Prompt: (“You're bleeding on my floor.”)

What We Lost to Win the War

1. Exit Wounds

The blood had found its way underneath his fingernails. His knuckles ached from the beating and his mind was so clear it should make him hesitate.

Splintered pulp of a nose. Faceless, nameless. Once he’d washed this off, he’d forget the man altogether.

His mind was full of memories of the smell of her. The taste of her, the look, but mostly the smell. You remembered smells differently than you did other things.

She smelled different nowadays. Coconut on her skin, soap gifted to her by some other man. Fear in her sweat, which was what the Death Eaters had gifted them all with. And dreary English rain in her hair. The long nights spying on the Death Eater hideout on the Isle of Dogs had given them little intelligence and plenty of strained relationships and bad nerves. Nobody volunteered anymore but Moody ordered her to do it more than anyone. To keep her out of harm’s way Moody had let slip to James once when he’d had one too many.

More like Moody didn’t like her, Sirius thought. But this move might just keep her out of the worst of it, which suited Sirius. He’d always had a soft spot for her, and after last week…

She smelled stronger when she undressed. Or maybe he used his senses more when she undressed.


Want you so bad I can taste it, but you're nowhere to be found


He always needed to get laid after Order missions. At first it had been a bit of an in-joke amongst his mates, Sirius always on the pull after he got his hands bloodied. In his defence, there wasn’t that much else you could do afterwards. Forget sleeping, sleeping was so 1978. And drinking these days was much less a pastime than the vomiting after was.

You try holding your drink after you’ve killed someone sort of by mistake but not quite. You try drinking when every whiff reminds you of their exposed bloody organs.

It didn’t always use to be like this, but… However. For the last year it had mostly been nameless faceless ones, all to keep it safe. Muggle birds were great. Sexual revolution Lily had christened it for him. Not that he cared if they were on the pill or not. He made his own precautions.

Didn’t have to be a bird either, he’d found, certainly not once he’d had a drink or two. At least that’s how he told Peter when he asked. James had known all along of course. All three of them pretended to believe it was a new discovery.

Last week he had met Marlene McKinnon in his seedy local. They had history, but they had never stopped being friends. Now they were colleagues. They’d spent that whole night fucking. It had been so good it was difficult to believe they were the same people still. She’d been his first girlfriend back when he was lousy at sex. She’d been his last proper girlfriend, too. Funny, that, they got on so well that absolutely no one would believe she’d scared him off relationships for good.

And they’d be right, of course. He was simply incapable of being the half of something better than him. But what teenager is ready to admit to that?


In the arms of another who doesn't mean anything to you, there's nothing much to discover


She’d had plenty of boyfriends after him though, Marlene had.

“Never let go of me,” she had moaned that night, her skin wet with both their sweat, blonde hair plastered to her forehead, her nipples so hard the pads of his thumbs remembered them for minutes after like memory foam.

Buried inside of her, Sirius found it hard to thrust after her outburst. What counted as letting someone go? But she came with him and she rolled over and away and wiped between her legs with the loose end of his sheet. What was there to let go of, what had there ever been to hold on to in the first place?

“Have you ever done it with an animal in the room?” Marlene had asked, her limber right arm appearing around her back and her fingers scratching an itch by the long, thin scar thar curved her left shoulder blade.

I’ve done one better, Sirius did not reply, scratching the inside of his thigh and wondering if it was her sweat or his that itched. “Sure. Cats are judgemental arseholes and dogs a bit too eager to see what you’re doing. Hippogriffs are cool, though.”

Marlene had shot him one of those sparkling smiles that had periodically lit up his life, and for a moment it was as though this was a normal conversation, as if they weren’t spending every waking hour fighting in a godawful war.


I'll take a drug to replace it, or put me in the ground


His memory was becoming more ambience based. Fun and easy Hogwarts days, a conclusion obviously reached in hindsight. The excitement of his first six months in the Order of the Phoenix. He had never been so focused, never been so sober as when he went on those first missions. He and James, united. He knew James better than he’d ever gotten to know himself, and there were no fights they could lose together. There was no doubt there, not ever. Not for as long as they stayed together.

The atmosphere changed in 1979. People started dying, not just Death Eaters, but good people. It meant the bad guys had gotten better. It meant Sirius could never again pretend he regretted killing, but it also meant he had to admit to himself that he cared when somebody good died. Someone he knew. Someone he had hugged, one-armedly perhaps, but someone he had actually touched. Maybe shared a drink with, bummed a cigarette of, maybe dragged out of a burning building. Snogged in the darkness of a broom cupboard in another lifetime.

They were taken out, one by one, like doxies sprayed with doxycide.

The wrath, the black mist giving way to depression. 1979, 1980, 1981. Down, down, down. Grey to black, blackest black. His friends were all dying, and that inevitably meant he was going the same way.

He’d duelled hundreds of Death Eaters by now. Mostly with James, but some on his own, or, even worse, with somebody else. These days, mostly alone. When the details escaped him, it was easy to think he’d won every time. He’d emerged with no scars to show for it. Scars were personable, sometimes sexy. Everyone in the Order had some. Magically inflicted wounds were difficult to heal, the muggle ones fixed in a trice.

James had purple scars all over his back from when Avery had used a lightning curse on him, and the healing magic had been too advanced for everyone present in the aftermath. Lily had a scar on her neck from where Bellatrix Lestrange had tried to slice her throat, and another on her ankle from when a matagot had snuck up on her. Even Peter had a scar on his big toe from where a venomous tentacula guarding a Death Eater hideout in a beachside cave in the Hebrides attempted to take a bite.

Sirius had nothing. It was as though he had glided through every duel fought to the death with nothing to show for it but a wrecked resting heart rate and a shrivelled old liver.

Only half an hour ago he’d had to beat a Death Eater to death with a rock (he’d lost his wand on the forest floor and had to rely on brute strength. Brute strength he had.) but in ten minutes he’d get to go out and drink and smoke and flirt and forget.

Would she be there again?

Sirius removed his clothes and stepped into the shower. His hands didn’t shake, not even a little.

“The citrus one,” he muttered, because his sponge had been floating towards the milder spruce-smelling soap. But the black and yellow etiquette on the bottle in the corner featured long-lashed, heavy-lidded eyes that stared haughtily at him, like they knew. Knew that he had blood that needed to be scrubbed away. Such sharp citrusy notes it would overpower absolutely everything.

The eyes themselves reminded him, perversely, of his mother. Sneering, he touched himself while keeping eye-contact. All manners of fucked-up, but then who was to blame if not she? The sponge arrived, dripping in neon yellow soap and impatiently waving his hand away from between his legs. It made him realize that he had stopped masturbating in the shower sometime between now and 1978. It used to be such an important evening ritual, caused by the lack of privacy sleeping in a dormitory afforded you, but even in a flat of his own he had never realized he had stopped doing it. Maybe it was still the lack of privacy.

Thinking decisively of Marlene’s nipples, he slid his hand back down his stomach.


Put me in the ground


And what had the war taught him so far?

Well, you could argue his suspicions began in 1979, after they parted ways. 1978 had been a hell of a year, maybe the pinnacle of his life. He’d lie if he said he didn’t feel relief knowing he would never soar so high again. He’d crashed and burned so hard he could never feel so much again, not ever. But 1979 came with some very unwelcome revelations.

“We need to bury him,” James said, lowering the corpse’s head gently back to the ground. Most of the biceps had been torn clean off, meaning it could only be werewolves. The victim, not content with his new lot in life, had used his still functional arm to end it. The knife had gone straight through his neck, just underneath his Adam’s apple. Sirius saw the tip of the knife sticking out between the finer, curlier hair that grew between neck and back of head.

“Do we have to?” Peter asked. “He doesn’t have family, does he?”

“How dense are you?” Sirius said impatiently. He hadn’t wanted to bring Peter, and though James’d never admit it Sirius knew he felt the same. They had expected the castle ruins to be crawling with the enemy, keeping a homeless squib man from a nearby village captive, and Peter would have hindered them more than helped if that had been the case.

“Did you listen to Fenwick’s report at the last meeting?” James asked of Peter. How he could keep his voice so patient Sirius would never know.

“The one about the – the inferi?”

“Yeah. All those people who’ve gone missing, the corpses from St Mungo’s morgue and the raids in the muggle parts of Highgate Cemetery. Thanks to Fenwick we now have proof that he’s raising an inferius army. And Dumbledore reckons that it’s still a work in progress. Voldemort wants more corpses.”

Peter shivered at the name. Sirius had raised his wandhand and made a hole in the tightly packed dirt floor.

“I thought this was supposed to be a werewolf nest?” Peter said quietly. “Like most of their kind in league with You-Know-Who.” James turned the corpse into a beautiful amethyst-like stone and made it float into the hole.

“They must’ve fled.”

“Why? D’you reckon they knew we were coming?”

Sirius didn’t have to look at James to know he was shaking his head decisively.

“No one – no one tipped them off, then?”

“No,” James said evenly. “They probably realized they’d gone too far, kidnapping this poor lad in the village. They guessed we’d take an interest and come looking, so they killed him and fled.”

The atmosphere grew heavy from his words. Peter chewed his nails, looking worried, and Sirius had to bite down on his own misgivings.

“If they do come back, we should leave them something to welcome them home with,” he said instead and flicked his wand upwards.

“Nice one, mate,” James said appreciatively. He was looking at Sirius’s wand all the while he used his own to make the earth on top of the rock smooth itself out and harden to match the rest. “Hang on, I’ll add some scorpions to that. Welcome home indeed.”

“What did you do?” Peter asked curiously, but the other two had already turned to leave, laughing like old times imagining Voldemort’s supporters walking into their trap. “Hey, hang on! Did either of you check what was on the parchment in the corner?”

“What’s that?” James asked immediately, turning and jogging back into the dark room. Peter was standing in the opposite corner to where they’d buried the corpse, holding out a torn, dirty bit of parchment.

Sirius and James exchanged a shocked look. Not like them to miss something like this.

“Lucky you were here, Wormtail, mate,” James said, patting him on the shoulder and reading the words hastily scribbled on the parchment.

Sirius came to a stop next to them, squinting. “Dorcas Meadowes, 8 Soothsayer Lane, York. F & G Prewett, 124 Hedgehog Gardens, Reading. Caradoc Dearborn, Melfyn Cottage, Port Talbot.”

“These aren’t their actual addresses, are they?” James asked urgently, looking at Sirius.

Sirius didn’t respond. He had recognized the handwriting, and he knew the other two had, too.



2. I need some fine wine, and you, you need to be nicer.

“Where were you last night?”

“I already told you I want to break up.”

As soon as Marlene had said it, she regretted her choice of words. It gave him wiggle-room she had learnt she should never allow him. Vague statements, half-questions. Polite small talk. He’d never not be able to resist flinging her peace-making attempts fist-first back into her face.

