(Untitled)

[lpotter]

Who: Lily, Sirius and Harry
What: Sirius asked the Potters to lunch
When: Afternoon
Where: The place Lily shares with Remus
Why: Cause Dani is a butt whom I <3 and I am procrastinating physics studyage.
Rating: Um...medium? 
Status: Incomplete.

Comments

[bloodydrapery]

Sirius arrived at the Lily-Remus household, this time outside the front door. Though not by much, he was thinking more clearly enough this time to not apparate to the inside of the kitchen.

He knocked firmly, before any of his thoughts or emotions about this reunion could catch up with him.

[lpotter]

Lily put down the book with a smirk. Well, she wasn't expecting him to knock. Definitely just pop right on in in typical Sirius Black behavior. The knock was something she'd have to tell Remus. Maybe they needn't have to worry so much about he and Severus cursing each other into smithereens.

On second thought...

Lily opened the door with a grin, seeing her friend a bit older than he'd been last time she saw him. Younger than both Remus and Severus, but still older than she was.

"You learned to use the door?" she said, a twinkle in her eye.

[bloodydrapery]

Nothing could have truly prepared Sirius for the bricks of emotion that collapsed on him when he saw the ginger-haired beauty behind the door.

Exactly as he remembered her. Exactly as she had looked the day she and James--

"Merlin only knows what you might have been doing in here," he retorted, chuckling because it was the much better option over the other emotions battling inside him. "I wouldn't want to cause myself permanent emotional damage because I couldn't handle knocking on the door."

[lpotter]

Lily grinned, pulling her friend inside. She gave him a whack. She had forgotten what for exactly, just that she owed it to him. And then she pulled him into a hug. "I was reading you arse. I would ask what on Earth I would be doing to cause someone so temperamental permanent emotional damage, but I'm not entirely certain I want to hear the answer," she replied, not releasing her friend from the hug.

[bloodydrapery]

Sirius snorted at Lily's smack. It was a perfect greeting, all things considered. He couldn't have asked for anything more Sirius-and-Lily. Laughing, he hugged her back tightly.

"Missed you too, wench," he smiled.

In the half-second of silence that followed, he had to suck in a sharp breath. The thing was, hugging meant close contact, and close contact meant scents, and scents meant memories, and memories meant....

Sirius bit his lip and gave Lily another squeeze.

[lpotter]

"Only two more left now," she said with a grin, pulling back to fully look at Sirius.

"And I did miss you, much as you might doubt it," Lily quipped. The joking tone suddenly gone from her voice, she looked at him more carefully. "What's wrong?"

Lily was trained in looks from her friends. Though she was most skilled at James' expressions, followed by Remus', Sirius tended to have such easily readable expressions. Wore his heart on his sleeve. Sure, it meant you could always tell when he was pissed, but it also meant it was easier to tell when he was happy or something was wrong. She was leaning toward the something being wrong, at the moment...

[bloodydrapery]

"Nothing," Sirius answered quickly, a reflex. Time might have passed, everything in the world might have happened to them both, and Sirius might have changed... but deep down inside, he was still just a boy who believed nothing could be worse than showing weakness in front of a friend.

But of course Lily was too smart for that, and the fact that she'd so easily been able to catch his mood change only reminded him of how good their friendship had been. Despite all his greatest efforts, he felt a mist over his eyes. "Just... I... sorry," he got the words out quickly and tried to blink the evidence of his upset away.

[lpotter]

Lily looked at him, baffled. "Sorry?" she asked, pulling him over to the couch where she sat cross legged facing him. Was Sirius crying? Oh, Merlin... "What are you sorry for?"

For Lily it had been weeks since she'd seen Sirius. Not months or years. She'd missed him and James like it was longer than that, but it didn't feel as long as it much have felt for him.

[bloodydrapery]

Sirius let himself drop onto the couch and swiftly wiped the back of his hand across his moistened eyes. Suddenly, this all seemed like way too much.

