Who: Sirius and Lily What: The dreams take a dark turn When: Early June Where: Sirius's House Rating/Warnings: High/Talk of death, insanity, language, etc. Status: Closed/Complete upon posting
Halloween was one of Sirius's favorite times of year. In his dreams he'd been on the run from the Death Eaters for a good while, leading them on a wild goose chase because they thought he was the Potter's Secret Keeper. What they didn't know was that he wasn't their Secret Keeper, Peter was the better choice in his opinion, that was until he'd betrayed them all.
Sirius had gone after the rat, only to be framed for his crimes. They'd hauled him off to Azkaban, and he'd laughed the entire way there, his sanity hanging by a thread.
He woke only to feel hot tears streaming down his face, his sides hurting from the laughter and his heart breaking at the same time. It was a strange combination of emotions, and he rolled over quickly to shake Lily awake.
"Lily? Wake up. Please?" He hadn't meant for his tone to hold such a note of desperation but he needed to know that she was actually okay. It didn't dawn on him to check her breathing, or anything like that, but in that moment he was in full panic mode.
Shared dreaming had become a thing for Sirius and Lily and it was quite strange to be sleeping next to someone and the same thing was happening in their dreams. But Lily knew this moment was coming. The prophecy had foretold the possibility of her and James’ child being the one who could defeat Voldemort and that son of a bitch had found out about it. Sirius had convinced them to use Peter as their Secret Keeper, which had been a great idea, but little did they know that he would be the one to betray them.
They had finally settled into a new hiding place a week after Peter was made Secret Keeper and were spending a quiet night indoors for Halloween. It all changed when Voldemort showed up and last time Lily would see her husband would be when he handed Harry over and ordered her to run. She and her child made it upstairs into Harry’s bedroom and locked the door behind them. The fear was thick in the air and Lily was crying in real life as she watched the horror of her death.
When faced with death itself Lily stood strong and refused to step aside for the tyrant in order to protect her son. It didn’t matter that she knew Voldemort would kill her instantly - it only mattered that Harry was okay. The last thing she saw was the flash of green from the Avada Kedavra and then everything went dark. Her own heart did stop for just a brief moment as if the death was bleeding over, but Sirius’ shaking brought her back around and she woke up with a very loud gasp as her eyes flew open.
His own heart nearly stopped beating as he kept shaking her and she didn't wake. "Lils," his voice was shaking now, tears welling up in his eyes. He couldn't lose her, he could understand why Peter would betray all of them. They'd been friends, hadn't they? But at the same time it made perfect sense. Peter had always been weak willed, always ready to follow the crowd and he was a pureblood.
It made sense to Sirius's jumbled brain that Peter would betray them because he thought they were losing the war.
At her gasp, Sirius let out a long breath, one arm wrapping around her before he leaned down to press a kiss against her cheek. "I thought I lost you…" He whispered, a tear sliding out the corner of his eye and landing upon her cheek.
It was a jarring sensation to suddenly come back to life and tears were streaming down her face. As she tried to get her breathing under control her whole body shook in his arms. When that arm wrapped around her she shakily reached her hands up to hold onto him and hearing the sadness in his voice broke her. “Sirius…..I just -- we died. Poor James and poor Harry,” she was mourning for the loss of what her dream self had. It was unexpected and so brutal that she really hoped things were okay for Harry. She wanted her son to live.
It only took a few more deep breaths until she was able to get herself under control and she continued to hold close to her boyfriend. “I -- I can’t believe Peter did that. He sold us out. James told me to run and save Harry, but I couldn’t save him. I sacrificed myself because he doesn’t deserve to die. I am so mad right now.”
Sirius shifted to better wrap his arms around his trembling girlfriend. He stroked a hand over her hair, his heart still hammering in his chest from the adrenaline coursing through his veins. There was a strange mixture of emotions running through him; fear, anger, sadness. It was enough to have a few more tears slip down his cheeks and fall onto her hair. "I know. I know." He murmured, tilting his head down to kiss the top of her head.
"I can't believe it either. I thought...I mean, I knew he was weak but I never thought he'd betray us like that." His voice was still quiet in the room, but loud enough for her to hear it. "He faked his death." He spoke after several long moments of silence, "He did it out in the open among Muggles and framed me for it. I'm -- I'll be going to Azkaban." The very idea sent a shiver down Sirius's spine and he let out a shaky breath.