It was also not quite true. She’d told him a week ago, no conditions given, she was breaking up with him. He’d ignored her until she made to start packing up her things. In a delayed reply, or more likely ever more complex non-reply, he’d stopped her by bending her over the desk in the corner and fucking her.

She could have said no, but some things were more complicated than a single word could convey. Benjy was the smartest man she’d ever meet, well-liked and respected by everyone. Maybe the most valuable Order member they had, at least she’d overheard Moody say so once to James when the latter had been particularly cocky after a duel and acting out. But, more importantly, Benjy was hot and stylish, just lovely really. Her dream man, if only he hadn’t been quite so… well. Besides, she had done something bad before she broke up with him.

“Seen Black, lately?”

Benjy’s voice was icy, designed to make Marlene crumple with guilt. The only response he got was her laughter, as was usual. She could laugh at anything, had always prided herself on how easily that came for her. A good laugh prolongs life, wasn’t that how the saying went? If she ever stopped laughing, at least she’d know it wasn’t worth it anymore.

“What about Pettigrew? You shagged him, too, didn’t you?”

Marlene closed her eyes and pushed her knuckles into her mouth. Poor Peter. She’d seen him a lot lately, last night at the pub for instance. But it wasn’t like that. It would never be like that. Biting down her laughter she pulled it back out.

“No, I didn’t. I see Peter loads, though, he’s always at Headquarters.”

“Only the utterly useless spend their time of day there,” Benjy said. “The ones who aren’t clever enough to gather information independently and who Moody surmises will get themselves killed sharpish if they see action.”

Marlene knew this was a jab at her as much as at Peter, and so she smiled sunnily at him. Her ex.

“Accio gin!”

“You should quit drinking,” Benjy said abruptly. “And stop seeing Black and Pettigrew. Black in particular.”

“You reckon?”

Marlene threw him a languid, not entirely unseductive grin and unstopped the bottle. Her dream man indeed. Shoulders so nice and broad. There was barely anything left in the bottle, but it had been expensive. Hogsmeade-made stuff Benjy had bought before he quit drinking.

“You’ll die, Marlene.”

Marlene necked it, all gone, her giggles after increasingly difficult to suppress.

“Yeah? Which one’ll kill me first, Mr know-it-all?”

Benjy pushed a hand underneath his gold-rimmed glasses, the really smart ones, and rubbed at his face.

“You know what, I don’t have time for this. I can’t make you take this seriously. This war, or this relationship. I care about you staying on top of things, not being shitfaced every time you’ve got a few hours off. And I wouldn’t trust Black as far as I can throw him.” His dark eyes behind the gilded glasses were full of derision and contempt, but she thought she detected insecurity in the way he shifted his feet.

“I need to move out,” Marlene said, putting the bottle down on the highly polished floor. Benjy was the tidiest, most organized person she’d ever met. There wasn’t a speck of dust in sight and not a single item cluttering the floor. “You’ve not seen my blue suitcase with the extension charm, have you?”

She paused barely a second, knowing as well as he that there’d be no reply. Every night that week she’d pretended that they’d had an amicable breakup while he pretended that he hadn’t heard a word she’d said. They were both so busy with their work for the Order that it had gone okay. Up until now, that was.

“Black is a worm. The way he carries on I bet he’s riddled with diseases. Heard he’s a bender, too.”

“Where’s the wine?” Marlene mumbled and took the two steps needed to get to the kitchenette. His bedsit was tiny, surely it would be nice for him to have it all to himself again. There were several beautiful bottles of whiskey and one bottle of red with a garish etiquette that revealed it had come from the bottom shelf. “Maybe I like them easy and a bit bent.”

“Yeah? Well, I suppose I always knew you were a slag. My fault for thinking you could better yourself. You’ve probably been getting on your knees for him all while tricking me you’re mine.”

“Bugger off.”

“Not just him, either,” Benjy muttered. “I know what you’re like.” Marlene heard the low, dangerous notes in his voice before she felt his hands pulling at her skirt. “Bet you’ve gotten yours already. Bet you anything you’ve left your underwear at his.”

The sudden cold air around her legs made her shiver, and she scolded herself for not knowing if she was annoyed or aroused.

“Wrong as usual, but I suppose you better look while you still can. I’m leaving! My suitcase, Benjy. I’ve got clothes and a few books here in the flat that are mine.”

“Books, eh? As if that’s how you spend your free time. Tell me, on what planet is he better than me?”

Words spoken while he pulled her knickers to the side and pushed his way in. Again, there were words she needed to say if she wanted it all to go away. Part of her still thought he was the pinnacle of man. But the orgasms he gave were sparse and reluctant, like he had a cheapness about him not visible in the robes he wore or the whiskey he bought. He wouldn’t be caught dead cheap around others, yet here they were.

“Please stop.”

“Not unless you apologize to me and tell me you’ll never go to him again.”

She would need to explain to him that this was not a negotiation. But no sooner had her lips parted than he had slapped the air out of her mouth and she was facing the other side of the room. Thoughts spinning, ears ringing.

He began using the same hand to try to get her off and she was pleased to say it was nowhere close to happening.

“Just come already and get off me.”

A spell muttered to prevent pregnancy, then a deluge of others to protect him from every foul disease under the sun. That, finally, lit a fire in her and she tried to push him away. He shoved her head and chest into the kitchen counter, his normal climax moan disguised to make it lower and manlier.

Heart beating against the kitchen counter, she listened as he left her for the bathroom.

The thing was, it didn’t use to be like this. He was hot, but he was also wickedly intelligent, the type you could ask any question of and he’d provide you with a full dissertation. When he was in a good mood, before the drink and later the sobriety took over, he’d even been known to crack a joke or two. And he used to find her funny and sexy.

She dried herself on her knickers and threw them in the bin. Then she reached for the wine bottle.

There was a bang and she threw up her free arm to protect her head.

“Here’s your suitcase. Take your things and get out of my sight.”


It's the good times that we shared, and the bad times that we'll have


She’d almost forgotten her handbag. She never used to have one, always relying on her pockets and maybe the boyfriend of the month to magically provide her with an extra jumper or booze or some magical party smokes. It was only after graduating that her Mum had made a comment about it. Grown-up witches all have handbags. You never know when you might need them.

These days, she carried reminders of all of her friends in her handbag, mostly in the form of letters. That and homemade petrol bombs (courtesy of Sirius) and Polyjuice and a variety of healing potions.

There had been a threat on Marlene’s family for over a year. She came from good old wizarding stock, but her apothecarist parents’ refusal to sell ingredients to the Death Eaters had put targets on their backs. When later some indiscretions on Marlene’s part revealed publicly her own membership in the Order, she had all but signed their death warrants.

Her parents and her two younger siblings were stuck in effectual home arrest. To begin with they had been able to operate an owl service for their apothecary products from their home, but after several owls had been found dead at disturbingly short distances from the house, this, too, had stopped.

Marlene had urged them to move overseas, but her parents refused unless she would join them, which of course she couldn’t.

Dumbledore was trying to find a serviceable method of completely hiding an entire family, but until he figured something out, the McKinnons were stuck in limbo between life and death.


I'm wasting my life, you're changing the world, I get drunk and watch your head grow


She glanced at the letter her Mum had written. She wasn’t seriously deliberating going to their new address, by the looks of it a Brighton townhouse lent to them by a friend of a friend of a Hogwarts professor, someone who didn’t know their names.

She had taken out the letter more because she needed the comfort a mother’s hug would have given her. But as long as she didn’t make this into a big thing in her head it would all be fine. Breaking up was never easy. Being on your own was never easy. Men were never easy.

Stuffing the letter back into her handbag she passed the deserted Leaky Cauldron without a second look and took a left into the same alley her parents’ boarded up apothecary stood. Next to it was a small pub called the One-Eyed Spider. There was music being played, and the sound of people. The war had made Marlene understand how much she loved the company of people. The barman Monroe greeted her at the door and on the spot she ended up paying for a room. Just for the week. Just to let her feelings simmer down. Clear her head.

She didn’t want to imagine the face Sirius would pull if she turned up at his, suitcase in hand. He’d’ve thought her expectations of him had grown delusional rather than orgasmic.

Fact remained she was running out of options. Her parents’ old house, now abandoned, was out of the question, as was Lily’s and James’s. They’d gone into hiding too. Dorcas was dead, the Prewett twins’ last place had been burnt to the ground by Death Eaters and now only Benjy and Moody and maybe Dumbledore knew where they lived.

Her old friends from school had either stuck their head in the sand, pretending the war had nothing to do with them, or they had moved overseas to get away from it all. Or died.

There was Peter, she supposed. She smiled, remembering his awkward fumblings when she had asked him to dance at Lily’s and James’s wedding. Somehow, she always forgot he was a full person and Order member of his own. To most he was Sirius’s and Remus’s and James’s mate, never much more than that.

She had a vague idea he still lived with his mum somewhere in the Midlands. Peter’s Mum’s place was decidedly not an option.

And Remus, well. Remus had never liked Marlene, although she couldn’t think why. She could distinctly remember their school years, how he had ignored her presence when she fell in with Sirius and first got to know him and his mates better. Now, Remus would pretend she was welcome if only not for this one thing, he’d make up the most plausible of excuses until she said she’d go elsewhere. But then, nobody even knew where he lived these days.

Suitcase and handbag and cheap bottle of wine safe in her room, Marlene went downstairs and ordered a pint of some novelty popcorn-flavoured butterbeer they were selling at a good discount before settling in to people-watch. She was used to knowing people, used to being greeted warmly whatever shop or bar she entered. The clientele in the One-Eyed Spider looked nothing like her usual crowd, though.


Bad dog


Marlene rapped her knuckles on the cheap door to Sirius’s flat. She kept shifting her weight from one foot to the other as she waited, her fingers were paling from the way she was gripping the bottle in her hand. Eventually she stilled and strained her ears, but all seemed dead inside.

“Fuck’s sake, Sirius! I brought wine.”

The door burst open before she had quite finished speaking. She flinched as the black tip of Sirius’s wand poked her between the eyes. The hand holding it was completely steady, and Marlene went cross-eyes as she looked past it into Sirius’s face.

“Right. Uh – what’s the make of my motor… Nah.”

Marlene sighed a little.

“What day is my… How big is my dick?”

Marlene gave him a half-hearted smile.

“You sure there aren’t a few Death Eaters knocking about who know?”

Sirius considered it gravely. “Not many, I reckon.” His wand wobbled a little in his hand.

“You’re disappointingly average, considering you’ve got the personality of someone who’s either hung like a hippogriff, or, more likely, over-compensating because their knob is the size of a flobberworm.”

“Yeah alright,” Sirius said and lowered his wand. “Better come in, then. You’ve brought the cheap muggle stuff, I see. My kind of girl.”


