FIC: It's Not Over (Harry Potter; 2/?)
Title: It's Not Over (2/?)
Category: Harry Potter; Romance/Angst
Rating: T
Summery: Athena is angry about the gryffindoric behavior of the men in her life.
Chapter 2: Better then Me
Athena was angry. At herself, at Sirius, at her brother and his friends, she was even mad at Dumbledore. She was pretty much mad at everyone. Picking up the materials she needed for the restorative potion Sirius would need when he awoke she took it to the table in his room and begin to mix it while watching him sleep on the bed in case any symptoms of Bella’s curse got worse.
Today had been a bad day from start to finish. First she had ridden on a plane and she hated those things. Would have preferred the portkey but knew that James and Lily still got sick from them. They could barely apparate short distances at the moment or to places they knew well in their head like the house or Jamie’s school. Then she had arrived at Heathrow to be greeted by Fred and George Weasley and then the whole fiasco at the Ministry happened.
What was Sirius thinking, going there? If Jamie hadn’t spotted him falling and sent a quick Leviosa towards him he would have gone through that veil and died. At least that was the assumption about it. No one had come back to say otherwise and frankly she’d rather not try to find out. Stupid idiot. Both of them. Jamie shouldn’t have followed her. He should have gone with his sister and Natalie with James and Lily to the house. But no, her son had to inherit his father’s Gryffindoric bravery. Bravery was all good and all, but not when it got you killed and you didn’t think of ways to get around having to put yourself in such a situation where you would have to be brave. That’s were Slytherin and Gryffindor were different. Slytherins could be brave, they just usually figured out a way to avoid having to be.
Jamie and Sirius both were still alive and Jamie was still healthy as ever, managing to stay away from being cursed himself. Sirius would be better after a long sleep and a couple days of taking the restorative potion. Luckily the curse Bella sent was a small and almost harmless one. Sirius was lucky the Bella was off her game because had Bella been fully there she’d have sent something a lot harder towards him. As it was the curse had racked havoc on his body, causing it to spasm for awhile.
Dumbledore made her angry because he had told no one. She had thought this whole time that everyone knew that James and Lily were alive and recuperating, at least those in the order like Remus and Sirius. But no. Remus had spent the last 15 years believing two of his friends were dead, Another dead for 13 years but now known to be the real betrayer and yet another one in prison who was innocent but made to wear the responsibilities of the crime anyway. He had no idea where she had gone, only able to contact her through Molly Weasley or Dumbledore who were the only ones who knew her exact location. Even Molly hadn’t known about James and Lily though. She didn’t understand Dumbledore’s reasoning. These people could have helped.
She was angry with herself for not coming back sooner, for not paying attention. She could have seen what was happening and done something about it. But no, she had to block it out. Woe was her and all that. Sure, she had been left to raise her children alone as well as try and revive her friends, but she hadn’t been the only one to loose a lot. The way she had treated Remus was atrocious. She could have told him where she went. She could have told him James and Lily were alive.
There. The potion was complete. For the next few minutes she tried to release her anger and watched Sirius as he breathed. There was a part of her that was still in shock almost expecting to wake up and find out he had died.
“Mom?” Athena looked up and saw her son standing in the doorway. “I think you need to help Aunt Lily and Uncle James explain things. I’ll watch over Dad for you.” She sighed.
“He should be out of danger now, but come get me if anything changes.” She got up and walked to the door.
“Sure.” He walked into the room and sat down in the chair she had previously occupied and smiled back at her, holding up his gameboy to show he had something to do. “I’ll get you should anything happen.” She smiled back at him, and walked downstairs.
This was going to take awhile.
~*~
June 1976
Athena Marie Malfoy was drunk. There was no question of it. But she was still well aware of her surroundings so she wasn’t as drunk as she could have been, she supposed. But very much past simply tipsy.
It was their last day of classes, at least for her year. While everyone else worked on their final classes and final exams, the seventh years were collecting their things, saying goodbye to a place that held seven years of memories and nervously awaiting their NEWT results. They had a week of that. At the end of the week, they’d know if they were going to be doing their dream job or trying to find something a little different.
So she had felt like getting drunk since she had no classes and had just had a particularly horrible week. Sirius had agreed and had even obtained the alcohol. Remus had declined to join them, and James and Lily were in their happy bubbly zone of pre-marital bliss so tonight it was just her and Sirius. She didn’t even think of asking Severus to join them. They’d kill each other in a second and ruin her robes with blood. She’d celebrate with Severus some other day.
