... In his limbs still thin as a child's, un his brow furrowed in a gesture halfway between sadness and pain. Over his lips pressed in a dashed white line, full of apprehension. And sculpted on pale cheeks and damp eyelashes, which emphasized his suffering like marker.
In his arms, Teddy was just an infant, who had barely begun to reach adolescence, unable to cope with such intense pain. And if Sirius did not lift the weight, he would be crushed by it.
He loved the boy too much to allow it.
That's why he was willing to commit an even greater crime.
"Teddy?"
Teddy closed his eyes harder.
Sirius let his fingers caress the sweaty hair, reassuring. But when he spoke, he did so with a firm voice, so that his godson had something solid to hold on to, and something he could obey without making a greater effort than he was capable of attaining in this state.
"Teddy, I know you're awake. Open your eyes and look at me."
Gray eyelashes quivered, breath became a shaky sound, and the muscles stirred under the skin, before finally the eyelids parted, letting the clear irises appear, light as foam.
"... Uncle Sirius ..." Teddy's gaze fell on his, with the desperation of someone who does not know what to do, or what to believe. Sirius pulled the wand from his pocket.
"Legilimens."
Penetrating Teddy's mind was like sticking through tissue paper. There was no resistance to prevent entry. The barriers separating the intimate thoughts from the rest of the consciousness were made of little more than paperboard pulp and glue, and reaching the deepest parts, was extremely simple.
Inside. The first thing he felt was the touch of water. Cold, painful. Here the sadness was raining in the form of a downpour.
Then he could see, look, under the whip of the storm, the place madera of boxes and things that only had value in the eyes of a child; Scraps of colored fabrics, glossy papers, brass pieces, bird feathers ... that sank into the mud. Soaked, soft, and insubstantial.
Contemplating memories was as simple as sinking fingers into the wet carton that filled the walls.
He saw how Hogwarts had collapsed around the resistance. The children screaming trying to escape. Tonks' desperate effort to save Teddy while the Death Eaters surrounded them. The blood, the screams ...
"Um ..." Teddy whined in his arms.
Sirius watched him, still disoriented by the intrusion, pale and aching. He was puzzled by the memories that nibbled at the marrow of his bones.
At that moment, he decided his godson did not need to suffer, for something that had not been his responsibility.
Carefully, he rested the tip of his wand on her pale temple.
"Obliviate."
oOo
(Remus)
Fear woke Remus.
Tense and paralyzed, his eyes opened a narrow groove, shielding themselves from the painfully intense light of the lamps. The remains of the nightmare that had awakened him, still clinging to his brain, in the form of stale, spongy, immaterial mold.
Another bad dream in a succession, which, with the war, had become more and more frequent, to the point of being a daily occurrence.
The same fears, in the same outfits, repeated over and over again with the familiarity of a bad habit.
And yet this one had been different, more vivid and violent. Soaked in shimmering colors that had nothing to do with the dull brown dyes of his usual nightmares.
He was not accustomed to images of Hogwarts blazing in powerful reds and violent oranges, to the baby-blue of Teddy's pajamas drenched in black blood and white snow, people shouting in purple, howling in green, scarlet pain, and raw fear. Sickly yellow, terrible, and powerful...
The bombardment on his psyche, which was not ready to face the new terrors, made the dream take on a sharper definition than those he was accustomed to. Awakening him with straining nerves, like pork guts put to dry.
Only when in the amber light of the lamps- still a slit between his eyelids- the dreams began to dissolve, did his heartbeat start to calm down, and his quick and agitated breath start deepening. Until finally he was able to push the remains of sleep into the corner of his mind where he put all the memories he never visited, if he could avoid doing so.
Forcing himself to return to reality.
The nightmare had left a ghost of sharp, spongy pain in his bones, accompanied by a muchos more familiar feeling inside his skull, stuffed with imaginary cotton, which he knew, would take a few minutes to dissipate.
He blinked forcing himself to wake up completely, ignoring the heavy exhaustion that tugged at the marrow of his limbs, trying to convince him to close his eyes again. To try to sleep a little longer.
Slowly he opened his eyes completely, his pupils adjusting to the potent orange light in the room.
Overhead, a cream-colored high ceiling like those of mansions or castles began to come into focus and acquire definition. But it's smooth, not grainy gray stone, was not the weared from centuries of use rock of Hogwarts.
