lily potter defies your dark lords. (thricedefied) wrote in fissuresrpg, @ 2010-09-08 18:26:00 |
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Disapparating wasn’t exactly working like it should, but Lily couldn’t put her finger on why that was, beyond not knowing the exact lay of the land. Even the place being called multiple names shouldn’t make this happen with less ease than usual, but she had to acknowledge that she really didn’t know this place at all, nor how magic here might react with it. Still, her wand worked as well as it always had and once she had a bit better of an idea of where the city’s outer edges were, Apparition worked much better, so she in a large grassy area near one of the roadways leading away from it, grassy plains hitting a wooded area in the distance. This place would certainly do, for many purposes, not the least of which was Sirius’ talk about Azkaban to Regulus. If he’d been in that awful place... she couldn’t think about the whys and the rest right now, but she could give him open air and sunshine and no walls if what he was saying was true. It was there she sent out her Patronus with a message to point him in the right direction and waited, her heart in her throat and the tidal wave of truths of that night and what had happened after held at bay so she could still stand upright. Sirius had left his hill by the time Lily’s Patronus had found him, and had been eating some berries off of a nearby bush, hoping that it wasn’t poisonous- if they were, however, he wasn’t sure he’d care much because after seven months of gruel they were the most flipping delicious thing he’d ever eaten in his life. When Lily’s Patronus found him, though, Sirius had abandoned the berry bush in a rush, and headed in the direction indicated by the message. It wasn’t until he was nearly there when he realized that it would would have been a good idea to, oh, find some clothes that weren’t in jail-stripes, wash up, and try not looking so damn haggard. So damn haggard like a prisoner. He wasn’t sure how he was going to explain the whole sent-to-Azkaban thing. It’d been easy to tell Regulus over the journals; Sirius wasn’t all that concerned with how his little brother saw him. But Lily was one of his friends. And the only friend here. And despite how mad of a thought it seemed (this was Lily for Merlin’s sake) he was terribly worried that she wouldn’t believe his explanation. It was a silly thought, Sirius hadn’t even been the Secret Keeper, and, rationally, Sirius knew that Lily knew that Sirius would never betray them. But then again, Sirius would have expected everyone to know that, but they apparently hadn’t and he’d ended up in Azkaban. And in the back of Sirius’ mind, there was a worry that she wouldn’t believe him either. But it wasn’t like he could not tell Lily the whole truth, or avoid her, or stop himself from going to see her. She’d been dead for seven months, one of his closest friends. And now she wasn’t. He had to see for himself, see for himself that she was really real and that she was alive (the idea of her being a zombie had crossed his mind briefly) and tell her what had happened with the hope that she would believe him. So, in his prisoner robes, with the kitten from earlier trailing behind him (Sirius had resigned himself to being stuck with the cat for now, and had taken to calling it Demon), he approached the meeting stop, walking through the grassy plain (which was so nice he still debated whether or not this was the afterlife). Sirius froze some ways away from the spot, spotting a figure there (which proved nothing except that there was someone else in the world besides journal-writings), and then with a deep breath, continued towards the figure. Lily wasn’t certain how long she waited for Sirius to arrive, but when the silver doe came bounding back to her and disappeared, she knew the wait would be over soon enough. Turning to look in all non-city directions, she studied everything, until a figure crested a gentle slope in the road and she saw him. At first, she told herself what she was seeing was due to distance or her own lingering disorientation, but at he drew closer, she couldn’t ignore the state he was in. Scruffy, malnourished and dressed in Azkaban’s idea of robes, but he was still Sirius. Somehow, though it was impossible, what he’d been saying on the journals was right. She couldn’t believe it. Furthermore, she wasn’t yet ready to connect that horrible thing with what had just happened to James and, likely, herself. Forgetting she was a sodding witch entirely, she took off at a run to meet him before he had to go any further. It wasn’t a long dash, but it felt like forever until she came skidding to a halt in front of him. She took one huge breath, fighting back the burn of tears at seeing him treated like this, and then wrapped her arms around him. Maybe he’d shy away, maybe he’d cling to her, but no matter his reaction, she truly couldn’t do anything but offered comfort to one of her dearest friends as she selfishly took some comfort in him being there. “Oh, Sirius,” she whispered, the words choked by the same held-back tears. Of all the things Sirius was expecting, Lily jumping him with a hug had, surprisingly, not been one of those things. He had been being much more pessimistic. Not that it was an unwanted hug, of course, and