“Where’s Peter?” Sirius shrugged, trying to open another bottle. Three already lay on the floor. He was only slightly less drunk then her. The stuff he had managed to get was a lot weaker then the general stuff so they had to drink more.
“Don’t know, and really don’t care at the moment. I think he’s out with his girlfriend or something.”
“That’s nice. Peter having a girlfriend. No one deserves to be lonely.”
“Your not alone, love.”
“Romantically I am. The bastard broke up with me remember. I’m now officially the only one of us single.”
“I don’t have a girlfriend.”
“You never do, but you always have companionship don’t you. You don’t count.”
“Harsh.”
“Truth.”
“Snape has someone?”
“He’s got a girl whom I’ve never met but apparently likes to embarrass him by sending him love notes. And before you ask, I know she’s real because not even dear Severus would go as low as writing these notes. I’ve read them. They are defiantly a girl’s note and they are really cheesy.” She sighed. “Besides, even if he was available, it is wrong for me to date Severus. We just don’t have what it takes to be married to each other.”
“Again, there is me.”
“Siri, I don’t think we’d do well together. You have too much of a temper and I’m too stubborn to compromise. You’re a Gryffindor, I’m a Slytherin.”
“Your blonde, I’m a brunette. It really doesn’t matter.”
“It doesn’t? I’ve never seen you date a Slytherin once.”
“Who said anything about dating?” She hit him playing in the shoulder, hitting a little harder then intended since she wasn’t in complete control anymore. “All right, All right. That hurt, evil wench.”
“Oh, it wasn’t that hard.”
“You’d be surprised.” He rested his head against the wall. They had been sitting in the boys dormitory since no one else was in there. Peter was somewhere else; Remus was doing some extra patrolling tonight and would probably grab a nap at James and Lily’s common room where those two were already.
“My brother wants me to marry Zabini.”
“What? They are arranging for you again?”
“Yep. Because you know that’s all I’m good for right? Marrying someone to increase the family’s standing, to increase their connections.” She was crying now. Her brother, the one who had so loved her had turned cold these past couple of years and it scared her. He would never have agreed to a second arranged marriage now that he was head of the family if he was his old self. “And apparently Zabini thinks I will give him quite a healthy heir. How’s that for you. I’m being sold to the highest bidder who wants me on account of my having a uterus.”
“Your brother is an ass, and Zabini has to have liked you for more then just that you’re female. Which by the way, you’re a fine specimen of, if I may so myself. But Lucius knows you’d never be happy in a relationship like that. There has to be more to it.”
“Sirius, after all those years dealing with your family how could you be so bloody optimistic about mine?”
“Just trying to make things not look so grim.” Things were silent for awhile, each taking a turn at the whisky bottle. She looked at him while he took a drink. He was leaned against the way next to his bed; shirt untucked and his tie hanging loosely on his shoulders. His hair was in need of a good trim, reaching his shoulders in the back and lightly falling to his eyes on the top. Athena had always found him attractive, but for some reason, perhaps the alcohol, she thought he looked especially good tonight.
“I think I’m going to take you up on your offer?” Sirius turned and looked at her in confusion. “Your offer of a one-night-stand.”
“Why for?”
“It will ruin me. I’ll be a ruined girl, no longer sale-worthy,” she said with a bitter laugh that made Sirius wonder if she was just a bit insane. Perhaps she had had one too many.
“You’re drunk.”
“So are you. If you want, I’ll write myself a note saying I gave you permission.” She sat up and moved over so she was closer to him. He was paused before another drink, still in shock that she had taken the joke they had started when they had been ‘engaged’ so seriously this time. She was sitting right in front of him now, only a few inches between them. The thought was tempting but this was one of his best friends even if she was formerly his fiancée.
“Let me get this straight, you want me to ‘ruin you’, which by the way is a really bad way to phrase what you want me to do, in order to keep Zabini away. And how exactly are you going to make your brother believe we slept together?”
She smiled a smile that defiantly proved she was a Slytherin and held up necklace with a black pendent. She had always worn since she was sent to Hogwarts. He took it in his hands and looked at it waiting for her to explain.
