(no subject)
Title: Friends for life.
Rating: Gen
Ship: none, J, S friendship.
Everyone had gone to bed when Xanthe Potter heard the sound of someone waiting outside the back door. It was a faint scuffling, of someone stamping their feet, adjusting their weight from one foot to the other as they tried to keep warm, but unwilling to make their presence known.
She frowned and flicked her wand around the kitchen, ensuring everything returned to its rightful place before moving warily towards the door, who in Merlin’s name called at this time of night?
As the door swung open, both she and the stranger jumped back in alarm, she yelped in surprise, no doubt waking the whole house. The snow was beginning to fall in heavy drifts, as it had been threatening to do all day, and it looked as though he had been standing outside for most of it. How long had he been waiting outside the door?
“Sirius?” she questioned, and the boy looked at her intently with his fathomless dark grey eyes, in which contained a silent pleading. He was wearing nothing but a thin cotton t-shirt and worn jeans, ripped (artistically) at the knee, and he chaffed his arms to warm them up, his elbows sticking out. He had shot up about a foot since the last time she’d seen him, exactly as her James had done.
Despite the cold, Sirius shivered and grinned through chattering teeth, for all the world he looked as though it was perfectly acceptable to turn up on someone’s doorstep at midnight in this way, “Evening Mrs Potter!” he said with false cheer, his hair was plastered onto his head with sleet, his skin had a faint bluish tinge.
She quickly came to her senses, “Sirius Black! What on earth are you doing out there? You get into this house right this minute, young man!”
He smiled broadly, and stumbled into the house, dripping all over the kitchen tiles, trembling with cold and fear.
At that moment two other figures skidded into view from the hallway, brandishing wands high above their heads, “Tristan, we have a visitor” Xanthe called over her shoulder, shaking her head at the bedraggled Sirius and lighting a fire beneath the stove.
“What are you doing here?” shouted James at his friend, there was a malice in his voice that made his mother crease her brow. What had happened between them? James had been reticent ever since he’d come home for the holidays, but she hadn’t yet discovered the source of the problem. Had the two of them fallen out?
“S-sorry” said the boy in a low voice, not quite meeting James’ eyes and Xanthe wondered what had happened to make her son’s best friend lose all of his cocky confidence, she didn’t quite catch the next words he mumbled, swaying where he stood.
“I ran away,” he said shakily, wrapping his arms across his chest, his hair tumbling down over his eyes, his head bent low. The poor child looked as though he was about to faint, and Xanthe’s powerful maternal instincts took over, “James, fetch some blankets from the linen closet, please - today” she added pointedly.
As he turned and left, Xanthe approached Sirius who stepped back like a frightened bird, he was a good head taller than her now, but that didn’t prevent her from giving him a hug, despite the fact he was still sopping wet.
“There now, come and sit down by the fire, dear. That’s it. Now, why didn’t you knock the door? You could have caught your death of cold standing out there all night.”
“I didn’t - I didn’t know whether-”
She nodded to her husband who went to fetch a Pepper-Up potion, her hand on the boy’s ebony locks, so like her son’s, they could almost be mistaken for brothers.
James returned to stand over them, his expression stony, his arms crossed as he surveyed his friend, not looking in the slightest bit happy to see him, but Xanthe resolutely ignored James and wrapped a blanket around Sirius’ shoulders, rubbing his hair dry with a towel, as the boy sat there helplessly, staring into the fire. His expression scared her slightly; it was so lifeless, as though he had received the Dementor’s Kiss.
“I didn’t know where else to go,” he appealed to James, the voice of a lost child, not an arrogant teenager.
“I couldn’t stay there. They threatened to send me away, I didn’t have time to pack anything, so I had to leave it all behind.” He looked ready to cry, even more so when she patted his cheek kindly, looking at her as one starved of all affection.
“Not to worry dear, things will look better in the morning. And you know you’ve always got a home here. Hasn’t he, James?”
Her son blinked in surprise, and it was a few moments before his expression softened, “Yeah. Besides, we can’t have you wandering the streets at Christmas, mate. Who knows what trouble you’d get up to!”
Xanthe smiled, friends for life those two.