Wrap up
Eight floors below, the Slys were coming home. It was past curfew but it was still early, and there were still people in the Common Room. Paul went up to his bedroom for the notes on the Ancient Magics and Deborah for clean clothes to take to Sev's bedroom to change on the spot the next morning.
Valerie and Andrew settled in with Sev at the table, who was with his elbow on it and his head on his hand, defeated. Valerie sat next to him and Andrew opposite, she continued to cuddle him and give him tender kisses and caresses. Deborah and Paul came down and sat with them too.
Valerie asked him, "Is there anything else you want to tell us all?"
"No, I prefer to discuss things with Deborah first, and tomorrow we'll talk among everyone."
"Okay, but don't do it now. Now sleep, do it in the morning if you wake up earlier."
Deborah spoke to him bonded, "Or during breakfast, bonded or projecting."
He responded to both of them out loud, "Okay, I'll do it in the morning."
"I did want to tell you something," Valerie told him.
"Tell me."
"We are going to exchange places in the Great Hall. You will continue to sit on one side of your little one and on the other with one of us, with whoever you want."
Deborah spoke to him bonded, "Sit with Valerie, she is more affectionate than me, and we are already in communication through the Bond, so we can continue practicing Projection looking into each other's eyes. Tell her now."
Sev spoke out loud, "Okay, Valerie, with you, thank you very much."
"Excellent!" she exclaimed. "I'm going to steal him from you, Deborah, as soon as you don't watch."
The others laughed, Sev just smiled.
Valerie continued, "So we'll meet here tomorrow at a quarter past eight to leave the house at twenty past eight and take a seat. Tell Anthony if he's already in the bedroom, but don't tell Jack anything. We'll save space for him and his sister next to Ariel so the boy can still be with his friend, and Jack on the other side. What do you think?"
"Fantastic," Deborah said.
"I'm going to change with you too," Paul said.
"Wonderful, the whole family together," Valerie said. "Andrew, tell George too, I'll tell Angie. We'll stay in the same place, don't we, Prince? So you can see Lily across."
"Yes, please," Sev replied.
"Perfect. Tomorrow morning we'll set up the choreography, now you're going to be wrapped up."
"Thank you very much, Valerie." He cried, they hugged each other sitting on the chairs.
"Come on, don't suffer. We should have done it much sooner. You will not be alone again, only when you want."
"I don't think I ever want to be anymore."
"Well, you won't be," she said. "Deborah and I will take turns sleeping with you."
"Thank you."
"Come on, go to bed and sleep straight for more than nine hours, tomorrow you'll be like new."
Deborah and Sev went upstairs to his bedroom. Anthony was there, Jack wasn't. Deborah spoke to him bonded, "Get into bed, I'll talk to Anthony, I'm also going to tell him about the ritual of the fir tree."
"Thank you, Deborah."
Sev went to the bathroom while Deborah was talking to Anthony and then undressed and climbed into bed in his usual position, Deborah arriving a couple of minutes later. (How fast she is, she's very efficient. And Anthony swallows with everything, maybe they've cut off right away, I'll ask her tomorrow.)
She asked him, bonded, "Do you want skin against skin? Do I take it all off?"
"Yes please."
Deborah closed the curtain on her side, undressed and got into bed, hugging him from behind and tucking her arm under the pillow as well, discovering that he had his wand in his hand. She asked him, very sweetly, "What are you doing with your wand in your hand, Prince?"
"I don't know, I got used to sleeping like this."
"Well, it's about time you lost that habit, you're no longer in any danger, at least not here and now. Leave it on the bedside table or in the drawer, come on."
"Sure."
He did, put it down on the nightstand. He cried again, Deborah realized it. "Turn around for a while and hug me, come on, don't cry alone."
He did, turned, and they hugged.
"Deborah, have you thought about Bonding as a Couple?"
"Yes Prince."
"And what have you decided?"
"That we will do it if you want," she replied.
"I want. I need to feel what you feel for me as long as possible, it suits me very well."
"Do you want to do it right now?"
"No, maybe tomorrow if we wake up early, now I prefer to sleep," he answered.
"Will you be able to fall asleep right away? Do you have any concerns?"
"No, Deborah, I'm going to sleep right away. I'm defeated, I think I'll even be able to do it like this. Can you sleep like this?"
"I can sleep in any position, Prince and whenever I want. I disconnect from everything at bedtime, and even more so hugging you, I am in the clouds."
"Thank you, Deborah, what a healthy person you are. I would never separate from you."
"Neither I from you. Have you set the alarm clock?"
"No, I've forgotten."
"Don't worry. Leave me your watch, I'm going to wake up before you, I'll wake you up. What time?"
"Tomorrow five minutes of shower is enough for me. Something before eight."