“Dad made me wear it. It was to discourage me from being mischievous or slutty I suppose. Worked until my fifth year as an actual scare tactic but afterwards I hadn’t met a guy I felt comfortable enough with to go further then a few kisses. It turns white and the tie releases it so it comes off when it detects the hormones, I guess. I’m not entirely sure how it works, to tell the truth, only that my mother had it during her engagement to my father. Apparently it’s a Malfoy custom.
“Narcissa wore it?”
“Probably, although not this exact necklace. So, do you want to help me rebel or not?” Sirius was torn. There was a part of him that was a gentleman which was screaming this was WRONG on so many levels, but the whiskey was muffling that voice. There was another voice, the one that had been attracted to Athena for awhile that said to go for it, and worry about tomorrow when it comes.
The second voice won.
He leaned forward and brushed his lips across hers, remembering their first real kiss from six months ago, which had been a random moment and how good that felt. This one felt even better. It lasted longer and was intentional. They both wanted it, not because of an impulse but because they just did.
“Write that note,” he said when they stopped for a breath. “I don’t want you to kill me in the morning.” She grinned wickedly, picked up her wand from where she had left it on the floor and transfigured the empty bottle into a piece of paper. He laughed when it kept the relative shape of a bottle. Friends don’t let friends transfigure drunk. She glared at him and quickly wrote a note.
Don’t kill him. You asked for it - AMM.
“Interesting choice of words, love”.
“Oh, shut up.” She moved back over towards him and they fell back on his bed with another kiss.
~*~
He could hear a voice call out but he couldn’t tell what they said; only that the endless fall seemed to stop and as blackness consumed him, he noticed he was being lowered to the floor in front of the veil.
He woke up in a panic. It took him a minute but he realized he was back in his old room, alone except for one other person who was watching him over some kind of contraption.
“Welcome back to the land of the living.” American, whoever this kid was, although his voice was slightly accented as if he had been in England for awhile and had picked up some of the accent.
“Who are you?”
“James, although most call me Jamie. I suppose I should get my mother now, she said to come get her when you awoke or your status changed. Here, drink this.” The boy (he couldn’t have been more then seventeen) handed him a glass with a grey looking liquid in it. Sirius took the glass and looked at it wearily. “Don’t worry, it’s a restorative potion. My mom’s personalized recipe. Worked wonders on me when I got hit by a bludger last year.”
Ah, so he was in Hogwarts. Must be one of Harry’s friends from school, then. But he was pretty sure Neville, Hermione and Luna had no siblings and Molly Weasley was not a medi-witch no matter how many remedies she knew from raising six boys and one tomboy.
Looking at the boy, he searched for any familiar features. He looked very familiar to him. He had grey eyes, a little lighter then his own, almost Malfoy-ish in color. He would have passed for a Black any day with his longish black hair and those cheekbones. But his nose was slightly too straight to be a Blacks. Again more like…
Athena.
“Your Athena’s son.” He took the drink then. Athena might be pissed as hell at him but she wouldn’t kill him no matter how much of a Slytherin she could be some times.
“Yep. Yours too actually in case you haven’t figured it out,” Jaime stated as if he was slighted annoyed that his ‘father’ hadn’t picked up on the fact. Sirius paused and glanced up at the boy again.
“I only had a daughter.”
“Zara. Yeah, you were kinda in prison when I came along. Although I was kinda hoping I didn’t have to meet you in the middle of a battle with one of our cousins but such is life.” If he was telling the truth he had to be a lot younger then he looked. Obviously tall for his age, almost as tall as Sirius would be if he was standing. He supposed there was a possibility. It was obvious the child wasn’t Severus Snape’s (thank god) and there was no way it could be Regulus since Reg died when Zara had been almost 2.
“How old are you?”
“I’ll be 15 this December. Perhaps Mom should really fill you in on this. I should warn you though, she’s pretty mad at the moment. Apparently no one was told about Aunt Lily and Uncle James being alive so…” In an instant Sirius mind caught onto that and forgot that the boy was claiming to be his son.
“James and Lily are alive.” He tried to get out of the bed but James easily pushed him back in.