when she did hug him, he didn’t even think before hugging her back. And he, for a moment, had the optimism to think that, yes, Lily was alive and well and here and hugging him and alive. He couldn’t even choke out any words, more from shock than anything else, and simply hugged her tightly. And then he realized that he was crying like a little girl, and broke off the hug, pushing Lily back at arm’s length. “I-” Any pre-planned words he had had flown out the window. “You look well.” For a dead woman. It wasn’t what he wanted to say, though it was true. She looked just as he remembered her. Except alive. She looked alive, much to his relief, and he was worried that if he blinked, she’d just drop dead at any moment and he’d have imagined all this. Though, admittedly, if he was imagining this (and providing she didn’t drop dead), an imaginary reunion with one of his best friends was preferable to sitting around on any other Azkaban day. If he was, indeed, mad, he wasn’t going to complain when his madness gave him a friend back. If she’d thought seeing him looking like that was heartbreaking, it was nothing compared to seeing Sirius Black crying. Not that he was missing tear ducts or not allowed to be emotional, not at all, it was just not something he did enough to give her any kind of resistance to it. Though she couldn’t bring herself to let go with both hands, she freed one from where she’d tangled it up in the rough robes and wiped the tears away from a face badly in need of a shave and a bath. She looked well? The sound she made was somewhere between a sob and a distressed giggle, because of all the things he could have said, that wasn’t what she’d expected. Though, really, had she truly been able to expect anything when she had no idea what it was like for him in his time, a time after she and James had... had died? Though the maternal part of her strained to demand answers about Harry, the part that couldn’t accept hearing her baby was dead wasn’t ready for that at all. So she focused on him instead. “Padfoot, what did they do to you?” she asked, and maybe it wasn’t the best time to ask, maybe she should hug him again or find food and feed him or make him sit down or something, but she had to know why in Merlin’s name this could ever happen to him. Had the war gone so badly as that? He was rather embarrassed to have been crying, and after Lily wiped his face, he wiped his eyes himself with the end of his sleeve- keeping one eye on Lily at a time to make sure she didn’t suddenly vanish or collapse or turn into a cat or anything like that. If he dared to look away for a second, he was sure she would. That’s how delusions worked. They only existed when you looked straight at them, but when you turned away, they’d vanish. But there were more important things than whether or not Lily was a vision of madness. To be honest, despite how happy Sirius was to see her, and how rather hungry he was, he wanted to explain things, tell her what had happened, before anything else. Well. Not want, but needed to. He needed to tell her, needed to know that she believed him. “I- well. I was in Azkaban. They put me in Azkaban, after-” Sirius stopped himself, swallowing a hard lump in his throat. “After you and James were... well. I was arrested for- they thought I sold you and Prongs out to Voldemort,” he finally said, rushing the words out, half-spitting Voldemort’s name. “It was Peter,” the name was like venom on his tongue,”he sold you out and then blew himself up when I tracked him down, taking a dozen or so bystanders with him and made it look like I had done it, and they believed it and they arrested me. For all of it. And tossed me in. And-” He finally choked on the words, the lump in his throat getting the better of him. And despite his intention to keep his eyes on Lily, he couldn’t stop himself from looking down to the ground, afraid of what he might see in her eyes. Still looking down, he said, “I’m sorry, Lily, I tried to get there before V- before it happened, but I was too late. And then I couldn’t take down Peter, he killed himself, the cowardly bastard. I’m sorry.” It was utterly horrifying. While it was in no way comparable to living it, hearing Sirius get that all out in a rush and trying to absorb it all to fully understand what he was saying was absolutely horrifying. Lily didn’t understand, at all, how anyone would believe Sirius would be responsible for murdering them and a crowd of Muggles and Peter. There had to have been a trial, it had to have come out that Peter was the Secret Keeper and that’s why Sirius had gone after him, they had to have let him tell his side- Her head was spinning from all of it. Why Peter? She didn’t have the luxury of trying to sort that out now, not when it was all bubbling up inside her, demanding to get out. “But you’d never- and Peter was- you all thought it was Remus- they locked you away- Merlin’s balls!” Speaking wasn’t working at all, so she tried to calm herself down, even as she stepped back in to hug Sirius again, making soft, soothing noises like she would use to settle Harry down when he was fussy. It took some time for her to finally be able to from the full sentences required to respond to this, and once she was able, one thing was more pressing then the rest. “It wasn’t your fault, Sirius,” she said softly, moving her hand until she