3. The Funeral of Hearts

A few hours before Marlene’s arrival Sirius found himself in Highgate Cemetery. Without James at his side, he had to use other methods of disguise than the Cloak of Invisibility. Today he had chosen Polyjuice potion. It had been brewed when Lily was still actively working for the Order rather than in hiding, taking care of an eleven-month-old, and as such way past the best before date. Sirius wasn’t risk-averse, though. Almost never.

He stroked his full red beard while he eyed the wilting purple irises and softening pure white roses. He could sense the preserving-charm on them, patiently waiting for that one strong gust of wind to excuse it, let it give up completely.

“Hey.”

“Hi,” Sirius said in an unfamiliar voice.

“Nice day for it.”

“I was wondering if you’d still be honouring your old Monday luncheon meetings.”

“So it is you?” Evan Rosier said. He was disguising his shock well, hand hovering by his robe pocket.

“I wouldn’t if I were you. I was always the better duellist. Reckon I’m better than just about anyone in your little gang.”

Rosier huffed, but he didn’t draw his wand. “And by little gang you mean…?”

“Well, not the Monday midday swot club, Evan. Although, speaking of swots, where’s the rest?”

“We never called it that, Regulus and I,” Rosier said softly. His hand relaxed by his side. “The others are doing their best to forget he ever existed. Bet even your lot heard what a coward he ended up being. Ha!”

“It was always clear I got both the bravery and the brains,” Sirius said impatiently. “And the looks, while we’re at it. My point is, why are you here if that’s what you think of him?”

He wasn’t expecting a genuine response, but the surrealness of the encounter, perhaps coupled with the severe lack of sleep visible in Rosier’s young face triggered a look of genuine sorrow. There was a wobble in his tone when he spoke: “I knew him before school, I think that’s why it’s different for me.”

Before Sirius knew it, he’d reached out his hand and touched Rosier’s shoulder. The effect was instant: Rosier yelped and jumped backwards, all the while struggling to get his wand out of his pocket. When he’d managed, Sirius was pointing his calmly between the enemy’s eyes.

They stood there like they’d been suspended. Then, like one, they withdrew their wands. Rosier looked confused, probably couldn’t figure out why Sirius hadn’t attacked. But more than confused he looked depressed.

“I think of him every Monday, and yes, sometimes I come here to see him.”

“I’m here to water the flowers, thank you for asking.” Sirius mimed unzipping his trousers.

Rosier made to leave, and Sirius shouted after him:

“You always were a strange one. You don’t dig your old mate up and ask him for help with Charms homework, do you?”

“You’ve not changed, I hear,” Rosier said disgustedly, backing away. “Haven’t had to think about Charms homework in eons, mate. How about you?”

“Never needed to do the bloody homework in the first place.”

“What do you want?”

It was a bit funny, being asked that by a man who was retreating, one who could have died twice over already and should have apparated away to safety at first opportunity.

“Already told you. I’m here to piss on Regulus’s grave.”


She was the wind carrying in all the troubles and fears he for years tried to forget


Marlene had arrived with a suitcase, which rather made the bottom come out of him. His flat had two bedrooms, and his eyes were drawn to the closed bedroom door next to his. Closed and locked with somebody else’s magic.

“What’s that?”

“Oh, this? Just something fun I’ve been working on.” Sirius waved his wand at a muggle canister of motor oil and the disassembled parts of a pressure washer so they disappeared.

She had let go of the suitcase and stood in the middle of his sitting room, hands on hips surveying the litter on his floor and the empty bottles on his sofa table. She looked tired and frantic but not necessarily hurt, and yet –

"You're bleeding on my floor."

Marlene glanced down.

“And on your gentleman’s magazines. Sorry about that.”

“They’re motorcycle magazines, how dare you!”

“Really?” Marlene asked sceptically and pulled out the middle one, which had largely escaped the blood. She opened it at random and held up to show him. “To me it looks like she’s trying to fit the entire handlebar into her arsehole. What do you think?”

Wincing badly, Sirius hurried into the kitchen and returned with a clean chipped glass and a mug that was missing its ear.

“For the wine,” he explained superfluously. The room was empty. There was a small pool of blood where Marlene had stood, and then a fine smattering of droplets leading to the closed bathroom door.

“Got the painters in?” Sirius asked loudly and vanished the blood with a wave of his wand. Maybe the lack of laughter and cheeky reply should have worried him, but instead he reached for Marlene’s bottle of wine.

“Urgent assistance needed in Diagon Alley!”

Sirius almost dropped the bottle. He swung around and caught a glimpse of the shimmering hawk patronus before it disappeared.

“There’s some eggs and toast and baked beans in the cupboard!” Sirius said loudly, stepping into his shoes and checking his pockets. “Spirits in my bedroom, beer in the fridge.”


He was the fire, restless and wild, and you were like a moth to that flame


When Sirius got back an hour and a half later, he was thrumming with capillaries of emotion he was no longer adept at picking apart. Righteous anger used to be the main one flooding his system, but the higher the number of racist bigots he beat into a pulp, the less structure he felt in his heart.

Marlene was standing by the fireplace in the sitting room, but she hadn’t lit it. Her hair was damp and extra wavy, and she was wearing one of his t-shirts and little else, busy looking at the collection of photos on the mantelpiece. She was taking particular interest in the ones that had been turned face down.

“I like this one of Dorcas,” she said once he’d joined her. “She wasn’t photogenic even though she was nice-looking, but this one really captures her.”

Sirius stole some beer from the bottle in her hand in lieu of a reply. She didn’t ask him how it had gone, nor if he’d killed someone. Damnation for the one who asked if anyone they cared about had gotten hurt.

Dorcas’s picture was in a hand-painted, sentimental frame that he most certainly had not procured.

“I know she asked Remus out when we were fresh recruits. I never got the rest of the story, though. Did they date? And who broke up with who?”

Sirius’s breath caught, but fortunately, the questions seemed to be rhetorical. With a small sigh, Marlene put the photo back, face down. Then she lifted another.

“Why have you turned Caradoc over?”

“Why d’you think?”

“He’s not confirmed dead,” Marlene said sharply, face raised towards him and trying to catch his eye. “Is he?”

“Peter said they found a – a hand. Some blood. Reckons its werewolves.”

“How awful,” Marlene mumbled, peering into the frame. Caradoc was posing in front of the old Headquarters, the one the Death Eaters had destroyed with Fiendfyre last New Years’. 1981 had not started well, and Sirius would lie if he said he had a good feeling about the rest of the year. “Benjy never told me.”

“He always struck me as a shit conversationalist.”

Marlene grinned, but there was something lacking. It was like something had been stolen from her between their long, hot night together last week and today.

“He didn’t hit you or anything, did he?”

Marlene frowned and looked away.

“Sorry, too blunt. Did he make it difficult for you when you left him?”

“Nah. Breaking up is hard in itself, you know.”

“Nope. But I reckon you did the right thing. Not saying that just because I’m planning to fuck you, either.”

“Yeah?” For a second she was there again, the Marlene he had known for years and years. But then she turned around and spotted something over Sirius’s shoulder that made her frown. “He’s never coming back, is he?”

Sirius didn’t have to look to know that she was talking about the locked door.

“Never mind that, now.” His hands strayed underneath her t-shirt. Soft warm skin and hip bones that almost made him suggest they skip sex and go out for dinner. Or maybe she’d let him hand feed her in bed. He loved her mouth. The way it tasted, the way it curled when she smiled. How gently it could suck on his fingers.

The hair his fingers encountered next was curlier than that on her head. Mostly, he had just wanted to know if she was wearing underwear or not, but soon she was leaning into it like he had tapped into a secret vein of gold.


4. Disintegration

It started with a spell, mumbled under his breath, magic so attuned to his demands that he didn’t need a wand for it.

And she quite forgot to ask for foreplay. Actually, so did he.

“Mmm, too good, I’m gonna have to…” Sirius held her hips, hands splayed out so big she felt tiny, stopping her movement.

“Oh come-fucking-on, Sirius!” Marlene huffed frustratedly. “It’s been like two minutes.”

“Yeah, that’s why I need to pace myself.” Sirius was breathing heavily, face on her neck. He began mouthing all along the fine skin there, heavenly soft, plush little things that made her skin crawl.

“Bloody – fucking – FUCK!”

Marlene pushed herself off him and stumbled backwards. She was dizzy, her vision going for seconds at a time. She needed to eat.

“Why don’t you lie down for me and let me eat you out?” Sirius suggested, his voice tiptoeing comically between impatient and gentle. He was worried for her, but he didn’t get it. How could he ever get it?

Marlene glared at him. He was sitting where she had left him, on the edge of the bed. His prick was rigid against his stomach, dark and shiny.

His body was becoming too thin, she could see that now. Youth had given way to shapely strength, but on closer inspection his muscles looked wiry and starved.

She bit her lip and looked down at herself. She hadn’t looked properly since… She looked now, though.

There was a bitemark she had missed, but it didn’t look so bad. No wonder he hadn’t commented on it.

She’d always been skinny, but it used to suit her. Now her stomach was going concave.

She put a hand between her legs for the first time since it had happened. Felt herself. Nothing hurt, but the pleasure maybe wasn’t as immediate as she was used to. She was plenty wet, though, but then she had been when it happened, too. Quirk of nature.

“Want a bath, instead? And I was going to order a pizza or some Indian. I haven’t eaten yet.”

Marlene looked up and saw that Sirius was going soft. Hurt washed over her, hurt that wasn’t horribly muted. What was it they always told you when you got thrown off your broom?

She stalked over to him and dropped down on her knees. He tasted only like her, and really that was just as well. Salty and tangy and a bit addictive. So hard for her again, just for her, no one else’s doing. She had him down her throat in no time, was pressing her face into his groin in no time at all, and there she had his big hands again. They could have killed her in seconds.

“Mmm, that’s so nice, love, you’re so good at that. The feel of your throat, Marlene, fuck that’s perfect…”

His hands weren’t holding her down, they were combing through her hair, soon his thumbs were massaging the hinges of her jaw.

There were tears in Marlene’s eyes, reflexive ones. She gagged, thick spittle filling her already laden mouth.

Pulling off to his frantic moans, her mouth disgustingly full of spit that she spat out to the side of her. She gorged herself on more of him straight after, made it plunge back down her constricting throat, pulled back out so fast she almost puked, so fast he must have felt her teeth.

“Fuck it, I’m not gonna last, fuck, fuck, fuck…”

Marlene sucked harshly, her mind a blank, his dick in her mouth pulsating…

“Mmmm…”

She pulled off while he was still moaning his way through orgasm, tongue swirling, staring dispassionately at Sirius’s dick like it was the culprit. As though it had done bad things. It was red and wrinkling, going soft so very quickly. A small bead of white lingered at the temporarily enlarged slit at the head.