His muscles began to tighten immediately, though his senses did not report any sound or odor, out of the spicy fire in the chimney, which might indicate a danger.
'What place is this?'
He turned his head, appreciating the softness and thickness of the pillow, and observed that the room he was in was one of refined taste; broad, windowless, furniture of flowing lines and pale colors.
Suddenly nervous, not remembering where he was, nor how he had come here, Remus began to rise, fighting the momentary disorientation.
This was not normal, he never felt so confused when he woke up. Not unless it was the result of having being unconscious.
Already standing, one hand resting on one of the bedposts, seeking to keep his balance, instinctively he tried to find the last note in his memory.
Everything that Sirius' sleep residual magic had blocked, returned to reopen the wound, which for a few minutes seemed to have ceased to exist.
His joints loosened, as if the memory had cut the cartilage that held them together, and he needed the wooden post to hold up his weight, as his knuckles turned white around the soft cinnamon-colored surface. The only thing he could think of; Teddy.
" ... Teddy …" memories of his wounded son, red blood soaking baby-blue fabric, being dragged from his side by a couple of Death Eaters, woke his beast and made him scream.
"Teddy!" The betrayal of the one who had been his best friend turned the cry into something else." TEDDY! "A heartbreaking scream that came out of his throat like something inhuman.
The last howl of a wounded animal; Challenge, resentment, and a piercing pain, unbearable, impossible to contain or quell.
The change began to tingle, again, under his skin …
oOo
(Teddy)
Teddy opened his eyes wearily, and felt his whole body ache, but in a distant way, like a tickle un his nerves, muffled by potions and spells.
"Dad?" He muttered. Because he did not remember how it was that he had Endesa himself in the infirmary (the aseptic smell of medicines and herbs, said it could not be anywhere else).
"Your father was asleep when I left, but we can go and see if he's already awake."
Teddy blinked and turned his head, recognizing his godfather's voice. Next to his bed, sitting in a chair as white and simple as the rest of the room, which he could now see was not the infirmary of Hogwarts, was Sirius.
The clothes wrinkled, his gaze very tired, but as firm and solid as ever.
His presence exerted a calming effect on the nerves that had begun to tangle in his intestines. His uncle would tell him what was happening and where they were.
"What happened?" He mused raspy, his tongue feeling dry in his mouth.
Sirius rested a hand on his pale fingers, spread on the pristine sheets, warm and large, protective. With the other he offered a glass.
The fresh water did Teddy good.
"Don't you remember? Although it was to be expected as strongly as you hit your head. "Sirius said, as he laid his other hand on his godsons forehead, kindly.
Teddy shook his head no, feeling calmer, listening blindly.
"Hogwarts has been attacked and we have had to disperse. I'm so sorry, Teddy, but until things calm down and we can contact the order, we'll have to stay here. Your father, you and me."
" ... and mom? …" the boy's voice came out small, even if not even him knew why. "Is she okay? and the others?" His brain was filled with them, not even registering the humiliation of his godfather seeing him tremble for the first time in ten years.
As in those nights when his parents were out on a mission, and it was Sirius's quiet voice and big hands, the warmth of his chest, the one who lulled Teddy, so he could sleep without nightmares.
"They are well, left before us." An answer that might have been made of tissue paper, so soft and light, as it had been spoken.
Yet, it eased the weight of Teddy's fears, with deep relief.
oOo
(Remus)
"TEDDY!"
"… Dad? Dad! I'm here. I'm here." his baby's scent got into his lungs, even before his brain registered the warm weight of a little body against his chest. Thin, fragile, arms, around his back. And small hands with delicate fingers, buried in his shirt.
The contact acted as an instant balm.
Relieving the wrath of the wolf, which had begun to stretch beneath his flesh, and arousing his paternal instinct, now that his son, his pup (the beast murmured), was where he should be. Safe. By his side.
The discomfort under his dermis, which heralded the beginning of the change, did not disappear, but it dwindled into a threat, more than the certainty it had been only a minute ago.
" ... Teddy …" Remus whispered inhaling the scent that gave off his soft hair; Clean, the aseptic aroma of medicines, and the salt of dry tears, which he could still scent.
"Papa ..." The whisper, a word muffled in his shirt, where Teddy had sunk his nose, was almost inaudible. But with the wolf so close to the surface, Remus had no difficulty catching it. "Why did you yell?"