“Yes, but you aren’t anywhere near strong enough to go see them. Bellatrix; at least that is what Mom says her name was; she hit you with a pretty huffy hex, or a light curse. I don’t remember much of the specifics but I think it was a curse. They’ll come up here.” The kid smiled at him, and Sirius knew he was telling the truth about the whole situation. The kid looked almost exactly like he did when he was that age, with the exception of the eyes and nose. But he’d have Athena confirm it anyway. It seemed kinda odd that they would have another child together he never even had a hint about. The past two years he thought Jamie was someone else’s, with Snape being a forerunner. She had been overly fond of that git back in their school days. Almost married him as well.
“Jamie, Molly has dinner ready.” Both of them looked at the door as Athena walked in. “It’s your favorite too...” her voice faded off as she saw Sirius watching her from behind her son. “ I see you’re awake.” She didn’t want to confront him. Not right now.
“Yes.” His voice was a little grittier then she remembered but it still had that ability to call to her. Damn it if she wasn’t a little bit still in love with the bastard. “James has just told me…”
“Jamie” both Athena and Jamie corrected at the same time.
“Jamie tells me that Lily and James are still alive.”
“Yes, Apparently Dumbledore felt it necessary to keep to the bare minimum when it came to telling about them,” Athena answered, her tone showing how greatly annoyed she was with the whole situation. “I’ve told him what I thought about it. Jaime, why don’t you go down and eat. Your sister’s been asking about you.” Jamie nodded walked out the door leaving his parents alone in the room.
“You never told me you were pregnant.” Sirius said as soon as he heard his son’s footsteps on the stairs.
“You were never around long enough to say anything,” she retorted. “I tried telling you for a bloody month that I was pregnant. It’s kind of funny, it was your idea to have another kid, and when I finally manage to get pregnant again you were never around.” She sat at the end of the bed and swung around to face him.
“It wasn’t my decision to go to Azkaban.”
“I’m not talking about that Sirius. Those last couple months before Peter betrayed us you were hardly around. Most of the time I was ok with it, I understood that we were in dangerous times and you were an Auror but even when you had any decent amount of time off, you tended to spend it over with James and Lily. I think the only reason you came home at all was to see Zara. And don’t get me started on that night you left me crying my eyes out in pain with only our four year old daughter to help me through a vision because you heard the words James and Lily and out the door you went. So don’t yell at me for not telling you I was pregnant. You never gave me the chance and there was no way I was taking a child into Azkaban, regardless of whether they were in me or not.”
“You never said anything.” His voice was low and she could tell he was just as angry at her as she was at him. And she understood. Relationships went two ways after all. “You never said you were unhappy with my hours or how much time I spent with my best friend.”
“Spending time with your best friend wasn’t a problem, Sirius. You just never spent anytime with us as well.”
“Is he really mine?” Athena’s eyes flashed at the accusation. Part of her knew he was just lashing out at her in anyway he could, but it still hurt that he would even consider for a second that she was unfaithful to him.
“Oh, don’t you dare start that again. We went through this with Zara; I’m not going through this with Jaime. I wouldn’t have named him after you if you weren’t his father.” She paused. “His full name is Sirius James Black, and he was born December 31, 1981 if that answers your question.”
“Well, I’m sorry but it seems kind of circumstantial that you got pregnant just as I’m no longer around.”
“Oh, yes because I so choose to be a single mother. You think that whole situation wasn’t stressful on me? I was four months pregnant when you were locked up Sirius, four months. Your son was born two months later, almost three months early and almost died. I’m not lying to you, and neither is he.”
“He almost died?” Athena was spent after that question. She didn’t like to talk about the couple months after Jamie was born. They had been hell, with her son and her two closest friends in bad health and her best friend and the love of her life (yes, she admitted it now, thank you very much. It had just taken ten years) was gone for what looked to be forever. She made her way up the bed to sit next to him, leaning up against the headboard, and he turned on his side so that he could see her face.
“Yeah, he was three months too early and his lungs hadn’t developed all the way. But apparently he has a fighter spirit because he managed to make it even though the med witches at Mungo’s said he wouldn’t. He reminds me of you sometimes, you know. Especially when he got older and started school. He has your love for mischief and your smile”
“I’m sorry.”
“For what?”
“For asking if he was mine. I knew already, even though it still took awhile. I just needed to confirm and I’m really not certain about anything anymore.”
“I think I can understand that.” She was a little irritated that he hadn’t apologized for what he did over a decade ago, but she supposed it was probably wrong to ask him to. She stood up off the bed and walked towards the door.