Marlene turned her head, decision made to get rid of what was in her mouth.

“Let me kiss you.”

Sirius spoke before she could do it, and she hesitated for only a second before she got up from the floor.

“Oh no, look at your knees,” Sirius muttered under his breath, and Marlene wanted to laugh or spit it out in his face. Instead she sat astride him and let him search out her mouth, let him open his, let him open hers, let him kiss her.

“Mmmm…”

Marlene raised an eyebrow. It had been a while since she’d last wanted to laugh in bed. You never know what you’ll miss until it’s gone. This was pretty funny though, if this was what he liked these days he should never hear the end of it. The kind of normalcy that might help her forget.

“Cheers, that was great.”

Marlene looked into his eyes reluctantly. Sirius was leaning his brow against her forehead; their nose tips were nudging.

“Forgot what a dog you are.”

“Oh, you’ve no idea. Want me to return the favour?”

His fingers were there already, uninvited. She’d get there fast if she just let him.

“What would you do if I got pregnant?”

Fingers withdrawn and Marlene couldn’t help the laughter bubbling in her throat.

“That’s not funny.”

“No I know, but be serious for a second! What would you do?”

She kept giggling. Usually, he was up for a tired old name-pun, but it was like she was sitting on a stone-cold statue.

“I’d ask you to consider an abortion. I’d also… I’d be worried about the state of my magic. No one’s ever had an accident with my protection spell.”

“And you always remember to do the spell, no matter how drunk or horny,” Marlene filled in and crawled off him, all fours on the mattress. She could tell he was looking at her, maybe the scar on her back or just the rear view but she didn’t turn. “Benjy uses the same spell as you.”

“Good,” Sirius said indifferently. If she had seen his face she would have been able to tell if he was jealous or not. Probably not, he was unusual that way.

“I tried to break up with him weeks ago, but he didn’t get it. And then you and me happened, again I might add. He’s convinced I’ve been lusting for you the entire time I’ve been with him. Silly boy.”

“You can kip at mine if you like, but I’m never… I’m not boyfriend material, I’m not looking for –”

“Before I came here, I took a room above the One-Eyed Spider.”

Marlene looked over her back. He’d been watching her arse but he looked up when she stared so intently at him, she almost saw his brain restart. This was going to be as far removed from a love confession as it was possible to get.

“Yeah? There’s a rumour going that the owner has been put under the Imperius Curse, did you know?”

“No, I didn’t.”

“Yeah, they say it’s turning into a bit of a Death Eater hangout.”

“Ah,” Marlene said quietly.

“You’ve got a couple of bruises on your back, want me to heal them for you along with those on your knees?”

Marlene didn’t know whether to laugh or cry, and she supposed she started doing both at the same time because soon Sirius was giving her an awkward, one-armed hug and petting her over the head like you might a dog. He had never been any good at this outside of sex and Marlene had a bad feeling she told him because he quite abruptly stopped petting her head.

“I think my drink go spiked. A Death Eater broke into my room while I was sleeping it off and he – he… He bound me with some spell and when I woke up next I think days must have passed. It went on for so long I think I can still feel him…”

“It’s going to be ok,” Sirius interrupted, “you’re here now.”

“Days of my life that he just took! I wish I couldn’t remember anything. He locked me in after and took my things and when I got free I banged and banged on the door but nobody would come. I could hear people walking outside, but nobody would help me.”

Sirius kissed her head and it made tears roll down her face like petrol set alight.

“It fucking hurt,” she whispered. “Nothing feels like it should anymore.” His arm around her was warm, she told herself. Warm and hairy.

“How did you escape?”

“The room I was in had a connecting door to another room. I managed to do wandless magic in the end to unlock it, and the stupid idiot had left my bag and my wand and my clothes there, in the next room.”

“Did you go via Headquarters before you came here?”

“I thought I’d splinch myself. Awful drugs and I couldn’t clear my thoughts. I apparated to Lily’s old place but of course she’s not been there for years now.”

“The flat in Soho? Was it still empty?”

“There was an old bottle left in a cupboard and I drank and drank and I must have slept for hours. It’s Monday today, isn’t it?”

“You’ve done so well. I’ll come with you, I think you need to go to –”

“I had to check before I came here, and I was.”

“What’s that?”

“Pregnant,” Marlene said, pushing his arm off her. “D’you know muggles have to wait for over a month until they know for sure? Can you imagine the horror… of course you can’t, you’re a man.”

“You’re pregnant? With –”

“I got rid of it at Lily’s. Quick little spell, thought it would be the end of it. Sorted. I’m sorry about your magazines.”

Sirius didn’t respond, he just stared at her until Marlene turned her back on him again and hugged herself.

“If it was yours I might’ve kept it.”


It's easier for me to get closer to Heaven than ever feel whole again


The new reality settled in without her struggling against it. Every time she remembered that first frantic hour in Lily’s flat she knew she could never step outside without fear again.

She had been so bruised inside she couldn’t go to the bathroom, and once she’d fixed it with magic she’d been so scared of going into the toilet she’d had to chug most of Lily’s old bottle of vodka before venturing inside.

She’d left the toilet door open, fingers cramping around her wand, and she had been crying so hard she couldn’t tell if maybe there were shapes moving round the flat, ready to attack her and tie her up again.

The blood in the toilet had made her cry even harder, because hadn’t she fixed everything that was broken already? Then she’d realized what spell she hadn’t thought to do yet.

Her first instinct had been to kill herself rather than it. She could just hear what her parents would say, though. That can’t be our daughter. She’s strong. She never would.

Marlene got rid of it instead. It bled like a bitch and she finished the bottle before falling asleep.


And now that I know that I'm breaking to pieces I'll pull out my heart and I'll feed it to anyone


She almost reached out to Benjy to apologize. She could have done it better. She knew she could have let him down more gently. She’d made him feel insecure, maybe she was wrong to think he was the one who’d treated her badly?

He really hadn’t, she had proof of how much worse it could be. She hated Sirius for asking if Benjy had hit her. She hated how much it bothered her that he’d asked. She had never been one of those women who ended up victims of men. Scared of life, ashamed of their own bodies. The ones who thought sex was not for them. The ones who zoned out during it because the alternative had become unbearable. The ones who stopped laughing.

If she hadn’t left Benjy, none of this would have happened. What was she doing at Sirius’s? If she wanted love, she’d need to find a man who could fall in love with her. If this flat had ever seen a love story it wasn’t one involving Marlene.

Of course she never wrote to Benjy.


We both of us knew how the end always is


“Dumbledore wants to see me!” Marlene said excitedly. She was finishing up a chipped plate of scrambled eggs and bacon on toast, a meal more expertly cooked than she had ever been prepared to give Sirius credit for.

Sirius, who had been moodily picking at his own portion and refusing to look at her for a solid five minutes, shone up at her voice and reached for the letter. It was short, indeed it did not strictly mention a solution to the McKinnons’ problems, but Marlene felt euphoric nonetheless.

“Bet it’s a potion,” she said, “one that makes the drinker permanently unable to be seen or heard by anyone.”

“Bleak. I reckon it’s a charm.”

“Well, we know of several that help hide you, but nothing yet has been functional at the level we need. The stakes being what they are…” Marlene’s voice died in her throat.

“Padfoot!”

“Be right with you, Prongs,” Sirius said, having snatched out a small mirror from his pocket. He rose from the table and walked off, seconds later Marlene heard his bedroom door snap shut.

She sighed and looked round the kitchen. It was bad, but not a complete disaster. Unwashed dishes were a day or two old, not more.

Sticking to her principles as regards to men, she didn’t lift her wand. Instead, she reached over the table and snatched a perfectly crisped rasher of bacon from Sirius’s plate.

Her quick confessional to him had done wonders, she told herself. As long as she didn’t make it a big deal, it wouldn’t be one. Sirius certainly wouldn’t have the emotional capacity to make it one. Lucky she had gone to him, really. Lily and James were fussy fretters. Her stomach felt perfectly fine. It was as though yesterday’s abrupt change of plans was forgiven and forgotten by her body. No cramps, no nothing. No nausea that couldn’t be attributed to a hundred other things. And really, how would you even distinguish some new trauma-induced panic triggers when you already had a dozen from before?

She finished her tea, drunk from a large mug sporting a small, sharp stump for an ear. The inside was discoloured from years of use.

It made her curious enough to get up and check the kitchen cupboards. For a wizard she had assumed lived solely on takeout, there was a lot of dry ingredients and spices. The pans and knives and chopping boards had seen use. Sometimes even the people you thought you knew had it in them to surprise you.

The plates and cutlery were sparse, though. A single uncracked glass, but what was that on the top shelf? Reaching, Marlene’s fingertips made contact with some porous, decidedly homemade and hand-painted crockery.

“Leave those alone,” Sirius’s voice said testily, and Marlene pulled away and closed the cabinet door. “How’re you feeling?”

“I’m ok. Why shouldn’t I be?” Hard against hard, and for once Sirius was the one to relent. He broke eye-contact and gazed around the kitchen unseeingly. “What did James want? Did he have news?”

Marlene wasn’t certain what she meant by news. News from his hiding spot? Knowing James, he’d be crawling up the walls by now. News about little baby Harry? Marlene liked kids, but she had made a rather dark joke about them not long ago. The look on Sirius’s face had told her everything about who he was these days. Before, he would have countered her joke with something even worse. But Harry had changed him. He probably saw Harry as much as his own child as James’s and Lily’s. News about more death and destruction? James wouldn’t know, it would be Sirius bringing him the news. James was hidden away, aided by every charm and potion and friend he and Lily had. How he must hate it, but fact remained he was likely safer than any of them these days.

Lucky bugger, Marlene did not admit to thinking.

She didn’t expect a reply, nor did she get one. She took out the letter Dumbledore had sent her from her pocket, thinking as she did that there was something she had forgotten. She couldn’t think what, though.

“Since when do you cook?”

“I don’t.” Sirius stared haughtily at her like she’d offended him.

“Liar. You only cook when you’ve got people living here with you, is that it?” Marlene said. “Don’t tell me you took Edgar’s and Elfrida’s lecture on the importance of nutrition for the active duelist to heart? D’you remember what a laugh it was, they squeezed their presentation in-between Moody’s talk on the known methods of torture the Death Eaters use and Vance’s chat on what antidotes we should be carrying with us at all times even though we can’t afford them? Bugger occamy shells and short shelf-lives to hell.”

Sirius ignored her. Edgar and Elfrida Bones were both dead.

“I saw you counting my ribs before,” she needled him.

Sirius frowned. She’d discovered something about him she wasn’t supposed to.

“Hey,” Marlene said, reaching around for something to lighten the mood with and replacing the letter into her pocket. “Have you ever shagged someone at Order Headquarters?”

For the longest time, she thought he wouldn’t respond.

