Inside His Head: Sirius Potter

[PADFOOT]

This how I’ve been brain storming lately, because for some reason my muse has been rather low. (Probably used it all up on work and left none for play – not good!) So I’ve been making myself sit in front of a blank word document until I came up with at least a blurb, from Sirius’s point of view about random aspects of his life.

^^ I started writing these a while back. Figured it was time to share them.

They are in no particular order right now and they are not from any one point in his life. Though they are all from the point of view of the Sirius on this site – grew up with Claire since birth basically, crazy prank pulling teenager with a drinking and nicotine habit in its earliest stages. There will be little short tidbits here and longer ramblings there from all stages of his life from childhood until our present roleplay.

Hope you enjoy.

-Padfoot

[PADFOOT]

Sirius, age 17, about a month before finishing Hogwarts.

Breathing heavily as he raced around the Black Lake as he had done every morning for so many years, his best friend Claire at his side, it was hard to think that this would no longer be the norm. Sirius couldn’t help but glance over at Claire every few seconds – he had been doing that more and more lately, no particular reason why. Or so he had thought. But lately his mind had been wandering away from the two girls he had been “seeing”, Kayla and Cassie, and shifted more often than ever to Claire.

He shoved these uncomfortable thoughts from his mind yet again, he couldn’t feel that way about Claire, she was his best friend. For years he had looked at Claire more like an extra sibling, someone to joke around with, tease and cause chaos with, not like… well, like a girl.

Sirius picked up the pace, moving just a few feet ahead of Claire so he would stop doing that sideways glance he kept catching himself at. I can’t be with Claire! he kept telling himself. We are friends, that’s it… She deserves someone who would be with just her… I’m… Well, not good at that… It was a never ending mental battle. How he could change for her – but then he would remind himself that he just wasn’t a one girl kind of guy. He never had been.

Second time around the lake and Sirius was keeping pace with Claire again, she wasn’t necessarily slower than him, just shorter – which meant he took much longer strides than she possibly could. Panting a bit, he caught her eyes – she had been looking at him that time. A smirk grew across his face. Maybe she actually likes me… Sirius shook his head quite literally to shake off the thought. Cut it out! You’ve been over this – you would ruin a friendship that you can’t live without!

*~*~*~*~*~*

Weeks of this mental battle went on while he continued to see both Kayla and Cassie on a regular basis. Since Claire wasn’t much of a partier - except when Sirius forced her into it – he wouldn’t let himself feel guilty for going with one of the other girls. They would drink and carry on all night long, usually finding their way into some abandoned classroom where their night would turn into morning after too many drinks.

Besides, it was the end of the school year and everyone knew when they finished at Hogwarts, they wouldn’t see each other again. Both girls knew that Sirius was not dating them, not for real. He was just playing them like he had so many girls before them. It wasn’t like he had a golden reputation, but somehow, he always charmed them into his arms, whether for one evening or many.

One night though, Sirius was feeling particularly off. Instead of attending one of the last parties of the year he found himself wandering by the edges of the lake once more thinking about Claire. He just couldn’t shake her from his mind lately. What if they could work together as a couple? What if he really could learn to settle down? He hated to think of what would happen if it didn’t work out – but it killed him even more to imagine her getting married to some guy that Sirius already felt like he would hate (even though this person doesn’t exist yet).

Sirius sat down at the edge of the lake, looking first out over the water, then laying back in the grass to look up at the moon and the stars. Tomorrow. This was it, he had decided, once and for all. Tomorrow I’ll tell her how I feel – ask her to go to the ball they’re holding before the school year ends – then if she says no, I’ll just use a memory charm on her and everything will be back to normal. Simple. He grinned to himself as he lay in the grass that night, smoking a cigarette and just enjoying the time to himself for once.

*~*~*~*~*~*

Tomorrow came quicker than Sirius had been ready for and next thing he knew it was six in the morning and he and Claire were out running by the lake again, as they did every morning. He kept his pace next to her the entire run, attempting to watch her body language while trying to restrain his own from screaming I’ve got something to say. It was incredibly difficult for him to contain the nerves, he had never once in his life been so nervous about talking to a girl. Actually, he couldn’t really remember being nervous talking to a girl ever – not even Claire. But this conversation could change everything!