“I’ll bring James and Lily in to see you,” she said as she left, not looking back at him.
Category: Harry Potter; Romance/Angst
Rating: T
Summery: Athena is angry about the gryffindoric behavior of the men in her life.
Chapter 2: Better then Me
Athena was angry. At herself, at Sirius, at her brother and his friends, she was even mad at Dumbledore. She was pretty much mad at everyone. Picking up the materials she needed for the restorative potion Sirius would need when he awoke she took it to the table in his room and begin to mix it while watching him sleep on the bed in case any symptoms of Bella’s curse got worse.
Today had been a bad day from start to finish. First she had ridden on a plane and she hated those things. Would have preferred the portkey but knew that James and Lily still got sick from them. They could barely apparate short distances at the moment or to places they knew well in their head like the house or Jamie’s school. Then she had arrived at Heathrow to be greeted by Fred and George Weasley and then the whole fiasco at the Ministry happened.
What was Sirius thinking, going there? If Jamie hadn’t spotted him falling and sent a quick Leviosa towards him he would have gone through that veil and died. At least that was the assumption about it. No one had come back to say otherwise and frankly she’d rather not try to find out. Stupid idiot. Both of them. Jamie shouldn’t have followed her. He should have gone with his sister and Natalie with James and Lily to the house. But no, her son had to inherit his father’s Gryffindoric bravery. Bravery was all good and all, but not when it got you killed and you didn’t think of ways to get around having to put yourself in such a situation where you would have to be brave. That’s were Slytherin and Gryffindor were different. Slytherins could be brave, they just usually figured out a way to avoid having to be.
Jamie and Sirius both were still alive and Jamie was still healthy as ever, managing to stay away from being cursed himself. Sirius would be better after a long sleep and a couple days of taking the restorative potion. Luckily the curse Bella sent was a small and almost harmless one. Sirius was lucky the Bella was off her game because had Bella been fully there she’d have sent something a lot harder towards him. As it was the curse had racked havoc on his body, causing it to spasm for awhile.
Dumbledore made her angry because he had told no one. She had thought this whole time that everyone knew that James and Lily were alive and recuperating, at least those in the order like Remus and Sirius. But no. Remus had spent the last 15 years believing two of his friends were dead, Another dead for 13 years but now known to be the real betrayer and yet another one in prison who was innocent but made to wear the responsibilities of the crime anyway. He had no idea where she had gone, only able to contact her through Molly Weasley or Dumbledore who were the only ones who knew her exact location. Even Molly hadn’t known about James and Lily though. She didn’t understand Dumbledore’s reasoning. These people could have helped.
She was angry with herself for not coming back sooner, for not paying attention. She could have seen what was happening and done something about it. But no, she had to block it out. Woe was her and all that. Sure, she had been left to raise her children alone as well as try and revive her friends, but she hadn’t been the only one to loose a lot. The way she had treated Remus was atrocious. She could have told him where she went. She could have told him James and Lily were alive.
There. The potion was complete. For the next few minutes she tried to release her anger and watched Sirius as he breathed. There was a part of her that was still in shock almost expecting to wake up and find out he had died.
“Mom?” Athena looked up and saw her son standing in the doorway. “I think you need to help Aunt Lily and Uncle James explain things. I’ll watch over Dad for you.” She sighed.
“He should be out of danger now, but come get me if anything changes.” She got up and walked to the door.
“Sure.” He walked into the room and sat down in the chair she had previously occupied and smiled back at her, holding up his gameboy to show he had something to do. “I’ll get you should anything happen.” She smiled back at him, and walked downstairs.
This was going to take awhile.
~*~
June 1976
Athena Marie Malfoy was drunk. There was no question of it. But she was still well aware of her surroundings so she wasn’t as drunk as she could have been, she supposed. But very much past simply tipsy.
It was their last day of classes, at least for her year. While everyone else worked on their final classes and final exams, the seventh years were collecting their things, saying goodbye to a place that held seven years of memories and nervously awaiting their NEWT results. They had a week of that. At the end of the week, they’d know if they were going to be doing their dream job or trying to find something a little different.
So she had felt like getting drunk since she had no classes and had just had a particularly horrible week. Sirius had agreed and had even obtained the alcohol. Remus had declined to join them, and James and Lily were in their happy bubbly zone of pre-marital bliss so tonight it was just her and Sirius. She didn’t even think of asking Severus to join them. They’d kill each other in a second and ruin her robes with blood. She’d celebrate with Severus some other day.