“New or old?”

“Either.”

“Well, yeah. Yeah, I suppose I have.”

“Hmm. What’s that in your hand?”

“Oh, this? Just something for an Order mission.”

Sirius, who had been holding both his little pocket mirror and a tiny phial containing what was unmistakably a strand of hair, pocketed both and left his hands deep in his pockets.



5. Rock ‘n’ Roll Suicide



Sirius hadn’t worn dressrobes since James’s wedding. He hated how well they fit his body; not the ones he’d bought for the wedding, but his old dressrobes from years before. They were of a ridiculously fine, dove grey material he’d never seen on anybody else’s back. They had his initials sewn into the cuffs, but you’d have to have very good eyes to spot it. Much more eye-catching were the large diamonds in his cufflinks.

“Evan, I’m so glad you came! My, don’t you look extra handsome today.”

A witch Sirius thought might be the younger sister of the Lestrange brothers had stopped him for a chat. She looked nicer than her brothers, but she had the same predatory gleam in her eyes, which darted from his face to his cufflinks. Inwardly, Sirius cursed himself for not procuring different cufflinks. That was the last place he wanted people to look.

He had been pressed for time after knocking out Evan Rosier and magically fashioning him and his downstairs toilet into one being. By the time Rosier woke up and figured out where all the pipes went Sirius should have accomplished what he’d come here for.

“Wouldn’t miss Bella’s birthday party for the world,” he said, falling easily back into a posh city accent he’d spent years pretending was foreign to him.

“I didn’t realize you were close,” the witch said curiously. “What’d you get her? She’s difficult to buy for, I think.”

“Muggle torture instrument,” Sirius said, lifting his hand and turning it in the air. Palm up an exquisitely wrapped present appeared, tied with a burgundy silk ribbon.

The witch nodded in approval.

“Neat. I just gave her a gift card to Borgin and Burkes.”

“Say, I was told they’d invited some werewolves today,” Sirius said while he made his gift float over to the table in the corner reserved for the purpose. “D’you know anything about that?”

The witch shuddered and glanced around the room. It was a large, sparsely lit room with no windows but plenty of portraits of Lestranges past and present, slowly filling with guests. There were some house-elves chained upside down from the ceiling playing the violin and cello while platters of vol-au-vents and champagne floated leisurely around the room. At a table near the window a huge cake stood. It was shaped and coloured like a beating heart. In fact, it pulsated like one, too. Sirius squinted at the crimson icing, which seemed to drip like real blood. Knowing his cousin, perhaps this wasn’t a cake at all.

Discreetly, the Lestrange sister pointed towards the far end of the room. It was too dark for Sirius to see the faces of any of the shapes moving there.

“I can’t imagine why they invited them,” she breathed. “All this talk about killing muggleborns, but if you ask me, we should begin with werewolves, then work our way to the less dangerous humanoids.”

“You’re right, of course. I heard a rumour that there’s a very specific reason to be thankful of the werewolves. Apparently, one of them has been doing undercover work for us. Brought us invaluable information on what the other side is up to.”

“Well, I wouldn’t know anything about that. I’m sure my brothers do, though. Or Bellatrix.”

Sirius gazed intently into her eyes. She was being truthful. It went without saying Bellatrix would know, but speaking to her today would be a gamble of epic proportions. Sirius knew for certain Rosier hadn’t known squat, unless he had an unusually high pain threshold. If only James had been here to help…

“Ah I think I see my mother over there. Excuse me,” Sirius said and walked off towards the other end of the room.

He pretended not to see Evan Rosier’s mother, nor Narcissa Malfoy when they beckoned him to come over, his sights on the dark end of the room.

If he’d expected to see the people there more clearly when he got close, he was mistaken. Whatever spell had been cast completely obscured the faces of two people standing next to a grand piano. Sirius realised that even the platters of food and drink didn’t come all the way to the people in shadow, and on a whim he grabbed a few flutes of champagne.

Squinting, he handed out the spare glasses to the men. The extended hands were almost comically dirty, the nails overlong and with dried blood caked deep in the nailbeds. Almost like they were here to make a point.

“To the Dark Lord,” Sirius said, lifting his glass. The werewolves raised theirs without cheering and drank.

“Who are you?” one of them rasped. Both appeared to sniff the air.

“Name’s Rosier. I’m curious as to why you wouldn’t drink to the Dark Lord? I was told there’s a werewolf who’s been of particular service to the Dark Lord, but it would appear it’s neither of you.”

“We’ve done plenty,” the first werewolf snarled. The longer Sirius looked, the more he saw. The werewolf had a wiry beard with plenty of grey in it covering most of his face. Though it was hard to tell with werewolves, Sirius was certain he was at least a decade younger than he looked. “Who’ve you been talking to, anyway?”

“Someone who knows you’ve got an informant on the other side,” Sirius said, looking hard from one werewolf to the other. The second one was still sniffing the air, like there was something there to be discovered.

“Boy! You! Come here!”

The voice came from the other side of the piano, and though Sirius could not see who had shouted, the voice instantly made his blood run cold.

“We helped the Lestranges get rid of some vermin near Port Talbot, that’s why we were invited today. As for moles, isn’t the whole point to mention them as little as possible?”

Sirius opened his mouth, but nothing came out.

“You smell all wrong,” the second werewolf said quietly.

“My mother was a Black,” Sirius said, forcing his hands to stay still, forcing himself to look straight into the face of the second werewolf. There was a lecherous, mean-spirited smile playing in his slightly disfigured face.

“That’s not what I meant. See, you smell like you’ve made yourself intimately familiar with one of my kind before.”

“Boy!”

Downing his glass, Sirius turned his back on the werewolves and rounded the grand piano. There was a woman there, alone in an exquisite rococo sofa.

It was a bit like encountering himself in drag, only today he didn’t look remotely like himself.

“Play the piano for me.”

Sirius snatched another flute from a passing tray. Nobody else was within hearing distance. It was as though the lady in the sofa was emanating a bad smell, but Sirius knew it was just that the people this side of the room were non-grata. His mother had always smelt of roses. Anything to disguise her rotten core, he supposed.

“I’m not a servant,” he said curtly. Neither of them spared a look at the elves suspended from the ceiling, they were too busy staring into each other’s eyes. A power battle that tasted of grazed knees and pumpkin juice and the toy broom she had held over his head and broken in half to make him cry.

“The nerve of young people today.”

It was impossible to say if she’d clocked him or not. She was completely inebriated; he could have told that from the first “Boy!”. If she were to quit drinking tomorrow it would probably kill her. But he had inherited his brains from somewhere, and it certainly wasn’t from his father.

“I heard you visited dear Regulus’s grave,” Walburga said.

She would not break eye-contact, she’d never show weakness like that. Her startlingly beautiful eyes, diffuse and bloodshot from her poison of choice, were trying to make him fumble his words.

“It was heartening to see how much magic and thought was spent on the flowers on his grave,” Sirius said. “Really shows how much the person who put them there cares about her sons.”

“Sons?”

“Slip of the tongue.”

“The robes you’re wearing looks like something I might have bought a son of mine,” Walburga said, smiling. “They look fairly childish on you, though.”

“We both know your only son is decaying underneath cheap, putrid flowers. I wouldn’t expect much from your robe-picking abilities.”

“And what about young Evan? Have you killed him to come here? What should I tell his poor mother? Elvira is here today, you know.”

“Reckon she’d weep over her dead son? Tell me, did you care enough about Regulus to do it?”

“It should’ve been you!” Walburga hissed, pointing a claw like finger at him. “I wanted you to die! I’ve been wishing for your death every day since you left, you ungrateful, nasty, treacherous swine. If only I’d’ve known, I would’ve killed you in my womb!”

Sirius wasn’t sure when he’d turned and started walking, but he was finally so far away that he couldn’t hear her anymore.

One of the house-elves in the ceiling, bright purple in the face, was no longer able to play its violin. The bow fell to the floor, landing with a clatter at Sirius’s feet. A second later the elf followed, sounding like a bag of overripe tomatoes when hitting the floor.

A gleeful shout went like a shockwave through the room, and when Sirius looked up he saw the birthday girl. He hadn’t seen her for years, certainly not without a hood and a mask. She, too, would have looked eerily like him, if it hadn’t been for the polyjuice in him and the deranged malice in her. She was brandishing a silver knife like it was a wand.

Feeling his heart ache in a way his mother’s words had never achieved, he stepped over the barely conscious elf and headed for the door.

“Oh, don’t go yet, Evan, I’ve not even spoken to you tonight!” Bellatrix’s commanding voice said.

Sirius slowed his steps and turned around. He could hear his mother shouting something in her corner but fortunately there was an even buzz of voices throughout the room again, disguising words that would no doubt have revealed him.

“I was just about to open my presents,” Bellatrix continued, “but they will have to wait.” She looked down on the floor, smiling horribly at the elf.

“Bella, dear,” a man behind Sirius said. “Let’s not make a spectacle of ourselves. Some of my colleagues are here too, you know.”

Sirius stared disdainfully at his uncle, Bellatrix’s father Cygnus. Afterwards, he was glad he’d chosen that moment to look his way. He’d never been squeamish, and the amount of blood a body held didn’t shock him anymore. It was more that he had a feeling that someone better than him, someone like James, would have come up with a spur of the moment plan to save the elf.

The house-elf squealed and squealed, its blood flying everywhere. Sirius got some on his robes.

“Evan, go get someone from the kitchen to clean this mess up,” Cygnus told him in an undertone. The buzz of pleasant conversation was gone from the room, and the remaining elves on the ceiling were playing so badly Sirius wouldn’t bet on their chances to make it past the cutting of the cake. With Bellatrix’s laughter ringing in his ears, he wound his way through the throng of people, avoiding eye-contact as determinedly as he avoided his own feelings.

He strode through the hallway but instead of turning right towards the kitchen he pushed the front door open. It was in the nick of time, he knew, and not just because of Walburga. Once Bellatrix had opened his present, all hell would break loose…

“Hey, Evan! Good to see you, man, come for a smoke?”

Before Sirius knew it, he’d been pulled around the corner by an unknown man and a young witch Regulus had once taken on a date to Hogsmeade for Valentine’s Day. He knew this because he’d subsequently lured them both into a shed behind Madam Puddifoot’s and locked them in. He and James had previously filled the shed from floor to ceiling with inflated muggle condoms, a few containing select liquids.

She was a pretty witch, dark with long curly hair, smiling sweetly at him now like they were friends. The clean-cut wizard she was with squeezed her shoulder. Sirius couldn’t help scanning his face like he expected to find an explanation for it all in his laughing eyes or in the grooves between his nose and mouth. Why are you not my brother?

“It’s kicking off in there, Bella’s got her knife out,” Sirius said, speaking as flippantly as he could before his throat should constrict with everything he could never ever unpack for as long as he valued his sanity.