They laid in the grass together, panting to catch their breath after a third lap around the lake. After several minutes of silence, just when Sirius was about to finally speak up, Claire offered up the idea of going down to the kitchens for an early breakfast. Sirius heard a loud growl come from his stomach and could not help but agree to her proposal. After all, he couldn’t do anything, especially something life changing, without having a full stomach… Right?

The morning came and went without him saying a word to her about anything he had on his mind. He kept putting it off, letting fear get the better of him – something he never did. Then at lunch, he saw Kayla wandering up to where they sat at the Gryffindor table in the Great Hall. He sighed very audibly, wishing she had chosen any day but today to want to see him. She told him she wanted to talk privately and was very adamant about the situation.

That day was when everything changed – but not in the way he had expected. He could hardly believe what he was being told. It really wasn’t processing. This was not supposed to happen, it couldn’t happen… and yet it was. Like it or not, James Sirius Potter was going to be a father.

He couldn’t take it, not right now. He told Kayla that he needed to think, he needed her to give him some space but that he promised not to abandon her in this situation. He might have been an asshole, he might have been a player and he might not have ever wanted to have kids, but it was happening and one thing he wasn’t was an asshole that would abandon their child (whether he was ready to have one or not).

That afternoon would be the last time Sirius took a run around the Black Lake. He ran for what seemed like hours on end, even wandered from the lake after a while, but never stopped running. From the lake to the quidditch pitch, past Hagrid’s hut and finally down the road to Hogsmeade and back he just kept moving. By the time he made it back to the lake it had been dark for some time and he was exhausted. He literally couldn’t move another inch if he had wanted to. Sirius lay in the grass, staring at the stars as he had just the night before but with a whole new overwhelming situation on his mind.

Then out of nowhere, Claire plopped down in the grass next to him. She didn’t say a word, just gave him that, Whatever it is, I’ve got your back. look that he knew so well.

Well, he thought to himself. At least I won’t lose my best friend after all…

[PADFOOT]

Sirius, age 25, when he and Kayla separated temporarily.
Warning: There is a little bit of an adult moment in there, felt it needed addressed.
This was written over a few days actually and is one of those longer ramblings I mentioned. Hope you enjoy. (:

It was beyond early in the morning and Sirius had no interest in being awake. The sun wasn’t up, it was pouring down rain and he was lying in a bed alone at the Leaky Cauldron. It had been three weeks since he and Kayla had separated. He had spent the weekends taking his girls to the park, out for lunch and ice cream in Diagon Alley. He could never let what was happening between him and Kayla part him from his daughters. He couldn’t imagine a life without them – it was hard enough to imagine a life where he and Kayla were no longer a family. Sirius rolled on his side, a slight grumpy sounding groan escaping his lips softly as he shifted his right leg.

*~*~*~*~*~*

Earlier in the week he had been on a mission with Claire and a small team totaling in six people all lead technically by him (but with plenty of help from Claire). They were supposed to be following a couple of wizards back to what they believed to be the headquarters of a new threat. Just an observational mission, or so they thought. The youngest of their team, a man by the name of Duper was not quite as skilled at stealth as the rest and was discovered within twenty minutes.

The wizard who caught notice of him cast a spell towards Duper, but before it reached him there was a shield charm cast by Claire - quick thinking as always - it repelled the curse just in time. Sirius rushed in during that moment, sending a curse at the man who attacked, then swiftly went past Duper, not so gently shoving him into the nearby bushes and out of harms’ way.

The second man shot a spell at Sirius that knocked him back about six feet. He tried to brace himself for the rough landing he knew was coming but it wasn’t much help. The sleeve of his long sleeve shirt was torn and his arm was soon bleeding after skidding into the concrete, the side of his jeans torn as well, his leg bleeding and throbbing. Without missing a beat however, as soon as he landed he rolled over to face the two men - his team already throwing out curses and distracting them - he raised his wand and shot off two curses that dropped both men to the ground unconscious.

Claire raced over to check on him but he ignored all pain receptors in his body, getting up and mumbling that he was fine. He hadn’t been himself for weeks, he had even been ignoring Claire. It wasn’t like him at all, but hey, he just wasn’t feeling himself. He limped over to the two men lying limp on the ground and bleeding and shook his head. Guess we won’t get to see where they were headed after all… He looked to two of his colleagues, ”Would you haul them off to the Ministry and take care of the papers for me? Leave any papers that I need to sign on my desk and I’ll take them to my dad in the morning.”