It would take a long time for Lily to calm down. Her heart was slowly starting to wind down to normal, but she was afraid to close her eyes again. It was awful to watch and she truly never wanted to experience that again. She didn’t know grief very well, but now she did. Her heart was hurting for herself, James, and especially poor Harry. The only good thing to come out of this was that she wasn’t alone when she woke up. She took a deep breath and it turned into a sob.
She tried to get herself under control when Sirius let it slip what Peter had done and how he was now going to Azkaban. Her skin paled and her eyes were wide as she stared at him in horror. “He -- you -- no. NO. I can’t believe he did that. You don’t deserve Azkaban, never,” and now he would be added to her growing pile of grief. She was grieving the loss of the Sirius that she knew and love because Azkaban would take that away from him for a crime that he hadn’t committed, “Do you know what happened to Harry?” Please let there be at least one silver lining aside from Remus not being involved in any of this.
He kept rubbing Lily's back, willing his own heart to calm down. At the same time it was breaking. He was thinking of James, of Lily and of little Harry. There were countless others that had been killed, or tortured because they were fighting for a good cause. And now he was going to prison for a crime that he did not commit.
Sirius nodded, "Yes, Hagrid took him to your sister. He's safe. I asked Hagrid to give him to me, but he had orders from Dumbledore to take him straight to your sister." Sirius was Harry's godfather, so it would've made sense for them to hand him over to Sirius, however, if they still believed that Sirius was the Potter's Secret Keeper it would make sense why they wouldn't. "I'll be fine, love. I'm sure I'll figure out a way to survive." Cold dread was still wrapped around Sirius's insides. Dealing with Dementors wasn't an easy feat, but Sirius was determined to make it through since he was sure his innocence would be revealed. "I'm sure they'll figure it out, that they'll see that I'm innocent." At least, he could hope that they would.
“Petunia?” She couldn’t believe that Dumbledore would actually send her child there. There had to be some sort of reason behind it, but she honestly couldn’t come up with it on her own. Oh god, she wished Harry had ended up with Sirius, but it wouldn’t have worked if he was ending up in Azkaban. This was a horrible way to start the day and her heart would be hurting for a long time just thinking about her dream life. Nothing was fair and she truly hoped that things turned out okay with everyone else who was left alive, “God, I hope so. Oh Sirius….this is awful. Is it too early for a drink?”
Because that was probably the only thing that would calm her nerves right now. That and just staying in bed with her boyfriend and remembering that she was alive and well in this world. She would have to contact Remus as well since he knew about this and hadn’t told them. Which she could understand because that is a pretty big deal spoiler, but he had to know what happened. They needed to discuss it.
Sirius nodded, "Yes." He hoped that Harry was alright. The poor boy had been through so much in just his first year of life, and hell, he couldn't imagine what else he might've gone through if his own innocence wasn't proven yet. Sirius couldn't think on that. He couldn't. Hell, he couldn't even think on losing his best friend, or Lily. It was all too much for his brain to wrap around. "Awful is putting it mildly love, and no, definitely not too early."
He leaned in and pressed a kiss to her cheek, "Hang on, I'll be right back." He got up from the bed after letting her go, and went directly to the kitchen to pull a bottle of whiskey from the cabinet since it was all he had on hand at the moment. Sirius made a mental note to grab some more liquor the next time he was out, but instead of dwelling on that, he grabbed two tumblers from the drainer and headed back to the bedroom. He poured them both a generous helping, and held one out to Lily before re-joining her on the bed. "There you go love." It wouldn't solve their problems, but it would help them to forget them for a bit.
As she waited for Sirius to join her again she readjusted herself in the bed and tried to clean up her face a little bit. It was time to try and focus on being in the here and now instead of thinking about how the dreams had turned out. She resisted the urge to send Remus a text, it was too early, but she was more than happy to snuggle up to Sirius when he rejoined her. The tumbler was taken from him and she curled up beside him, “I love you. Let’s put on something funny to watch and drink away the dreams for now. I just want to be with you.” That was what was important. The dreams couldn’t get any worse for either of them.