could tap his chin to get him to look at her again. “None of this was your fault. Jamie and I made our choice to trust Peter with the responsibility. You shouldn’t have ever been blamed for any of it, I can’t believe they heard all of this at a trial and didn’t investigate, Dumbledore knew you, knew you’d never do this, why didn’t they listen to him?” Sirius hugged Lily back, trying to keep from crying again (he was a man for bloody sake, and men weren’t supposed to cry so much), and then could only nod back at Lily for a long moment, unable to put to voice how he felt. His relief that she believed him was immense, that she didn’t think it was his fault. He had been so worried, ridiculously, he knew, that she would think otherwise, that he was impossibly relieved that she didn’t blame him for what happened. Finally, though, he managed to regain some of his composure, looking at Lily. “There was no trial, no investigation. And Dumbledore-” Sirius shrugged, “- he believed it too. Everyone did. Or maybe they just didn’t care, who knows. They-” his teeth snarled slightly, “- I heard that they gave Peter an Order of Merlin, for his sacrifice, even. He got a medal, and I got prison. They all think I was a Death Eater, Lily, they thought they’d all been tricked by me but it was Peter and-” he was starting to go off on a tangent, and stopped himself. “They didn’t bother with a trial, they didn’t think they needed one, my so-called guilt was obvious. What with the whole explosion thing.” And the manic laughter, and the being a pureblood thing, and- He took a deep breath. Demon, the cat, was rubbing against his leg, and he pushed it away with his foot, annoyed. “I never thought Peter’d do that, I thought he was better than that,” he admitted. “I thought Remus would have done it. But then I felt something was wrong, and I got to Peter’s place and he was already gone, so I went to your place. I was too late, it was too late,” Sirius stated once again, like a broken record. “Shh shh, it’s over now, love, I’m right here, you aren’t going back to that place,” Lily soothed, but she knew even has she said it that it was only empty promises and it wasn’t really over because James and Harry, they- The truth was, she didn’t know. She didn’t know why they were here, or how long they’d stay, or where James was, or what had happened to Harry. The only thing she knew was James was dead, verified by Sirius before she could believe it a nightmares. but Harry, her baby. What kind of mother was she if she didn’t ask about her own child? And what kind of friend-turned-family was she if she pressed him to relive more of it? Motherhood overrode friendship, because she could soothe Sirius again, prolonging it would mean just upsetting him later anyhow and, ultimately, she needed to know. “Sirius, is Harry- is he-” She couldn’t bring herself to say it. Just nodding along with what Lily was saying, he was still nodding when Lily asked about Harry, and then quickly shook his head when he realized that he was saying that Harry wad dead. Hurriedly, he said, “No, no, I-” He paused, biting his lip. “I mean, when I last saw him, Harry was alive. He should be fine. Hagrid took him to Dumbledore after-” he stopped again. “-and said that Dumbledore wanted to give him to your sister or something. And then rode off on my motorcycle to... do that, I suppose.” He winced, berating himself for not thinking to tell Lily about Harry, having been selfishly more concerned with other things. She must have been worried sick over her son, and his first order of business really should have been to reassure her. Excellent job, you blockhead. Sirius’s face broke into the barest ghostly hint of a smile, the closest thing to a smile in seven years. “Harry took out Voldemort, Lily, Voldemort’s spell backfired on him, and Voldemort died instead. The war ended.” He shrugged. “I mean, so I heard. I’d think the war’s over, since they were rounding up Death Eaters to toss in prison like me. ‘cept they got trials, I believe.” “But Harry’s alive. And probably a lot better off than he would have been with me, really,” he said, trying to sound reassuring, a hand on Lily’s shoulder. He remembered he hadn’t been pleased when Hagrid had said he was taking Harry to Dumbledore to live with Lily’s sister, but he hadn’t argued at the time- Sirius had been more concerned with tracking down that coward Peter. Some godfather he had turned out to be. Harry was alive. Harry had killed Voldemort. It was a good thing they were standing by this road holding onto each other because otherwise, Lily might’ve given in to her legs buckling. Her baby, hers and James’ baby, had stopped the evil they’d fought tooth and nail for years? How? It didn’t really matter how. It mattered that Harry was alive, even if he was with her sister. She would have wanted him with Sirius, one that she and James had agreed, even if Sirius would have fumbled it at first, because he would have loved Harry like he was his own son. There were so many things different she wanted for Harry, for Sirius, for Remus, for the others, but this was the reality. And for that one fact alone, Harry surviving, Lily found the strength to pull herself together and focus on Sirius again. “Don’t say that, you would have been wonderful with him,” she said, meaning every word of it, then popped up to kiss his cheek. It