The two did as they were asked, the other had already gone to check on Duper and get him to the ministry and away from Sirius in case he lost his head. Which was a pretty good bet – he had been much quicker to get angry lately. Claire had not given up on getting him to talk to her yet – as stubborn as she was he was amazed she hadn’t tried to follow him home – then again, he had been staying at the office well past three in the morning only to be back at seven that same morning for months, so that wasn’t really a possibility.

”Claire, I’m fine, really.” he told her over and over as they stood there on an old abandoned road outside of London. She wasn’t having any of that for an answer. Before he could protest she had one of her small hands wrapped around his wrist and apparated them both to St. Mungo’s. ”Claire, this is unnecessary.” he grumbled again, but the healer that had been seeing him in and out of here since he was a child had already caught sight of them. Claire followed as the healer pulled Sirius into a room and treated the wounds as best as possible, then wrapping bandages around his upper arm and his leg to soak up any more blood.

The healer gave him a couple of potions and told him to rest for a few days, meaning stay off his leg as much as possible, which meant sitting at a desk. The worst part was that Claire was there and there was no way he could lie as he often would in a situation like this and say it was okay for him to be up and about. When the healer left the room finally, headed off to update paperwork, Claire offered to make sure he got home rather than back to the office. Sirius shook his head, ”No, Claire… Look, I won’t go back to the office, okay?”

Finally she got pissed off. He had known it was coming. She had been much more patient than usual, but finally, it was time for Claire to speak her mind – and by speak, he meant yell – and in typical Claire fashion it started with: ”JAMES SIRIUS POTTER YOU BETTER NOT KEEP LYING TO ME!” and went on to yell at him for once again being reckless and getting himself hurt, for pushing her away for weeks, and for being a complete ass to everyone. Once that rant had come to a close she added something along the lines of ”You better tell me what has got you acting like this, Sirius, because I’m tired of it.”

Sirius ran his left hand through his hair, then rested his hand on his neck and sighed heavily. ”Claire, I really, really don’t want to talk about it. Can we just go get a drink or something?” Normally, he knew she would have complained, told him he didn’t need to be drinking, reminding him how he was slowly killing himself from the inside out and blah, blah, blah. But tonight she wanted information and she knew she would get it if she allowed him to drink enough. He had not considered that when she agreed so quickly, but hey, all he wanted was a drink, right?

About six glasses of whiskey in, sitting at a table in the Leaky Cauldron, tucked away in the back corner, Sirius finally confessed. He and Kayla were splitting up. She couldn’t stand his drinking, she couldn’t stand his smoking, and she could have dealt with that though if he were even home. She had asked him for a divorce, since he was already remarried to his work. For months now, almost a year, he had been working 14 plus hours a day trying to find out where this new threat was coming from. He had overheard in Knockturn Ally one night, under cover, rumor of someone worse than Voldemort himself.

Since then, he had been trying to get someone other than Claire to believe him. They had lived in an era of peace for so long that no one talked about stuff like this happening. The Daily Prophet was constantly covering up murders and missing person’s cases that he knew the real details on. They weren’t even sugar coating it, they were flat out changing the story to make it seem like something it wasn’t. No one wanted to think this could happen again, not even his dad, who was the head of the department.

He had tried to explain to Kayla that it wasn’t going to be that way forever, he just needed proof. Once he had solid proof and could get the word out, things would go right back to normal. He just couldn’t stand by waiting for another war to start. But she wouldn’t have any of that. She told him to go, right then and there. She already had a bag of his things waiting for him when he had finally come home that night. Sirius told Claire how he had been staying at the Leaky Cauldron every night since, and that night, even Claire shared a drink with him. He could never tell her just how much that meant to him – how she was just always there. He felt horrible that he had forgotten that the last couple weeks.

Claire helped him up to his room as best she could seeing as he was limping worse than he had in years and was far more drunk than she had seen him in quite some time. She stayed that night to make sure he was okay, slept on the couch that was opposite the bed which Sirius had collapsed onto and passed out on almost immediately. The next morning however, she took off for work nice and early, after casting a sleeping charm to ensure he would rest, at least for that day.

*~*~*~*~*~*

In the last week, Sirius had barley left this room except to take care of some paperwork that Claire informed him of. He had given in to his body’s need for rest after that first day which was forced on him by Claire. After months of sleep deprivation, weeks of drinking himself sick and then that mission he was just wiped out. His brain needed to just stop thinking, he just kept thinking to himself, if only he could just walk away from it all for a bit. And that’s exactly what he was doing as he laid there on that bed alone. He shut down. He left all thoughts of Kayla behind… He closed his eyes and just laid there, breathing heavily, trying desperately to get himself together again.

