Sirius Black (master_snuffles) wrote in platform_zero, @ 2016-05-28 17:52:00 |
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Entry tags: | lily potter, sirius black |
Who: Sirius Black and Lily Potter
Where: The hospital
When: May 28th
What: Shifting the blame where it belongs
Rating: Just fine
Status: Completed
When Sirius awoke, a light was shining so brightly in his eyes that he couldn't see anything. He tried to close them, but discovered that they already were, and turned onto his side, his back to the source of the brightest light in the universe. He was cold and hot, his mouth dry and his face and neck wet. His shirt was clinging to him, strangling him. He was going to die
"Shhhh. You're alright. I'm here," he heard a voice say, such a nice voice. Such a reassuring voice. Such a familiar voice. Something cool was pressed to the side of his face, and he pressed back against it with a hum of contentment. The cool thing shifted a few times, first up to his forehead, then down to his neck. He swallowed reflexively and licked his lips when he found there was nothing at all to swallow, his saliva too thick to go down.
"Are you thirsty?" the voice asked, and though he tried to open his mouth to answer, his lips stuck fast, so he nodded. The cool thing was pressed to his lips, disappeared and came back colder than before, as well as wet. It was heavenly. When it disappeared again, he found he could part his lips again.
"Parched," he said, his voice rough.
Something thin appeared at his lips next.
"Open," came the voice. Sirius did as he was told. "Small sips, Sirius." He drank, the water nearly burning with cold as it went down.
"How are you feeling?" A soft hand on his face. He leaned into it as he turned the question over in his head. How was he feeling? Not well, surely.
"Tired," came his answer. "Hot and tired."
"Good." The voice sounded pleased. He knew that voice. Where did he know it from? First, he thought it might be his mother's, but then- no. Walburga had never spoken to him like that a day in his life. "Can you open your eyes for me, Sirius?"
Oh. Right. He supposed to could try that again, now that the light had died down to something manageable.
The room was unbearably bright again, the whites startlingly white and the red of her hair redder than anything he'd ever seen. It took him a moment to recognize the woman sitting on the edge of his bed, a painfully white cloth in her hands.
"Lily," he rasped, tears instantly rising to his eyes. She was here. How could she be here? He repeated her name, reaching out for her hand, which he grasped as tightly as he was able, lest she float away on one of those shards of light.
"I'm here," she repeated, her voice so much more than familiar now that he knew who it belonged to. Lines appeared on her face and her eyebrows drooped, as did the corners of her mouth. "I'm here, Sirius. Me and James, Harry, Remus. We're all here."
Sirius looked around her, but saw no one else. James. He wanted to see James. And Remus.
"They're here?" he asked, breathing harder. Far from being panicked at the certainty that he was dead, Sirius had never been so happy in his life, tears running down the sides of his face towards his ears. "Everyone's here?"
Lily nodded, naked concern in her smile.
"Everyone's here. Even your brother."
His brother.
"Regulus," he said after a time, to which Lily nodded. Sirius tore his eyes away from her face, but only for a moment, overwhelmed with the knowledge that he would see his brothers again. All of them. And Remus. And Harry. And- "... Peter?" The name was harsh in his throat. If everyone else was here, if everyone else had died and come here...
"No."
Good. The other place, then, for him. The bad place. He was glad to have Regulus, even if he spent all of his time in that apothecary.
Why did he know that?
"Am I... I'm dead, aren't I?" he asked, confused.
"N- No," Lily replied, worrying the cloth between her hands, making droplets of water fall on the skirt of her dress. "Sirius, you're on Elysium. Do you remember? The island? Delphine? Everyone from the future?"
Sirius blinked and turned away again. Right. Yes. Regulus and his apothecary, that was on the island.
"Sirius," she breathed, and started to rise. "I should get Andromeda."
"No." He caught her hand and looked back up at her. "No, I... I think I remember now. Azkaban. Coming here. James. Remus who... has a son with... Dora." He nodded and closed his eyes, licking his lips again. "Pansy Parkinson. I remember." He wished he could forget.