“Where’s Peter?” Sirius shrugged, trying to open another bottle. Three already lay on the floor. He was only slightly less drunk then her. The stuff he had managed to get was a lot weaker then the general stuff so they had to drink more.
“Don’t know, and really don’t care at the moment. I think he’s out with his girlfriend or something.”
“That’s nice. Peter having a girlfriend. No one deserves to be lonely.”
“Your not alone, love.”
“Romantically I am. The bastard broke up with me remember. I’m now officially the only one of us single.”
“I don’t have a girlfriend.”
“You never do, but you always have companionship don’t you. You don’t count.”
“Harsh.”
“Truth.”
“Snape has someone?”
“He’s got a girl whom I’ve never met but apparently likes to embarrass him by sending him love notes. And before you ask, I know she’s real because not even dear Severus would go as low as writing these notes. I’ve read them. They are defiantly a girl’s note and they are really cheesy.” She sighed. “Besides, even if he was available, it is wrong for me to date Severus. We just don’t have what it takes to be married to each other.”
“Again, there is me.”
“Siri, I don’t think we’d do well together. You have too much of a temper and I’m too stubborn to compromise. You’re a Gryffindor, I’m a Slytherin.”
“Your blonde, I’m a brunette. It really doesn’t matter.”
“It doesn’t? I’ve never seen you date a Slytherin once.”
“Who said anything about dating?” She hit him playing in the shoulder, hitting a little harder then intended since she wasn’t in complete control anymore. “All right, All right. That hurt, evil wench.”
“Oh, it wasn’t that hard.”
“You’d be surprised.” He rested his head against the wall. They had been sitting in the boys dormitory since no one else was in there. Peter was somewhere else; Remus was doing some extra patrolling tonight and would probably grab a nap at James and Lily’s common room where those two were already.
“My brother wants me to marry Zabini.”
“What? They are arranging for you again?”
“Yep. Because you know that’s all I’m good for right? Marrying someone to increase the family’s standing, to increase their connections.” She was crying now. Her brother, the one who had so loved her had turned cold these past couple of years and it scared her. He would never have agreed to a second arranged marriage now that he was head of the family if he was his old self. “And apparently Zabini thinks I will give him quite a healthy heir. How’s that for you. I’m being sold to the highest bidder who wants me on account of my having a uterus.”
“Your brother is an ass, and Zabini has to have liked you for more then just that you’re female. Which by the way, you’re a fine specimen of, if I may so myself. But Lucius knows you’d never be happy in a relationship like that. There has to be more to it.”
“Sirius, after all those years dealing with your family how could you be so bloody optimistic about mine?”
“Just trying to make things not look so grim.” Things were silent for awhile, each taking a turn at the whisky bottle. She looked at him while he took a drink. He was leaned against the way next to his bed; shirt untucked and his tie hanging loosely on his shoulders. His hair was in need of a good trim, reaching his shoulders in the back and lightly falling to his eyes on the top. Athena had always found him attractive, but for some reason, perhaps the alcohol, she thought he looked especially good tonight.
“I think I’m going to take you up on your offer?” Sirius turned and looked at her in confusion. “Your offer of a one-night-stand.”
“Why for?”
“It will ruin me. I’ll be a ruined girl, no longer sale-worthy,” she said with a bitter laugh that made Sirius wonder if she was just a bit insane. Perhaps she had had one too many.
“You’re drunk.”
“So are you. If you want, I’ll write myself a note saying I gave you permission.” She sat up and moved over so she was closer to him. He was paused before another drink, still in shock that she had taken the joke they had started when they had been ‘engaged’ so seriously this time. She was sitting right in front of him now, only a few inches between them. The thought was tempting but this was one of his best friends even if she was formerly his fiancée.
“Let me get this straight, you want me to ‘ruin you’, which by the way is a really bad way to phrase what you want me to do, in order to keep Zabini away. And how exactly are you going to make your brother believe we slept together?”
She smiled a smile that defiantly proved she was a Slytherin and held up necklace with a black pendent. She had always worn since she was sent to Hogwarts. He took it in his hands and looked at it waiting for her to explain.