*~*~*~*~*~*

Another couple days went by and Sirius finally left the room to go somewhere other than the office. Not that going to the muggle bar down the street was much improvement, but at least he wouldn’t run into anyone he knew there. He even took the time to make sure he looked halfway decent. He wore one of his black dress shirts he wore to meetings at work, buttoned halfway with a crimson t-shirt underneath, a pair of blue jeans that were new enough to not have holes in them yet, and he even tried to get his long dark hair to behave but like his father and his brother that was a lost cause.

Sirius left the Leaky Cauldron, still unable to walk properly after the recent injury but ignoring it all the same. He wandered into the dive bar and pulled up a stool at the counter and asked the bartender for a whiskey, not even looking up to see who he was talking to. When she came back, she brought the glass and set it down in front of him with an almost taunting smile.

“I haven’t seen you here before,” she said softly, as ran her long fingernails across the back of Sirius hand.

Sirius looked up and couldn’t help but let his infamous, charming yet goofy grin come across his tired features. He shrugged,“I needed a change of scenery.” He picked up the glass of whiskey and drank about half of it in one sip.

The woman smiled and leaned on the counter, allowing her long blond curls to fall in her face and brush along the countertop, her light blue eyes seemed to sparkle in the dim lighting of the bar. ”So are you going to introduce yourself?” She glanced at the glass he had nearly emptied already as he took another sip.

”My names Sirius,” he told her as he picked up the glass, swirling what was left of his drink in the bottom of the glass. ”Would you mind bringing a larger glass next time? I’m quite thirsty.” he explained.

”I see that,” she said as she turned around to get another glass, about twice the size, and filled it to the rim.

While she had her back turned, Sirius couldn’t keep his eyes off of her. If Kayla and I are through, I shouldn’t feel guilty, right? he thought to himself as he admired the blond beauty. She wasn’t too tall, but taller than Claire and Kayla both, her curls fell around her middle back and her body curved in all the right places. His mind was already getting carried away, he noticed, as he finished off the first glass finally before she turned around and set down the new one.

”So do you live around here, Sirius?” she asked him as she set down the second drink. It was rather late and the bar crowd was starting to thin out. She seemed to notice as she took a quick glance around before leaning on the bar again, facing him but this time drying off the recently washed glasses.

”Not really,” he said as he sipped his drink. ”Sort of just needed a night away from everything, ya know?’ He sat the glass down and turned to look at her again, taking in those mischievous blue eyes. ”You know,” he said as he picked up the glass again, taking another quite large swig. ”You didn’t tell me your name yet, love.”

As he said this, he had a look of not only curiosity but a piqued interest in this young woman. She had to be about his age. She hesitated only for a moment, ”I’m Mackenzie,” she set down the glass she was drying off and without him asking, topped off his drink.

The two continued on like this for quite some time into the night. After the bar closed down for the night, the owner and staff usually stayed for a few drinks and the woman had convinced her boss that Sirius could stay to join them. Just this one time.

A couple hours later the two of them were considerably drunk. Sirius was proud of himself for playing muggle so well, after all, he had grown up in a wizarding household and all he knew of muggles was from books for the most part. Mackenzie and Sirius got themselves a hotel room at the only ratty little shack of a hotel that was still open at 3:30 in the morning, but the look of the place did not stop them from having a wonderful night. The two of them pleasured one another many times over that night before finally passing out tangled in each other’s arms.

*~*~*~*~*~*

It wasn’t until the sun peaked through the crack in the curtains of the hotel window that Sirius finally woke up.

Sirius yawned, it must have been some crazy horrible dream, he thought for a moment. He had Kayla in his arms, but oh man, he must have drank too much because his head was pounding. He lay there, eyes still closed, holding the love of his life close to him.

He couldn’t believe he had had such a nightmare – Kayla had asked him to leave, he had been staying in a room alone, hurting and drunk for weeks – he didn’t know if he would make it if that ever happened. If it did, he knew he would have to just change. Whether he liked it or not, he loved Kayla and his girls and that would be worth it.

Then he realized it wasn’t all a dream, it was real. As he opened his eyes and took in the shabby hotel room, the blond beauty laying in his arms that was not his wife. He knew what had obviously happened – whether or not he remembered it, it was quite obvious what had occurred. With his head continuing to pound, he knew he must have been beyond drunk the night before.