was a natural, familiar gesture, but the cheek full of beard was definitely not. She wrinkled her nose, nearly sneezing from the surprise of it, then pulled back to look at him. “People are going to wonder about us if we stay standing here and you need cleaned up, are you hungry?” she asked, falling into a fussing, sister slash mother-hen mode, because it was easier to do that that to think about the rest right now. “I honestly don’t even know what currency this place takes, but we’ll find something. Someplace to clean up, stay the night? The city is enormous, there has to be a hostel of some kind in it.” She hoped. It wasn’t as though she’d been dropped into this place with a sack of Galleons. He doubted that he would have been any good with Harry, but Sirius only shrugged. It wasn’t the time nor the place to argue the point. And besides, it didn’t really matter anymore; Harry was with Lily’s sister now and Sirius was supposed to be in Azkaban. At Lily’s mention of food, his eyes lit up. “I love food,” he said simply, and honestly. And his stomach growled loudly in agreement. “Surely there must be. I mean, if they have a city, they must have a hostel and food and beds and food and things cities have and oooh, food.” An almost-grin graces his lips, his beard probably making him look ridiculous. Merlin did he need to shave. Unless he found the bear suited him, though he found that unlikely. “We might need to beg for money. Good thing you’re pretty and I can be a dog. People love pretty women with dogs,” he suggested, only half-joking. “Or we could... nope, begging does seem the best option. And I have a cat! People love pretty women beggars with pets. And you’ll have two.” He leaned down, roughly picking up the furry creature, not quite half-grown, and holding it out it Lily. “Happy birthday and Christmas and whatever other holidays I missed, have my demon cat.” It wasn’t really surprising that this impossible, lovable man somehow made Lily smile despite everything. Azkaban had taken its toll, she knew that just from this short time, but there was still Sirius in there, that ridiculous boy who challenged life head on, demanding the world either accept him or sod off. James would be happy to know it. Pushing away that pain, Lily listened to the rambling plan, then blinked a bit when he pushed the kitten at her. She hadn’t even paid much attention to anything that wasn’t Sirius, so that was a surprise, but she reached out willingly for the creature just the same. “Oh, hello there, did you try to make friends with the big puppy that doesn’t like cats at all, I bet he huffed and growled the whole time,” she said in light tones to the kitten, smoothing a hand over its tiny head and down its back, then looked back up at Sirius. “Do you have your wand? Was it there when you woke up here? Mine was in the journal, I-” Hadn’t had it on her. Neither she or James had. Would it have changed anything if they had stayed ever vigilant. She cleared her throat. “It wasn’t on me, but it was with the journal, was yours?” Rolling his eyes at Lily’s talk to the Demon cat, Sirius’s expression was very near a smile now. Being out of Azkaban, having Lily back, not having that cat rubbing against his leg, it was doing him a bit of good. He still felt like crap, yes, but a little bit less like crap than he had for the past months. With a huff, he muttered, “All I did was toss it down a level in a barn, it’s got, what? Eight lives left now?” “I do, shockingly.” He looked down at the ground, where he had tossed the journal and his wand aside when Lily had run up to him. He had carried it all day, lacking any pockets or bags. Picking both items up, he waved his wand about. “But I think someone must have hurt it, it’s got a dent in the side here-” he gestured to an impression in the wood, “- that definitely wasn’t there when I last had it. But it’s my wand.” And Sirius had been ridiculously pleased to see the wooden stick when he’d opened the journal earlier today. His wand had been taken from him when they’d arrested him, of course. He’d figured they’d locked it up or destroyed it when he’d been put in Azkaban. And he felt like this wand, while definitely his, was somehow just slightly different than the wand he’d had before being locked away. Tsking softly at him for the treatment of the kitten, Lily waited until he showed her the wand, then inspected it seriously. It was just as he was explaining, which only made her wonder more about how the wands had come to be here with them. “Mine was the same,” she said thoughtfully. “Not so much a dent, though, as just feeling slightly off. Still works, it just felt not entirely right at first. I thought it was just me, but perhaps not.” It was something to think about later, to research and question and decide. For now, she needed to take care of them. With her journal shrunk and stuck in one pocket, her wand sticking out of the other (she could hear, even now, Moody having an absolute fit about that), Sirius’ new feline not-friend in hand and his journal and wand in his hands, Lily was certain they were well collected. “Ready to see what this city has for us, Padfoot?” she asked quietly. She hoped that when the food, the shelter and other creature comforts they were looking for were secured, James would be the next thing they added to their ‘found necessities’. |