The others looked worried, and Sirius dug mechanically through his pockets, fishing out his pack of fags. Muggle fags, he realized belatedly when the pair next to him exchanged shocked looks.

“I forget, did you go to Regulus’s funeral, Maddie?”

Maddie looked ever more shocked, her man raised an eyebrow and stared hard at him.

“You know I did, Evan. It was dreadfully sad. And to think they never even found his body. Do you think Dumbledore’s lot killed him?”

“No I don’t,” Sirius said, blowing some smoke into the new boyfriend’s face. “I reckon Regulus died by his own wand like a coward.”

“WHERE IS HE?”

“Nice reminiscing with you, Maddie,” Sirius said and dropped his cigarette, then stepped on it. “Duty calls though, you know how it is.”

There were footsteps, but they were running in the wrong direction. Smirking, Sirius pulled a small black thing out of his pocket.

“What’s that?” Maddie asked.

In lieu of responding, Sirius tapped the thing with his wand and muttered “engorgio!”

His motorbike expanded into its normal, quite enormous size and Sirius threw his leg over and kicked it into action. Purring like a contented matagot, the motorcycle soared into the air and Sirius turned to wave.

Maddie and her beau were staring after him open-mouthedly, but what was much funnier was the glimpse Sirius caught of his cousin Bellatrix. She was sprinting up the street after him, brandishing her knife in one hand and wand in the other.

He ducked a green ray of light, while a sizzling white one was neutralized by golden sparks from the bike’s exhaust.

Bellatrix, it was clear, had opened his birthday gift. She was covered from head to toe in motoroil, which she was seemingly finding impossible to remove magically.

Sirius blew her a kiss before revving the engine and soaring into the night.


Oh no, love, you're not alone, no matter what or who you've been, no matter when or where you've seen


“I have a proposition for you,” Marlene said. She lay sprawled naked across his bed, arms aloft holding one of his motorcycle magazines.

“You’re gonna have to wait a bit, I’m not a teenager anymore,” Sirius said, touching himself gingerly. “An hour at least.”

The magazine hit him in the face and slid down, remaining open at the centrefold. Sirius hummed and touched himself again. “Actually, make that ten minutes.”

“Absolute dog,” Marlene groaned. “Ever done it with someone on your bike?”

“Dozens of times,” Sirius said with a snort. “This one time I –”

“Actually, sex isn’t what I wanted to talk about.”

“Could’ve fooled me.”

Marlene turned away, but not before Sirius caught how vulnerable she looked. It was something he’d never associated with her before.

“Sorry, Marlene, I wasn’t thinking as usual.”

“Would you be my parents’ Secret Keeper?”

Sirius frowned and laid down next to her. “Was this Dumbledore’s suggestion?”

“The Fidelius Charm is, yeah.”

“Yes I know, and it’s not at all what I meant.”

“He’s told Lily and James about the charm too, then?”

Sirius didn’t respond. He was frowning at the visible dust on the ceiling light.

“Dumbledore assumes I want to be Secret Keeper for my family. And he’s right, I do. It’s just that after what happened to me, I’ve come to realize how… just how weak I am.” Marlene’s voice, which had been growing thicker and thicker, broke.

Sirius couldn’t look at her, but he grabbed her hand. He listened to her erratic breathing for over a minute before she became quiet again.

“As a double bluff, you mean?” Sirius asked. “You want them to think it’s you?” He sneaked a look at her, and found she’d probably been watching him this whole time. Her sea-blue eyes glittered with tears.

“James has asked you too, hasn’t he?”

Sirius didn’t respond. He glanced briefly at his hand before his mind began to wander. He’d had a couple fingers severed in the last duel, one against a masked Rodolphus Lestrange if he wasn’t mistaken. He’d managed to reattach them once Lestrange scarpered, though. Hadn’t even left a scar.


You're too old to lose it, too young to choose it, and the clock waits so patiently on your song


There was nothing Sirius wouldn’t do for James. Nothing. He missed him every single day. Not just because he could share his every thought with him, or because he’d relied on him in battle for so long. Without him, it was too easy to lose sight of what was right or wrong. James had always known when to stop.

When James asked him to be Secret Keeper he’d said yes immediately. Same as when he’d been asked to be godfather. Same as when he’d been asked to be best man.


All the knives seem to lacerate your brain, I've had my share, now I'll help you with the pain. You're not alone


There was a bang on the door.

Sirius abandoned the bubbling beef and ale stew he had been carefully adding flavour to on the stove. Armed with his wand he walked noiselessly to his front door.

“Black, open up!” Moody’s gruff voice sounded.

“Sure, answer me this. What t-shirt was I wearing the last time you gave me a bollocking?”

“A black one that said ‘Ride me like a hippogriff’.”

Sirius grinned; the slogan sounded even better in Moody’s Glaswegian.

He flicked his wand and the door opened. Moody stood on his doorstep, looking even more sombre than usual. Sirius’s innards tied themselves into a knot.

“Get dressed. I need you to come with me to find McKinnon.”

Sirius patted his bare chest absently and looked around. The clothes nearest him strewn on the floor were all Marlene’s.

“Er…”

“I’m here,” Marlene said, closing the door to Sirius’s bedroom behind her. She was wearing one of his more obnoxious t-shirts, one that said “Proud Mugglefucker” on it. Her legs were bare and Sirius could see Moody look from them to Sirius’s bare torso with a judgemental frown.

Always ready to argue, Sirius had his cutting opener ready when Moody got in before him:

“Benjy Fenwick is dead. The Death Eaters blew him into a thousand little pieces.”


6. What the Water Gave Me

With shaking hands, Marlene took out the only photo she had of herself and Benjy from her blue suitcase. Their faces looked round and healthy in the picture. And god was he beautiful. They had made such a handsome couple.

She framed it in a pure white wooden square she conjured. She didn’t think, just let her emotions forge the frame.

She placed it face-down amongst the others on Sirius’s mantelpiece.


The world's a beast of a burden, you’ve been holding on a long time


She hadn’t laughed properly since the One-Eyed Spider. Maybe it’d been longer. Proper, deep belly laughs with Dorcas, but Dorcas was dead. The never-ending giggles Marlene and Althea and Winnie used to give each other back in school. They thought she was crazy for staying and fighting, they’d both left the country. The stomach cramps she used to get from listening to the back-and-forths between James and Lily once Lily’d had a few. But she’d quit drinking completely.

Marlene chose on the spot that she’d remember Benjy as someone who’d made her laugh, too.

She was looking forward to seeing her Mum and Dad again. Asking their opinion on who should be Secret Keeper.

She knew what their answer would be as soon as they saw her face. She had aged decades in a week.

Decision practically made and she didn’t want to tell Sirius. He’d never back down, he’d die fighting. She had thought she was the same.

The reason she couldn’t be Secret Keeper was because she would be going into hiding with the rest of her family. She was too broken to keep going like this. All she could think about was getting to hug her mother again.


'Cause they took your loved ones but returned them in exchange for you


Moody remained, talking to Sirius. Sirius still hadn’t put on a shirt, but then he was stubborn like that. His face was set at an angle, his arms crossed. He was at least letting Moody speak uninterrupted.

Marlene straightened out the robes she’d changed into and sat down on the sofa in front of the mantelpiece. Lily and James laughed and waved at her from the largest frame, placed in the very centre of the collection.

“They lured him there, but I’ll be damned if I know how.”

“Where did it happen?”

“Near Brighton’s West Pier. Plenty of muggle witnesses, it seems to have happened just outside of the magical-only zone. Had to modify over a dozen memories. I brought what little remains there were back to his father before coming here.”

Marlene wiped a tear from the corner of her eye. She’d been crying lots more than laughing for months now. Years.

“We’ve not been able to positively ID who the perpetrator was, just that it was a small man in black robes.

“Short or thin? Both? Avery and Rodolphus Lestrange are short.”

“Cheers, I’d’ve never thought of them myself.”

“Piss off,” Sirius said angrily and stalked off towards the kitchen. There was a strong smell coming from there. Had Marlene been able to feel anything she was sure it would’ve made her mouth water. Funny how Sirius had learnt to cook. She’d seen first hand he had just as small an appetite these days as she did.

“Traded up, didn’t you, McKinnon?”

Marlene sank deeper into the sofa cushions. Moody had always been fond of Benjy. Not just because he had provided the Order with more intelligence than anyone else. Benjy had been the same type of organized, safety-aware person Moody was.

“You’ve no idea why he’d drop everything and go to Brighton on a whim, do you?”

“No.”

“It’s not where your family is hiding, is it?”

Marlene couldn’t breathe. She couldn’t think, either.

“Black, I’ll need you to come with me. Vance is sorting through the witness statements; we need to follow up on anything while the track is still warm.”

“Both of us or just me?”

“Just you.”

Moody spoke so decisively Marlene wanted to put her hands over her ears. She pulled the single sofa cushion into her lap and hugged it. It didn’t help in the slightest.

“You stay here, yeah, Marlene? Try and get some rest, help yourself to the stew. I’ll see you later.”

Yesterday, she’d confided a little more in him. Told him how she didn’t think she could ever feel safe out in the open anymore. She wasn’t sure how she could face going on missions anymore, let alone just down to the shop on the corner. She’d been so close to telling him then. That she couldn’t do this anymore.


But oh, my love, don't forget me when I let the water take me


Why had Benjy gone there? She’d never have told him where her family was hiding. She wasn’t a complete numpty.

Besides, she’d never even visited them herself. The only reason she knew their address was because of the letter her Mum had sent her. It had Brighton and the street name, not the house number she didn’t think. Where had she put the letter? She was sure she’d received it while at Benjy’s.

Heart in her throat, she realized that Benjy did snoop. He was exactly the type of person who’d go through your stuff to get information, to try and gain the upper hand. He collected facts, he remembered everything he read. That’s why he was such an asset.

Sirius’s stew smelled delicious, yet her stomach roiled at the sight of it.

She tried to make a cup of tea, but the last of Sirius’s cups smashed into pieces at her feet and she was too agitated to repair it. This wasn’t just grief, something was wrong. There was something she had forgotten. She couldn’t shake the feeling this was all her fault.

She opened the cupboard door again just to stare at the handmade cups and saucers tucked away on the top shelf.

They weren’t Sirius’s. If they had been, he would have let her use them. He was careless with his own things, in a way only those who came from too much gold ever were. But these weren’t his, he was just the guardian. But Sirius would not agree to guard something for just anyone.

She was certain a woman had made them, yet equally certain that they belonged to a man. Their porousness and their frailty made her think of ghosts.

Looking at his photos, you’d be fooled to think there were dozens of loved ones in his life, but could he even love? He cared for James, and by extension Lily and Harry. Then there was Peter and maybe Marlene herself. Remus.

