[For Cassie]

[not_the_grim]

There have been very few places Sirius Black has ever felt at home. The Potters' had been one of them-James' parents house, where he first spent summers and then was taken in after he left the dim, dank corners of Grimmauld Place. Hogwarts had been another, but for a long time that was it; his habit of bouncing from place to place kept him from

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[yeah_wow_lovely]

"I'm here," Cassie calls, though it might take him a moment to find her there on the bed, her skirts absolutely covered with scraps of paper. She'd been hoping to help Liang, words with pictures and the like, but he doesn't read their alphabet, and she's almost begun to despair. Certainly there are people more qualified than she on the island to help him learn, but now that she's a project to occupy her, Cassie can't quite let it go.

"Sirius," she says, looking up with an ink-smudged nose. "In your world, did you have a spell to make a person speak any language?"

[not_the_grim]

"Any language at all?" Sirius steps into the room, head canted in thought. "There's not one for translating all languages that I know of, that would be quite a feat. But there are translating spells."

Leaning in, he presses kisses to her forehead, the tip of her nose and her lips. "What are you doing, Beautiful?" he asks, and settles onto the mattress just behind her so that he can peer curiously over her shoulder at the mess across the blanket.

[yeah_wow_lovely]

"Presently?" Cassie asks, leaning instinctively into the warmth at her back. Her fingers find a wadded bit of paper, which she unfolds to reveal an aborted alphabet. "Wasting paper, and." Smiling, she turns until she can see his eyes. "Wishing I'd taken a language at college."

[not_the_grim]

"I never took any, either," Sirius replies. "They weren't even offered at Hogwarts, one more of those things they reckoned spells would sort for us." Not that anyone at Hogwarts could have known he'd end up on a desert island living like a Muggle.

"You know, they teach some languages at the school, if you're wanting to learn," he says, not even sure how he knows this. Harry, possibly.

[yeah_wow_lovely]

"Do they?" She's never given the island school much thought, not sure precisely what one is meant to achieve on the island, but every so often the part of Cassie that dares look towards the future thinks the sewing and jewelry classes might be nice. Perhaps she can't make the world better, but lovelier...well, she's made a lifetime of that already.

"Even Chinese?" she asks. "You know, there's a very nice man that's come here, and he doesn't know any English at all. Do you think he's very lonely?"

[not_the_grim]

It's so like Cassie to consider something like that, to approach it in that particular, gentle way, and Sirius gives it the moment's worth of silent consideration it deserves before answering.

"Probably, yeah," he says. "To be completely honest, I can't even imagine it. And I've no idea about Chinese classes, but it's easy enough for you to ask. Are you going to try to help him, then?"

[yeah_wow_lovely]

"I'd like to, but," says Cassie, tilting her head against his shoulder, "I've no idea how." She's too close to it, and for once not aware enough to know it, too caught up in Liang's imagined hurts. She knows how it feels to be invisible, how much worse still to gather the bravery to speak and not be heard.

"It makes me anxious to think about."

[not_the_grim]

"What if you used examples instead of words?" He holds up one of the apples in demonstration. "Like this. You show him a thing and tell him what it is. You tell him apple, he tells you what it's called in Chinese? He learns a bit of English, you learn a bit of Chinese, eventually you meet in the middle."

[yeah_wow_lovely]

"It's the only way," Cassie agrees after a long moment, reluctant to accept a process that will be so very lengthy. She sighs, pressing her lips to the soft skin of his throat. Even the smell of him is familiar now, and Cassie wears a faint smile when she pulls away, nimble fingers plucking the apple from his hands.

"You've been shopping," she says.

[not_the_grim]

"Indeed I have," Sirius replies once he's recovered from that little bit of affection, his eyes still a bit distant when he first peers down at her. "One for you and one for me. I picked the very best ones especially."

Not that he's thinking much about fruit just now, his attentions shifting as easily as ever. He sets the second apple aside and tips Cassie's chin up so that he can kiss her properly, all lingering lips and warm breath.

"I love you, you know," he says in a murmur against her mouth.

[yeah_wow_lovely]

Cassie's breath catches in her throat, as much for his murmured words as his hands on her. Even when it's hard for her to believe this is their home now, and that is very often, it's easy when he touches her, his long hair sliding between her fingers when Cassie reaches up to touch it.

"I do," she says, still with wonder, and perhaps there will always be wonder when it comes to Sirius, but there's no hesitation when she speaks again. "And I love you, dear Sirius."