All those years in that horrid prison cell, full of all the torment and guilt and sorrow the Dementors could drive into him, wanting nothing more than to go back and change the horrible choice he'd made. To see his friends, to never make the mistake that had destroyed them all. To beg forgiveness. To make things right.

Now he had that chance right in front of him, and all those years of silent grief were threatening to break down the dam and crash through all at once. "It's all my fault," he whispered, unable to look at Lily, staring down at his hands. "Everything. I'm so... I'm so sorry...."

[lpotter]

Lily frowned, nearing tears herself. "Sirius it was not your fault," she said, voice breaking. "It wasn't at all. Merlin, you and Remus both like to blame yourselves for everything, don't you?"

She took his hands in hers, her usually so jubilant friend. James' best friend. "It was not your fault. You have nothing to apologize for, understand?"

[bloodydrapery]

Sirius squeezed her hands back. "How can you say that?" he asked weakly. "I made you switch to Peter. I was too much of a bloody coward to handle it myself, and too much of a bloody idiot to realize who the real spy was. I handed you over to Voldemort. I... I got you and James killed," he felt his chest begin to tighten, and finally a tear or two leaked out. Well, fuck. That could only mean more would follow.

[lpotter]

Did he honestly think that she blamed him? She felt no sort of anger or resentment for Sirius at all. Lily shook her head and scooped Sirius into a hug again. That was the only way she knew how to cure tears...

"Sirius, no one knew who the real spy was. No one. Not you, not me, not James, not Remus, not even Dumbledore. So don't you dare blame yourself for my and James' deaths. You don't even get to be in the triumvirate of blame. Well. It's more a hierarchy of blame, but you. You're so far away from the blame that you're on a different planet in a different solar system, maybe even in a different universe."

Lily blinked away a tear before she continued. "You are not even in the least bit a coward. I'm not going to deny the claim of idiocy, but coward? Not at all."

[bloodydrapery]

Sirius fell willingly into the hug, needing the assurance and comfort even if he didn't deserve it. "It's not just that," he muttered. "I'm Harry's godfather. I was supposed to take care of him if you couldn't. I was supposed to make sure he had a happy, safe life. But instead I let my bloody rage and recklessness control me, and got myself thrown into bloody Azkaban. And left Harry all alone, and he ended up with that rotten sister of yours. He grew up without a single person to love him, Lily, and it's my bloody fault!"

[lpotter]

"Yes, Sirius, you are Harry's godfather. But you were in Azkaban! Of course you were angry and reckless. Peter had just betrayed us all. Any one of us would have been as angry and reckless in the same situation. Well, maybe except Remus. But if I were in the other position, I can't honestly say that I wouldn't have gone straight after the person. And I know for a fact that James would have. I really am sorry he grew up without anyone telling them how much they loved him. But he wasn't unloved. You and Remus loved him, from however far away you were. He was never unloved, Sirius. And there's nothing we can do to change what happened. All that we can think about is the here and now. Right now I'm here, you're here, and Remus is here. And we can be here for him the way we couldn't during his life."

Lily finished with a sigh. She hadn't gone on a lecture in a while. With a final squeeze she pulled out of the hug, and took her knees in her arms instead. "I'm glad you're here. I really am."

[bloodydrapery]

It was as if a dementor had been living in his heart since 1981, and suddenly it was flying away. Still, some of the cold remained. "I--I know," he choked. "I just... I don't think I'll ever be able to forgive myself, Lily. I was such a bloody idiot. I made so many mistakes. And I can't help thinking about how different everything could have been."

When they parted from the hug, Sirius wiped the still trickling tears from his eyes and cheeks, then rested a hand on one of Lily's. "I'm really glad you're here too. Merlin, you have no idea how much I would have done just to see you and James one last time."

[lpotter]

"Well I forgive you, if it helps. Not that I had anything to forgive you for," Lily smiled at her teary-eyed friend.

"Well you got half of it at least. The redheaded half," she said quietly, looking down. Lily really missed James. More than she was willing to admit to herself or Remus.