Nobody knew where Lupin was these days. He was inconspicuous enough that many Order members didn’t remember him well enough to ask the question. But Marlene had met him when she met the others, back when she’d sneak into the boys’ dormitory and spend the night in Sirius’s bed.

Lily had let slip once that he might be working undercover with werewolves. The implications of this still made Marlene’s skin crawl. She would have asked Sirius about it if she thought there was any chance he’d answer truthfully.

There was a spare mug with toothpaste stains round the rim in the bathroom. She could sense the stressed movement of someone hurrying by and pulling toothbrush and toothpaste from it.

Forgotten, threadbare scarf hanging alone on the last peg by the front door.

She squinted at the door of the locked bedroom in the flat. Not her flat, and it never would be. Sirius lived here, together with the ghost of someone else.


Lay me down, let the only sound be the overflow, pockets full of stones


Her belly ached with worry, but the flat had almost made her go insane. All of those photos, coupled with the nagging voice in her head telling her she’d forgotten something. She’d left in such a rush. Left Benjy, left the One-Eyed Spider…

Benjy deserved to be laid to rest. Today was the day she needed to face her fears. She needed to know why he’d come here.

Marlene walked along Brighton beach, shivering. The West Pier, long since abandoned by muggles for being unsafe, had served as a wizarding nightclub for a few summers. In August of 1980, something awful had happened, though. A group of inebriated wizards had forced a young muggle woman they’d found on the beach onto the pier, into the magical nightclub and then thrown her off into the water. In the struggle, she had fallen significantly further along than where the wizards had later said they intended her to fall. She had hit her head on the skerries below and died. The Wizengamot had sentenced the young wizards to a few months each in Azkaban and fined the nightclub owner so dearly he ended up closing altogether.

And now, in the summer of 1981, nobody went to nightclubs. Nobody dared. All businesses, except for those dealing in protective charms and potions, were suffering immensely.

It had been a hot day in London, but here, walking as close to the ocean as she could get, there was a fresh breeze that went straight through her clothes. The skirt of her pale-blue summer robes was becoming damp and her hair was getting curlier with every step she took. An extra big wave soaked through her shoes.

“Well, if it isn’t the little McKinnon girl,” a voice behind her said.

“Not as little as the sister! Besides, I’ve had the pleasure of meeting this one before,” another voice said. It made Marlene’s blood run cold. “You left in such a hurry last time that you forgot your purse.”

Marlene turned slowly on the spot. Another wave washed over her feet, and the slightly reddish pebbles underneath them.

She recognized both the Death Eaters before her, but she wouldn’t name them, not in her head. This was going to remain her head until the end.

Before she’d gotten to her wand one had disarmed her, the other used a body-bind curse on her legs. Swaying, her arms at her sides reaching for balance, another wave took her and she fell, water and sand washing over her. The wizards laughed and laughed, even more so when she used her arms to lift her stiff lower body and attempted to crawl away from them. One of them kicked her in the back and stepped on her neck, her face in the wet pebbles, coughing and retching and very soon just drowning.

“No, I want her to hear this first.”

There had been another kick to her side that rolled her over. Her mouth and her eyes were full of sand and salt and no amount of coughing would set it right. Burning, tearing at her lungs, or maybe her heart.

“After you escaped, I went through your purse. You had some very saucy letters there from your dear Benjy, I read them to the lads and they loved ‘em.”

Coughing, Marlene got hold of a small, smooth rock and flung it blindly towards the voice. Seconds later, an immense weight dropped down on her chest and soon two big hands took her wrists and pinned them to the ground by her head.

“Simply loved it,” the Death Eater whispered into her face. “I told them how nice and wet you got for me too. I bet your Benjy got a few good fucks out of you before he died. Many of the lads would have liked to try you too, what do you think of that?”

Marlene blinked and blinked, sand scraping her eyeballs. More than seeing, she just wanted to die. A big dribble of spit oozed across her forehead and into her eye.

“But my mate Antonin here only likes virgins. And I’ve already had what you have to offer. So I suppose this is it for you.”

Marlene turned her head away. Another wave reached all the way up to her head, temporarily blocking her hearing. Almost soothing.

“All I wanted to say was that, thanks to you, we tracked down your family and killed them. All dead, even your little sister. And we wrote to your boyfriend, tricked him into coming to meet you here. Almost missed him too, but one of our new recruits got him. You’re lying in the same spot he died in. Can you taste his blood in the water?”

“How are you gonna finish her off?”

“I’m still considering. You sure you don’t want to fuck her first?”

“Nah. Look at her, she’s filthy.”

“Fine. Avada Kedavra!”


7. Music when the lights go out

When Moody said he wished to go to Brighton beach to check everything was in order Sirius shrugged and tagged along. Moody had been a bit soft on Fenwick, or so Sirius’d always thought. They’d barely spoken to each other all day today, occasionally muttering a thought or two, never ground-breaking, futilely piecing together the descriptions provided by terrified and confused muggles. The wizard who’d blown him up had been either very thin or very short, probably fair-haired but maybe brown-haired going grey. He’d been frightened-looking, but capable of causing such a powerful explosion Fenwick had been blown into smithereens.

The thing that fucked with Sirius’s head more than any other was that whoever the killer was, he hadn’t been wearing a black cloak and a silver mask.

The sun was setting and colouring the pebbles and the water in warm colours that clashed with the rawness of the wind. Large waves kept breaking across the pebbles, so very loud despite the lack of people.

At first, he thought it was a muggle swimmer who had strayed into the magical section. The waves had no mercy, they crashed over the lifeless body like it was nothing more to nature than the pebbles beneath it. When they got close Sirius saw the pebbles around her had all been dyed deepest red. It clashed with the green sheen from the Dark Mark above.


All the memories of the clubs and the pubs and the drugs and the tubs we shared together, will stay with me forever.


Marlene’s funeral was on a gorgeous late summer’s day. There were five coffins, and so many children in attendance. Marlene’s younger brother and sister must have had a hundred friends.

Sirius and Peter were there for Marlene. Most everybody else who had known her were in hiding or had fled the country or died. She used to have a hundred friends, too.

Dumbledore was there, and some of the older Order members. Sirius ignored them.

It wasn’t fair. Old people surviving while young ones had to die.

He tried to focus on just Marlene. The beautiful, happy person she had been. Wickedly funny.

Once, when he’d been thirteen and brooding about his family, she’d dragged him out to Professor Kettleburn’s lodgings and convinced their lax teacher that they needed to use his floo to take care of a family matter. She’d strongly hinted she was pregnant and Kettleburn had given Sirius the most disturbing wink before letting them use his fireplace. He didn’t remember much of their night out, indeed he couldn’t swear to the city or even the country they’d spent it in, but someone, somewhere, had been willing to serve them gin. That establishment had been muggle and he still credited it with cementing his fond feelings towards his non-magical brethren.


All the memories of the fights and the nights, the blue light, all the kites we flew together; I thought they’d fly forever.


Five holes in the earth. One was rather small. Marlene’s sister had only started Hogwarts last year. Her body had been so badly damaged Sirius had expected that maybe this time, his mind would break.

Hundreds of them, yet it was so quiet you could hear the creaking from the ropes lowering the coffins.

He’d spoken to James earlier. James had had to physically restrain Lily. She had wanted to be here so badly.

Marlene had missed all of her girlfriends in her last weeks. Sirius had realized it from the way she spoke to him. The oversharing that never used to be a thing between them. She’d blurted out her deepest feelings and then tried to turn the tables. They’d never talked like that, though. All they’d talked about when they were young was muggle trends and sex.

Their last night together in his bed, lying head to toe, he’d smoked and she’d asked him questions the only way she knew.

“Have you ever slept with someone you love?”

Sirius, who usually made an effort when she was in that mood, hadn’t even tried to answer. Answering would have meant lying, one way or another. No, I’ve never been in love. Yes, I loved you once. All lies.

Sirius stuck his hands in his pockets and turned to leave. He caught sight of Emmeline Vance, her eyes closed and mumbling a silent farewell, and next to her Dumbledore, staring serenely back at Sirius, tears glittering behind his half-moon spectacles.


I’ll confess all of my sins, after several large gins but still I’ll hide from you. Hide what’s inside from you.


Dumbledore was upset with him because James chose him. After what had happened, Dumbledore had of course tried to insist on being their Secret Keeper. James would have none of it, though. He trusted his three best friends with his life, trusted them more than the greatest wizard alive. Sirius knew, as he suspected Dumbledore did, that Sirius could have talked James around if he’d wanted to. He was the only person who could have made him change his mind.

But Sirius had a plan of his own. A plan he wasn’t going to let Dumbledore in on.

“Hey Peter,” he said softly.

Peter, used to being ridiculed and patronized, looked up hopefully.

It was perfect. Nobody would ever expect it.


Love grows cold in the shades of doubt


Sirius had known for a long time who the traitor was, he’d just been in denial. James, of course, refused to believe it, but Peter knew as well. After everything that had happened, James still thought they were four best friends.

But Peter had said it out loud when he heard the description of Fenwick’s killer. If you ignored the witnesses who claimed it had been a short, plump man with light hair you were left with the witness who had said it was a thin man with greying brown hair. Someone who didn’t wear Death Eater’s robes but who worked for them. Someone who had been on his own mission for so long nobody really knew where he was or what he was supposed to be doing for the Order anymore. Someone who had slipped through the cracks.

Sirius walked past the locked and bolted bedroom door next to his own. He slid his hand past it, palm an inch from touching the cheap plywood door. He could never go inside, couldn’t even speak the name.

The only thing that had made him hesitate was the fact that his address hadn’t been leaked to the Death Eaters. His former flatmate could have done it back when he leaked all those other addresses that led to Dorcas’s and Caradoc’s deaths. Sirius had been waiting for it, he had been saving one or two choice spells for the occasion. But it hadn’t happened. Maybe the reason was that there were things in the flat his old former whatever couldn’t bear to see destroyed. In his old bedroom, or maybe in the kitchen.

Smirking to himself, Sirius marched into the kitchen and opened the cupboard door. He snatched down one of the handmade clay mugs from the top shelf. He placed it on the kitchen table and stared at it for a full minute.

Delicate paint strokes in pale blue and ochre, it contained a painstakingly rendered scene of animals meeting in a forest clearing.

Sirius lit a cigarette with a click of his fingers and took a long, throat-shredding drag on it. He ashed it nonchalantly into the cup, then left the burning fag balancing on the rim of the cup.


I no longer hear the music


Sirius packed almost nothing but his motorbike and little pocket mirror. Some nights he slept rough with muggles, some nights he booked himself into cheap hostels yet other times into ridiculously expensive city centre luxury hotels. He still answered every call the hawk patronus made, he fought and fought until he still had no visible scars to show for it. Sometimes he wondered if the whole war was just a figment of his imagination. Maybe he was locked up somewhere, alone in a cell, going insane.