"I thought you were taken away," he murmured. One hand buried in his son's hair, holding the small skull. The other on his back, where he could feel Teddy's heartbeat, and the rhythmic cadence of his breathing. "How are you?" asked Remus, unable to loosen the hug enough, to study his wounds. He felt that if he allowed it, Teddy would slip between his fingers like sand, until he disappeared.
Perhaps it was only anxiety, but after all he had seen on this last nightmarish day, his instinct was the only thing that seemed to remain sane.
The little body lulled into his chest, sharing the same need. And Remus held him a little closer, calming his baby boy, and calming himself, with the certainty of being close.
"I'm fine. Uncle Sirius took me to the infirmary." Teddy answered "I will hace tiempo rest a few days to fully heal, but it hardly hurts."
"Uncle ... Sirius?" A nasty shiver ran down Remus's back, and between the stumps of his spine, like tiny poisonous insects with sharp legs.
He looked up.
Teddy nodded.
But Remus no longer studied him, but the other man, dark, standing in front of the door, like another shadow, he had not noticed until now.
"Sirius." The sound was three strangled syllables.
"Remus." A whisper.
Black, who had been his best friend, looked bad.
His blue eyes rested in deep basins of mauve shadows, and there were bags under his tired eyelids. His black hair had spread around his face, and over his shoulders, in a tangle of tufts, as if he had run his hands through them nervously and compulsively. His clothes were the same ones from the night before. Luxurious and still clean, but full of wrinkles. The man must have slept in them, if he had at all, as his greyish skin spoke of insomnia.
If he had closed his eyes, it had been for very short time.
And yet, his posture was that of an individual prepared to be hit; Straight back, legs slightly apart, arms free on both sides of the torso, and face impassive, calm, and scrutinizing.
Teddy caught the strange, sudden, stillness of his father, and turned around so he could look over his arms at his uncle.
The animosity between the two adult men was impossible to ignore. The anxiety, materialized again, like a hard blow between his ribs.
"Uncle Sirius ...?" His father pulled him closer to his chest, now hard with the tension he could feel building up in the muscles beneath his shirt. The tight embrace, on the verge of being painful, made Teddy feel even more nervous, nearly hysterical.
His father's words only made him more frantic.
"What have you done to him, Sirius?" The sound more a grunt than something else, pronounced as it was between clenched teeth.
Sirius made no move to respond. But Remus knew his masks well; There was a great weight on his old friend. A weight that could well be measured in flesh and blood.
Anger burned within him like acid, and yet so many years of friendship created reflections that were difficult to eradicate. Seeing the dark man, so clearly suffering, made Remus want to lend his shoulder for support, and his arms as a refuge.
But he clenched his teeth and silenced that need, in the embrace with which he was holding his son.
"What did you do to him?" He repeated.
Sirius's gaze shifted for a moment to Teddy, who watched his godfather with the huge eyes of a frightened child, full of restlessness and confusion. Not knowing what to think, or what to believe. And Remus could see that the one he had considered his brother in heart, if not in blood, didn't want his son to hear this conversation.
"Speak," he hissed. If he had had the courage to sell everything they had fought so hard to protect, he might well have it now to confess one more betrayal. And Teddy needed, as much as he did, to know what they were up against.
Sirius looked at Remus; Furious and wounded, the beast that so seldom could be seen in the serene man, present and alive, like a whisper behind his irises, not only brown, but tinged with feral gold.
In the end, the accusing gaze of the one who had been his best friend, was heavier than his desire to keep his nephew out if this. After all, these were words that the boy would sooner or later come to know. Now, or later, from his father's lips.
Still, they were only words, and even if they hurt, they would never hold the terrible pain the memories he had removed had.
This time he didn't try to avoid answering.
"I've erased his memory of what happened. It was better this way." He left without saying that the memories of what he had seen, would have killed Teddy. He kept for himself what he had seen in them, so as not to hurt father and son more than necessary.
Remus had already lost Tonks, what could be good about losing his son too? This way, he could keep a half of his family.
From the betrayal of his best friend, he would recover. Sirius knew that Remus would not let himself be broken when his son needed him so much. But losing Teddy? Of that, his friend would not recover.
And Sirius would have made much more sinful things than erasing some memories to keep Remus whole.
"It was best for him." 'It was the best thing for you' he left unsaid.