He gave her his watch. She caressed his face tenderly, as Valerie had done. (She's learning from Valerie, how cute.) Sev fell asleep within two minutes and she soon after, bonded, they dreamed the same.
A little less than two hours later, Lily waited Disillusioned in the darkest corner of Gryff's Common Room. She saw Remus appear followed by Black. Remus pointed Black to the corner where she was, then sat down on the couch and Disillusioned himself.
When Black was a couple of steps away, she made the pass to appear. Black sat across from her and verbally cast the Disillusioner again, Lily did the non-verbal Muffliato and lit a candle before her.
"Now we are safe, Black, it is not convenient for them to see us conspiring."
"You are absolutely right, I still have a lot to learn from you. I would prefer you call me Sirius, as you can imagine I hate my last name."
Very good, giving me confidence from the first moment. I'm not going to read him unless it's strictly necessary. "You can also call me Lily."
"Thank you, Lily, for the trust."
He stays quiet for a while so I can read him. "Tell me, what did you want to talk to me about?"
"Nothing you don't want to. I just wanted to offer to help you in any way I can."
"I suppose it was due to the meeting you had with Sev this morning," she said.
"Of course."
"You have drawn your own conclusions from it, regardless of what you have talked about."
"That's how it is," he confirmed.
"Are you tired?"
"Yes a bit."
"Remus gave you a vial of potion?" Lily asked.
"Yes, here I have it," he took it out of the pocket of his robe.
"How long do you think we will need to talk?"
"I think an hour will be enough," Sirius replied.
"Yes, I think so too. This potion will keep you awake but you will have a hard time sleeping. You would need to take another one that I also have here, with which each hour of sleep is worth three."
"The one with which Remus recovers from his crisis?"
"Yes, Sev's invention," she answered.
"Wow…" admired.
"Do you want to take them?"
"I don't know if it's worth it for an hour, I'm used to staying up late," he replied.
"Whatever you want."
"I better not take anything at the moment, and if we go on too long, give me that one to sleep on."
"Of course, whatever you want," Lily said. "Then begin by telling me the conclusions you've reached."
"Know that I don't want to put you in trouble, talk to you about issues that you may not be able to talk about."
He does not want to imply that he knows that we read, he is too discreet. Normal, he is learning, I have to help him. "Don't worry, I don't have to respond to what you tell me, but I would like to know what you know or what you think you know. I'll decide whether or not it's appropriate to reveal to you if you're right."
"Okay. Many things, so many that I don't know where to start," said Black.
"Prioritize. What you consider most urgent."
"Okay. To begin I am going to tell you something about myself, I have a relationship with Mary."
"I suspected it," she said.
"Does she ever tell you something?"
"No never."
"Nor to Bethany?" he asked.
"If she knew, we would all know."
"Yeah, she doesn't shut up at all. It was because of her that before Christmas James came to suspect that you were secretly with Sev."
"I remember," Lily said.
"I've been with Mary since we returned in January, it's quite a while. Do you think she has learned to keep a secret?"
"Of course, and even more so a secret that would give her as much prestige before the others as the fact that she's doing it with you. You are very popular in that aspect."
"It was the condition that I put her in order to have a prolonged relationship with her, I get tired of women very quickly," Sirius said. "Are you aware of the warning about Peter?"
"Yeah."
"Do you think that it is justified?"
"Of course," she replied.
"I think so too, I'm sure of it, Peter will try to become a Death Eater as soon as he leaves Hogwarts. We have a serious problem."
"I know."
"I've been thinking about telling Mary about the Army and about Peter so she can help us entertain him while we go to training, but there's still almost a year until we can expel him and I'm not sure I want to keep my relationship with her for that long," he explained.
"I understand."
"Do you think that if I left her she would betray us?"
"I can't answer that, I don't know her well," Lily answered. "Hypothesis about unaccomplished facts."
"Sure. In that case I won't do it for the moment, we'll manage between the three of us."
"Sounds good to me, probe her in the meantime. If you maintain a good relationship, even if you are no longer together, she will still be loyal to you. Be more than his lover, be his friend. You know how to be a good friend, you can also be a good friend to a woman. She, in a way, is already showing loyalty to you by keeping the secret of your relationship. Reciprocate her, do things in such a way that you don't end up badly with her."
"You are absolutely right, I have a lot to learn," Black admitted.
"Anything else on that topic?"
"No."
"Then move on to the next one," she said.
"I want to apologize for everything that has happened between us all these years. We have made you both suffer a lot."
"Well, yes, the truth."
"I feel very ashamed, I will do it again every time I talk to you, and also to Sev whenever I have the opportunity."
"As many times as you need, Sirius."
"You don't forgive as easily as Sev."
"No. He is far above all of us."