He never returned to his flat.


8. Now and then

On the 7th of November, 1981, Remus Lupin stuck his key into the door and found that it still worked. Pushing the door open with trepidation, he remained standing in the hallway, wand thrumming in his hand, wondering what hideous, dark enchantments his former friend and flatmate might have put up in the event of his return.

Nothing happened.

The flat was silent and dusty. Old magazines and pale blue dresses and black t-shirts and Firewhisky bottles and an old canister of motor oil littered the floor.

Remus unlocked his bedroom door and entered. He did some magic to determine that nobody had disturbed his things, nor erected any protective or offensive charms.

There was precious little for him to pack. After school, he’d been living on the mercies of his friends, and once the paranoia poisoned everything from sex to magic and he left, he’d been living on the mercies of other werewolves. He’d yet to ask Dumbledore if any of the intelligence he’d gathered had led to anything good. Anything worthwhile. He knew deep down he’d never ask. Some things were better left in the dark.

He carried his battered old trunk into the sitting room. There was only one set of things worth anything to him in the flat. He couldn’t help but wonder if his former friend hadn’t destroyed them all. One last awful fuck you to truly put an end to their history.

He had to brace himself before entering the kitchen. It wasn’t just the worry about what he might find, it was an unexpected flurry of memories. The man who had worried about being able to count all of Remus’s ribs in bed had subsequently spent about a month learning how to cook, excelling in a way that was just as infuriating as his quick learning at school had been. How could that man have turned a leaf and killed his best friends?

Stepping inside, he found one of the mugs on the kitchen table. There was a half-smoked cigarette resting on the rim, still burning. He vanished it, then cradled the mug to his chest. They were the only things he had left of his long since deceased mother. She had passed before the war kicked off. That same friend had comforted him for hours after it happened. Years, really.

He removed the rest of the cups and saucers and plates and bowls. All were of slightly different shapes and sizes, all were hand-painted with a similar motif. His mother and Lily were the only people who had known his three best friends had become animagi for him.

He couldn’t believe they were still here. None of them destroyed. Someone must have left in a hurry. That was the only explanation. No time for this final desecration.

And yet, Remus didn’t feel he deserved these, just like he knew he hadn’t deserved such a loving mother. He confessed even now that he would have sacrificed every last memory of his beloved mother to get back even one of his friends.

The crockery all fitted into his battered old suitcase. He wrapped old robes and socks around each piece.

He wasn’t going to look, but somehow, he couldn’t stop himself. He kicked at some of the clothes on the floor. A woman’s knickers lying on the floor as though she’d just stepped out of them.

There was some movement from the mantelpiece, and Remus walked over, wand at the ready. There were dozens of overturned photographs, like a sick guess-who board a mass murderer had created. There was almost no photographs left standing.

Tears in his eyes, Remus used his finger to touch the waving hand of James’s inside the big photo in the middle. Lily kissed his cheek and he pulled her closer.

With a quenched sob, Remus turned over their photograph.

And if I make it through it's all because of you

 

Spoiler

Well, this is certainly well written, but I'm sure if it is well thought through.

Onto the good, then; I think the characters are very fleshed out for such a short piece, each unique in their own way, each standing out as a real person, struggling somewhere out there. The emotion they carry is also real, almost palpable in its intensity, and most of action as far as I can tell are those emotions rather then scattered scenes of true action. Almost angst but not quite. Almost hurt but not quite.

There's a lot of solid depiction of mundane that in its tones fits with a bleak tone of the setting, a lot of nice details.

What I'm a little weary about, is that I feel like all those characters are pushed a little too deep into their states of mind, a little too different, a little too unique. I guess I understand they're still rather young at this point, early 20s, but the worst they have to offer in this story like pettiness from Sirius, and littles cruelties from Benjy, and uhhh a lack of self-worth? from Marlene, all seem to me on the edge of juvenile. Even the physical aspect of it is something that I see fitting more in Hogwarts days rather than in the middle of the war.

I think what it lacks is true dread from the forced maturity that should add to the bleak tones, and what you've written instead of it feels like trivializing the matters and self-delusion. Which is fair, but I just don't see it as a natural response to the reality your characters are living in, even for them as written as they are.

As I read this I almost wished it was November, and that I'm in 7th day of rain and thick gray clouds, and that I haven't seen a sun for a month, to complete the setting fully.

Another problem that comes from emotion-as-action is that there cannot truly be a real resolution to the story. The endings of chapters 5, 6, 7, would be just as ending as the one of the chapter 8 is. I do wish I stopped at 7th, not that I think the story is better without 8th, but it's where I predicted the story would end. Perhaps even 6th. Though then I would have missed the guess-who bit, which was neat.

The titles of the chapters I mostly get, but how, or do they s somehow connect with the rest of scattered italicized lyrics? I have to admit I have no idea.

Strong entry, I think, all of the above notwithstanding. Brilliant word choices at times, and well-timed breaks. Thumbs up.

EDIT: I forgot to comment how well the prompt is observed: I'm 99% sure I've read the actual sentence somewhere in the story, but as far as I know, it should start with it. :/

 

Spoiler

The first thing I thought was, frankly: Oh, hey. Who gave AO3 a DLP theme? I realize that sounds denigrating but it's not meant to be, now that I've actually read it - this transcends that easily, even if it bears the same hallmarks. It's a songfic, it's about Sirius and Marlene McKinnon (and him "discovering" he's bisexual in an aside). Those were my thoughts on the first part, in a nutshell. They're still true, as any thought I think is, but after that I was drawn in relentlessly by the artful displays of grime and darkness.

Then the POV switch to Marlene had me thinking that hey, this is where the other bit of the romance comes in. And then it gets worse. I knew it'd end badly, but I wasn't prepared for it getting that dark, though. Goddamn. It takes a phenomenal writer to make me feel quite that much of a wrench to the feelings, but fuck me if you didn't succeed with aplomb.

All of it is filthy and grimy and honestly fantastic. Sirius feels like a burned out wreck who'd always been destined for a tragedy but has unfortunately found a war in the way of that. Wanking in the shower to show himself he's still got it while thinking of his mother? Incredible. Marlene getting hit with an entire Quidditch team's worth of Trauma Bludgers - brutal. The gift card to Borgin and Burkes line? Sheer unadulterated genius.

There's a certain line you're forced to walk both as a reader and a writer of these kinds of dark, emotionally-driven stories: you want it to be believably miserable while not being nothing but misery. To me you've succeeded not just in walking that line but doing a Simone Biles-esque backflip on it. Kudos.

 

Spoiler

This is a real long story, almost going over the word count. Good job at keeping it right under.

Before my review, I have to give some of my favorite lines:

They were taken out, one by one, like doxies sprayed with doxycide.

The wrath, the black mist giving way to depression. 1979, 1980, 1981. Down, down, down. Grey to black, blackest black. His friends were all dying, and that inevitably meant he was going the same way.

---

“What did you do?” Peter asked curiously, but the other two had already turned to leave, laughing like old times imagining Voldemort’s supporters walking into their trap. “Hey, hang on! Did either of you check what was on the parchment in the corner?

---

“You’re disappointingly average, considering you’ve got the personality of someone who’s either hung like a hippogriff, or, more likely, over-compensating because their knob is the size of a flobberworm.”

---

Sirius and Peter were there for Marlene. Most everybody else who had known her were in hiding or had fled the country or died. She used to have a hundred friends, too.

---

There was some movement from the mantelpiece, and Remus walked over, wand at the ready. There were dozens of overturned photographs, like a sick guess-who board a mass murderer had created. There was almost no photographs left standing.

Tears in his eyes, Remus used his finger to touch the waving hand of James’s inside the big photo in the middle. Lily kissed his cheek and he pulled her closer.

With a quenched sob, Remus turned over their photograph.

---

You have a way with words. Each of your characters sound completely different in both their dialogue, how they present themselves, and their internal thoughts within their POV. For that alone, you desire 5/5.

The tone of this story is incredible as well. It's dark, but you still manage to bring in jokes and laughter. Yet there is still that sense of unease and desperation throughout each scene that cannot be forgotten about. Peter is wonderful in this fic too, as you quickly realize he is the one behind almost everything, and yet pins it perfectly on Remus.

There are a few little issues though. First, I think Benjy's scenes with Marlene are a little much. As she is already dealing with rape, Benjy's actions seem far over the top and unneeded with the horrors they are already face.

Marlene's ending is also a bit off, in my opinion. After finding out that her parents could be in danger, she doesn't try to find out. Instead she walks along the beach, pondering the past, and getting caught by the Death Eaters randomly. I know she isn't thinking right, but these actions don't make any sense other than to move the plot forward and get her out of the way.

Lastly, while this story is fantastic, I don't think it fits the prompt that well. While you used the line, it gets lost in the story. It's just a small sentence in a sea of excellent sentences.

 

Spoiler

The beginning and middle are great, lots of good detail and establishing who the protagonists are. I think you could afford another short glimpse of Peter's schemes in there.

The last chapters need a few more edits. They feel more like they're cobbled together by the writer trying to remmeber all the little loose ends and breadcrumb trails left in previous chapters. They need more structure.

Lindsey has a good point about Marlene's motivations in her last chapter. That needs a bit of a rethink, although understandably it's not a fun chapter to re-read.

 

Spoiler

The writing is fantastic, really getting into the grime and stress of the scenario. I won’t say there aren’t any technical errors, but certainly nothing that caught my eye.

Very effective build up of Pettigrew, which isn’t something I’ve seen terribly often. Obviously you know he must have been a decent spy, not just relying on being overlooked, but it’s good to see it in action. Well. Not good, but you know what I mean.

I wonder whether the sexual assault is necessary? Or…maybe necessary isn’t the right word. But you have the, shall we say, ambiguous scene with Benjy, then everything tied to the One-Eyed Spider, and at first pass until Marlene starts going into more detail, I thought she’d re-evaluated her last encounter with Benjy off-screen. Furthermore, Marlene just happening to book a room at a suspected Death Eater hang out that she apparently hasn’t been made aware of and subsequently getting assaulted is perhaps a little too diabolus ex machina, even given the bleak nature of the story. It’s something that could easily have happened in a mission gone south, although I suppose it does highlight the realities of the conflict, and to a lesser extent the flaws of the Order.

That said, it’s a mark of how well written this is that I wasn’t just rolling my eyes at the grim dark nature of everything. Well, mostly everything – Sirius’ encounters with various Death Eaters lightened the tone nicely, which I appreciated. And the Borgin and Burkes line was great.

I feel like it would be very easy for the final scene to tip over into an unnecessary explanation of the hinted at emotions and old relationships that haunt Sirius throughout, but that doesn’t happen, leaving us on one last dreadful misunderstanding. Nicely done.