Lupin frowned, suddenly, somehow, confused.
In the sudden stillness, the light of the fireplace had time to be noticed; An amber gleam in his brown hair, and the werewolf's tawny eyes. Remus' face began to lose his anger, gaining in pain, in agony.
"Why are you doing this? If you didn't give a damn about anything ..." he swallowed, trying to find words to describe what he'd seen. The horror he felt, the pain that was pulling inside him like a deep-drawn hook. Remus's pupils were beginning to feel damp, and there was an agonizing sting in his throat, which he did not let himself acknowledge. "Why don't you want him to suffer?"
The muscles in his arms flexed under the skin, with a thought of their own, as if confirming that Teddy was still there. A warm weight against his increasingly agitated chest. Breathing was beginning to be a strange exercise, interrupted by the tightening knot in his throat, and the desire more and more intense, to break into sobs, or in hysterical screams.
Teddy seemed to have been silenced by the scene, and he just stared at the development with huge, crystalline eyes, filled with tears and confusion.
Remus looked into Sirius's gaze, searching for something he hoped he would not see, and yet was there, just as it had always been, just as he had always thought would be, until the very day he could no longer look inside the blue surface of those eyes; care. Love. Not the same one he knew in Ninfadora's ever-changing eyes, not ardent and dancing, but warm and permanent. And that should not be there, in the eyes of a genocide and a traitor.
It would have been easier to find just cold, or hate.
Indifference would have hurt more than resentment, but it would have made more sense.
This ... this hurt a lot more.
Because he could not understand or reconcile the man he thought he was seeing, with whom he had seen standing by the dark lord.
"Why?" He repeated in a choked, almost broken gasp.
Sirius curled his fingers, not allowing himself to form a fist, just to keep them away from his friend. Comfort was not something he could offer now, even if he wanted to with all that he was.
Words was what Remus needed to hear. And Sirius knew what he was going to give, even if it was not what Sirius wanted to pronounce, nor what Remus would want to hear.
He composed an expression even more cold, solid and difficult to interpret, to accompany them.
Surius forced his voice to a calm modulation, which was as far from his feelings at that moment as water was of blood.
"We were losing the war. To be honest, we had lost it a long time ago." He thought about Harry, his tomb empty of body, because the beasts of the forest must have devoured him. And let that ice of loss, reflect in his eyes, and the edge of his mouth. "We were dying, little by little. And Remus," Cold, so cold, his shoulders squared gently, almost imperceptibly. "I'm already tired of watching those who matter to me die."
"Sirius …" Just his name. Remus swallowed hard, but he could feel the dampness on his cheeks, where tears had begun to fall, despite his fierce desire to retain them.
"This is not the best way, I know. But it's the only one." and this was true now, so true, that agony could not describe the sensation it caused him. "... The only way I found, to save you."
Remus was breaking inside, again and completely, without Teddy in his arms, he would not have known how to hold on. Guilt, grief, and anger were a crushing weight.
"Save us? What about Hermione? About Ron? Draco?" Draco, who now he knew, had almost died because of Sirius. That maybe was dead already. "And what about Tonks?" A whisper, almost unable to utter her name. "What about all of them, Sirius? What about all the people who lived at Hogwarts?"
Sirius didn't move, nor did he react, as empty and hard as stone. Only his eyes seemed alive now, but the pupils had swallowed the iris, and the inside was the black of tar and rotten things.
"I could not save them all. But if Rose, Hugo, Hermione or Draco, appear alive, I will protect them as I have done with you."
Remus gasped breathlessly.
"... And Ron?" He remembered his cry when Teddy and he had been dragged behind Sirius. The redhead was alive, perhaps now in the labyrinth under the castle, probably being tortured.
The one who had been his friend did not speak. But the answer was obvious.
"... you have not forgiven him for Harry. Have you?" He hesitated. He knew instantly that he shouldn't have talked about it, not now, not after so many years of avoiding it.
Sirius looked at him with eyes too black and poisonous to be the friend he remembered. And though it should have made him feel better, the vision only made the heartbreaking sensation inside him even more unbearable.
"No, I have not forgiven him."
Tears slid more copiously down Remus's cheeks, but did not erode the protective pose he kept around Teddy.
"What he did is no worse than what you are doing now." He mouthed.
"... I'll get you some dinner."
"... Sirius..." But the other had left.
To be continued