“Dad made me wear it. It was to discourage me from being mischievous or slutty I suppose. Worked until my fifth year as an actual scare tactic but afterwards I hadn’t met a guy I felt comfortable enough with to go further then a few kisses. It turns white and the tie releases it so it comes off when it detects the hormones, I guess. I’m not entirely sure how it works, to tell the truth, only that my mother had it during her engagement to my father. Apparently it’s a Malfoy custom.
“Narcissa wore it?”
“Probably, although not this exact necklace. So, do you want to help me rebel or not?” Sirius was torn. There was a part of him that was a gentleman which was screaming this was WRONG on so many levels, but the whiskey was muffling that voice. There was another voice, the one that had been attracted to Athena for awhile that said to go for it, and worry about tomorrow when it comes.
The second voice won.
He leaned forward and brushed his lips across hers, remembering their first real kiss from six months ago, which had been a random moment and how good that felt. This one felt even better. It lasted longer and was intentional. They both wanted it, not because of an impulse but because they just did.
“Write that note,” he said when they stopped for a breath. “I don’t want you to kill me in the morning.” She grinned wickedly, picked up her wand from where she had left it on the floor and transfigured the empty bottle into a piece of paper. He laughed when it kept the relative shape of a bottle. Friends don’t let friends transfigure drunk. She glared at him and quickly wrote a note.
Don’t kill him. You asked for it - AMM.
“Interesting choice of words, love”.
“Oh, shut up.” She moved back over towards him and they fell back on his bed with another kiss.
~*~
He could hear a voice call out but he couldn’t tell what they said; only that the endless fall seemed to stop and as blackness consumed him, he noticed he was being lowered to the floor in front of the veil.
He woke up in a panic. It took him a minute but he realized he was back in his old room, alone except for one other person who was watching him over some kind of contraption.
“Welcome back to the land of the living.” American, whoever this kid was, although his voice was slightly accented as if he had been in England for awhile and had picked up some of the accent.
“Who are you?”
“James, although most call me Jamie. I suppose I should get my mother now, she said to come get her when you awoke or your status changed. Here, drink this.” The boy (he couldn’t have been more then seventeen) handed him a glass with a grey looking liquid in it. Sirius took the glass and looked at it wearily. “Don’t worry, it’s a restorative potion. My mom’s personalized recipe. Worked wonders on me when I got hit by a bludger last year.”
Ah, so he was in Hogwarts. Must be one of Harry’s friends from school, then. But he was pretty sure Neville, Hermione and Luna had no siblings and Molly Weasley was not a medi-witch no matter how many remedies she knew from raising six boys and one tomboy.
Looking at the boy, he searched for any familiar features. He looked very familiar to him. He had grey eyes, a little lighter then his own, almost Malfoy-ish in color. He would have passed for a Black any day with his longish black hair and those cheekbones. But his nose was slightly too straight to be a Blacks. Again more like…
Athena.
“Your Athena’s son.” He took the drink then. Athena might be pissed as hell at him but she wouldn’t kill him no matter how much of a Slytherin she could be some times.
“Yep. Yours too actually in case you haven’t figured it out,” Jaime stated as if he was slighted annoyed that his ‘father’ hadn’t picked up on the fact. Sirius paused and glanced up at the boy again.
“I only had a daughter.”
“Zara. Yeah, you were kinda in prison when I came along. Although I was kinda hoping I didn’t have to meet you in the middle of a battle with one of our cousins but such is life.” If he was telling the truth he had to be a lot younger then he looked. Obviously tall for his age, almost as tall as Sirius would be if he was standing. He supposed there was a possibility. It was obvious the child wasn’t Severus Snape’s (thank god) and there was no way it could be Regulus since Reg died when Zara had been almost 2.
“How old are you?”
“I’ll be 15 this December. Perhaps Mom should really fill you in on this. I should warn you though, she’s pretty mad at the moment. Apparently no one was told about Aunt Lily and Uncle James being alive so…” In an instant Sirius mind caught onto that and forgot that the boy was claiming to be his son.
“James and Lily are alive.” He tried to get out of the bed but James easily pushed him back in.