"Of course, I consider myself privileged because he considers me his friend," he said. "I will do everything possible to reciprocate."
"I'm glad to hear it, but don't hurt him anymore. He is very fragile, and before he could bear everything you did to him because he took refuge in his hatred for you, but if you betray him now that he considers you his friends, you are going to sink him."
Sirius was silent. Lily read him. He doesn't know how to make me forgive him right now, he's shattered. Of course, this morning Sev made it too easy for him and he thought it would be the same with me. I'm going to give him a hand. "I'm beginning to forgive you, Sirius, today we've taken a first step, but five years of bullying can't be erased in a quarter of an hour. Perhaps if it was about myself I would forgive you instantly, as he has, but I put the people I love ahead of me and I don't believe in the right to forgive something of which I have not been a victim. Settle for the moment with his forgiveness, which is the one that should really matter to you. If over time you make up for what you have done wrong, you will also get mine. We are talking about very serious issues, you almost killed the most important person in my life at that time. He would have died, he wouldn't have been aware, but I would have been left grieving because he was my friend, the best friend you can imagine."
He's about to cry, I'm going to help him get it off his chest. "Give me your hand, Sirius." She held it out to him, he clung to it. She also squeezed it. "Cry if you need to, don't be ashamed."
Sirius cried. "Thank you, Lily."
Poor boy, he's only got Potter in the world, and he's been sorry about the Shrieking Shack since the summer, almost as long as Remus, and he hasn't been able to face him because he's like a brother who takes him in his home, he needs a family. I'm going to forgive him, I've crossed the line. I'm already crying too. "Sirius, I forgive you, I'm sorry I got so harsh."
"Not at all, Lily, I understand. I deserve it, I've been a coward, I've betrayed myself for a long time, it wasn't just the Shrieking Shack thing. I realized, too, that James was bullying Sev because he'd been jealous since we were eleven, ever since that first Express ride. He never took it out on any other malefic, only him and only when he was alone. And I always followed the game, the most, for fun, and with us we dragged Remus. And that wasn't enough for us, but we turned all the people at home against him and we made life miserable for you too, trying to make you reject him too, and James constantly harassing you. Shameful. I don't deserve to be called a man, I don't deserve to be in Gryffindor. I am a coward, I stain the name of the House. And that for years and years, life will not be enough for me to pay for the harm I have done to you both. I have embittered your youth, and now that you are finally free from us, you have already lost it, your fun is over, you have adult worries, very adult ones, you will no longer enjoy innocence, carelessness. I have stolen your youth."
They were both crying their eyes out.
"You were young too, Sirius, and careless, you were unaware of the evil you were doing. It's been hard for you to mature but you've done it, I haven't matured either until this year. I didn't even realize you were harassing Sev for that reason, I believed your accusations of him being malefic and argued with him a lot, I was blind too, until less than a year ago. If I had been aware, I would have reported you to Dumbledore, I wouldn't have allowed something like that, but I blamed him for his bad company, which was also true that he had it, but that wasn't his fault either. You know that out of six Slytherin boys from our year, four were malefic, he just hung out with his yearmates, like it happened to you. He also doesn't have a family to cling to, like you. You would have followed his path if you had fallen into Slytherin. You look a lot alike, that's why he immediately forgave you, because he feels identified with you. Don't look back, look forward, today you have earned a friend forever, a real one. From now on, do to him all the good you can and that's it, make yourself worthy of what he gives you."
"No matter how hard I'll try, no matter how much I'll do my part, life will not be enough for me to compensate for the evil I have done to you both or to repay the good that he is going to do to me. He probably saved my and James' lives this morning."
"Probably."
They both waited to calm down before continuing. It was Lily who spoke, "Do you realize why we had to hide to talk, Sirius?"
"Of course."
"From now on, when you need to talk to me, do it through Remus and we'll do like today. We have to save appearances."
"Of course, I still have a lot to learn from you," he admitted.
"Do you feel up to continue talking or do you want us to leave it for today?"
"I'm exhausted, really."
"What I was telling you, five years can't be solved in twenty minutes," she said. "We have a lot left to cry, Sev more than anyone. He'll probably tell you his story as soon as he gets a chance, prepare to cry."
"I am eager for Saturday to arrive and to see him again."
"You're going to see him on Wednesday in Potions."
"True."
"Come on, let's go to bed, we'll meet again any other night this week and you'll keep telling me," she suggested. "Okay?"
"Okay, Lily."
"Also talk to Remus whenever you need it, he will support you as well. We will heal each other."
Lily got up, came around the table and held out her hand to Sirius. "Get up and give me a hug, Sirius."
He got up and they hugged each other, tight.
"This morning you have gained a friend, and tonight, another, and I too," she said. "A very fruitful day, I wish all were like this."