The cot dipped when Lily settled herself back at his side, visibly hesitating between staying and going.
"I'm fine, Lily. Where are James and Harry? And Remus? Are they all-"
"They're fine," she replied, straightening with a hand on Sirius's nearest shoulder. "Remus is still feeling a bit moon-rough, but he was in here earlier. So was James, for a while. A good while. I sent them off to get something to eat. They're worried about you."
Sirius nodded. Of course they were worried. He'd be worried too if one of his mates was laid up in hospital. Especially after... everything.
"I wish I could forget," he admitted into the darkness behind his eyelids. Lily shifted on the cot, but he didn't give her a chance to ask before continuing. "Peter. Losing you and James. Losing Remus because I didn't trust him. I wish I could forget it all."
The silence was long and tense, broken only by the hush of water pouring out of the cloth and back into the basin as it was wrung out.
"Would you be happier?" Lily asked him, the cloth blessedly cool against his face and the side of his neck. At his nod, she asked, "Why?"
"Knowing I did that to you..." Her hair was lit up like a halo when Sirius opened his eyes again. The sight of her there, healthy and whole, made them water.
"It wasn't your fault, Sirius." But he wouldn't hear it. "Sirius, look at me. Look at me. I'm not going to lie, I'm not going to say that you had nothing to do with it, because you did. You did." Although not entirely harsh, her voice was no longer gentle. Sirius tried to turn his head away from hers, but she made that impossible, shifting into his field of vision whenever he would try to hide his shame. "But so did we. We all trusted Peter and your plan was a good one. It would've been a good one if Peter..."
She sighed. "Sirius, it wasn't a bad plan. We all trusted him. He tricked us all we all paid for it, one way or another. But it wasn't just you."
This time, when Sirius tried to sit up, Lily didn't try to stop him. The world lurched and tilted unpleasantly, but Sirius kept a hold of his lunch. Or... whatever meal it was he'd last had. It might've been a while. Leaning back against the wall with his knees up to his chest, it was easier not to fell quite so small, despite how little space he took up on his bed. It was easier, as well, to wipe the tears before they had a chance to get too far.
"I can't blame you for that, Lily. I can't blame you and James for-"
"So don't blame us," she told him, shifting to cover one of his feet under the sheet. "We weren't wrong. Blame Peter."
His jaw popped, his lips in such a thin line that they might just disappear.
"I do blame Peter."
Lily nodded, waiting to see if he would say anything else. When nothing else came, she supplied, "There's no point in blaming yourself. There's no point in blaming him either, it won't change anything, but there's especially no point in blaming yourself when you're not even the one responsible. You had a good. plan., Sirius. It would've worked if Peter hadn't betrayed us. Blame him." Her cheeks reddened, though Sirius wasn't sure why. Anger, probably. "Don't carry this around with you for the rest of your life. It doesn't belong to you. And if it does, it belongs to all of us."
Now, when the silence rang, there was nothing to break it. The other two residents of his room were fast asleep and dead to the world. In that silence, all Sirius could do was think, and look at his best mate's wife, now a good friend of his as well.
It was a good plan.
It won't change anything.
You're not even the one responsible.
It would've worked if Peter hadn't betrayed us.
It would've worked if Peter hadn't betrayed us.
At some point, Lily had started rubbing his ankle through the sheet, looking at him with an expression of intense resolve mingled with concern.
They weren't to blame. Not Lily and not James.
And if they weren't to blame... neither was he.
A shoulder insinuated itself between his chest and his knees when he began to cry, arms winding themselves tightly about his shoulders. Her hair was so red in the sunlight from the window, so much redder than the day he'd found her and James. It was alive, on Lily who was alive and James- He clung to her that much tighter, refusing to let go. He remembered that smell from the day they were married and the day they had Harry and the day he'd found them-
"We're here, now. James and I, and Remus, we're here," she soothed, a hand brushing his back. "And we're never going back."