“Yes, but you aren’t anywhere near strong enough to go see them. Bellatrix; at least that is what Mom says her name was; she hit you with a pretty huffy hex, or a light curse. I don’t remember much of the specifics but I think it was a curse. They’ll come up here.” The kid smiled at him, and Sirius knew he was telling the truth about the whole situation. The kid looked almost exactly like he did when he was that age, with the exception of the eyes and nose. But he’d have Athena confirm it anyway. It seemed kinda odd that they would have another child together he never even had a hint about. The past two years he thought Jamie was someone else’s, with Snape being a forerunner. She had been overly fond of that git back in their school days. Almost married him as well.
“Jamie, Molly has dinner ready.” Both of them looked at the door as Athena walked in. “It’s your favorite too...” her voice faded off as she saw Sirius watching her from behind her son. “ I see you’re awake.” She didn’t want to confront him. Not right now.
“Yes.” His voice was a little grittier then she remembered but it still had that ability to call to her. Damn it if she wasn’t a little bit still in love with the bastard. “James has just told me…”
“Jamie” both Athena and Jamie corrected at the same time.
“Jamie tells me that Lily and James are still alive.”
“Yes, Apparently Dumbledore felt it necessary to keep to the bare minimum when it came to telling about them,” Athena answered, her tone showing how greatly annoyed she was with the whole situation. “I’ve told him what I thought about it. Jaime, why don’t you go down and eat. Your sister’s been asking about you.” Jamie nodded walked out the door leaving his parents alone in the room.
“You never told me you were pregnant.” Sirius said as soon as he heard his son’s footsteps on the stairs.
“You were never around long enough to say anything,” she retorted. “I tried telling you for a bloody month that I was pregnant. It’s kind of funny, it was your idea to have another kid, and when I finally manage to get pregnant again you were never around.” She sat at the end of the bed and swung around to face him.
“It wasn’t my decision to go to Azkaban.”
“I’m not talking about that Sirius. Those last couple months before Peter betrayed us you were hardly around. Most of the time I was ok with it, I understood that we were in dangerous times and you were an Auror but even when you had any decent amount of time off, you tended to spend it over with James and Lily. I think the only reason you came home at all was to see Zara. And don’t get me started on that night you left me crying my eyes out in pain with only our four year old daughter to help me through a vision because you heard the words James and Lily and out the door you went. So don’t yell at me for not telling you I was pregnant. You never gave me the chance and there was no way I was taking a child into Azkaban, regardless of whether they were in me or not.”
“You never said anything.” His voice was low and she could tell he was just as angry at her as she was at him. And she understood. Relationships went two ways after all. “You never said you were unhappy with my hours or how much time I spent with my best friend.”
“Spending time with your best friend wasn’t a problem, Sirius. You just never spent anytime with us as well.”
“Is he really mine?” Athena’s eyes flashed at the accusation. Part of her knew he was just lashing out at her in anyway he could, but it still hurt that he would even consider for a second that she was unfaithful to him.
“Oh, don’t you dare start that again. We went through this with Zara; I’m not going through this with Jaime. I wouldn’t have named him after you if you weren’t his father.” She paused. “His full name is Sirius James Black, and he was born December 31, 1981 if that answers your question.”
“Well, I’m sorry but it seems kind of circumstantial that you got pregnant just as I’m no longer around.”
“Oh, yes because I so choose to be a single mother. You think that whole situation wasn’t stressful on me? I was four months pregnant when you were locked up Sirius, four months. Your son was born two months later, almost three months early and almost died. I’m not lying to you, and neither is he.”
“He almost died?” Athena was spent after that question. She didn’t like to talk about the couple months after Jamie was born. They had been hell, with her son and her two closest friends in bad health and her best friend and the love of her life (yes, she admitted it now, thank you very much. It had just taken ten years) was gone for what looked to be forever. She made her way up the bed to sit next to him, leaning up against the headboard, and he turned on his side so that he could see her face.
“Yeah, he was three months too early and his lungs hadn’t developed all the way. But apparently he has a fighter spirit because he managed to make it even though the med witches at Mungo’s said he wouldn’t. He reminds me of you sometimes, you know. Especially when he got older and started school. He has your love for mischief and your smile”
“I’m sorry.”
“For what?”
“For asking if he was mine. I knew already, even though it still took awhile. I just needed to confirm and I’m really not certain about anything anymore.”
“I think I can understand that.” She was a little irritated that he hadn’t apologized for what he did over a decade ago, but she supposed it was probably wrong to ask him to. She stood up off the bed and walked towards the door.
“I’ll bring James and Lily in to see you,” she said as she left, not looking back at him.