For a moment, he tried to let go of the guilt. His wedding ring was back at the Leaky Cauldron, sitting on the dresser in the room he had been calling his home for almost a month. He tried to tell himself it wasn’t his fault; that Kayla had practically asked for it. But he knew just how wrong he was in thinking that. She wanted nothing more than for him to be around, so they could share moments like this. It shouldn’t be this woman lying next to him, it should be Kayla…

Sirius gently untangled himself from the sleeping woman in hopes he wouldn’t wake her. He pulled his jeans back on and stepped outside the room for a cigarette. As he paced, limping, back and forth in front of the motel room door, he couldn’t stop his mind from racing, no matter how bad the headache was. He reached for his wand in his pocket and took a quick look around for muggles. Seeing no one in sight, he summoned his wedding ring and caught it easily as it flew straight to him.

Sighing, he went back into the room after finishing his smoke. He gently shook the woman awake. They needed to talk. Surprisingly enough, she was okay with everything he had to say. How he was married, how he was going through a divorce, but how he just couldn’t imagine a life without his wife and daughters. How he regretted leading her on, as he was sure he said plenty that would make her think he might stick around. (He had been great at that in school – convincing every girl they would be his soulmate just to get in bed with them.)

Even more surprising, she supported him in going back to his wife and trying to make things right. She understood. People make mistakes – and if she, in some odd way, had helped him realize he was making the worst mistake of his life, then she was happy to have done so.

Sirius thanked her for everything. He paid for their room for the night and wished her well in all things. He apologized but she understood that it was better if they didn’t stay in touch after this.

That night, Sirius packed up his things at the Leaky Cauldron and went home to make things right once again.
 

[PADFOOT]

Sirius, age 38, two days after meeting Juliette for the first time, at the potter home.

Notes: I found the document I had with all my one-shot style fic's of Sirius and I realized I had a few I never posted. They will be posted randomly as I go through them!

The last few weeks had been incredibly difficult for Sirius, a lot of things were changing again, but for once for the better. The one thing that kept him from feeling the happiness he deserved though, was the fact that he felt guilty. Guilty that he was able to be happy again when his family would never be around for it. They would never get to feel love, happiness or anything again, they were gone and that still killed him. But he was still here and more and more recently, the reason for that had become apparent to him.

It had been only a month of being out of his brother’s house and living with Claire and things there were going great. He couldn’t ever tell her how much it meant to him, it was a much needed change. He appreciated everything Albus had ever done for him, letting him live with him when he was at his worst. If it hadn’t been for that, he might not have made it to being where he was today. After all that time though, it was time for the change. Moving in with Claire had been a step in the right direction, a chance to prove to himself that he was getting better.

That had been enough to make him realize that he still had someone there for him. Someone that needed him as much as he needed her. Actually, he was sure that he needed her more. If anything ever happened to Claire he was sure there would be no stopping him, he would take down whoever was in his path, make sure they couldn’t hurt anyone he cared about again – but he would probably be going down with them.

If all that had not been enough to give him a reason to be happy to be alive, fate just kept putting more in his hands to be grateful for. He had just found out that he had another daughter, from a one night stand he had forgotten about after the long and painful fifteen years since then. The feelings of guilt returned though – he had not been able to save his first two daughters. They were gone from this world for good. Now though, he had a daughter that he should have been there for. Maybe her mother and grandmother would still be around if he had known… Maybe if he had known, he could have kept them all safe….

Life was funny sometimes… One of the biggest empty voids in his heart since the death of his family was the need to be there for someone in the way only a father could. When he was a teenager, when he had first found out he was going to be a father, he had not even been sure he wanted kids. How could he be a good dad? He couldn’t even be a stable boyfriend, let alone a father! That had all changed the moment he had seen his first daughter being born. From that moment on there was a feeling inside him that he just couldn’t explain and it had never gone away. It had only left him feeling incomplete when they were torn from this world, from him, forever.

That instinct, that fatherly compassion, it had been there when he first saw this girl in her grandparents’ home that had been destroyed. He had wanted to pull her into his arms, to hold her close and let her know that someone knew exactly how she felt right now. To try to console those feelings that could tear a person from who they really were, leaving nothing but a shell of the person they once were. When she had said that simple sentence that made him realize that she was his daughter, his heart had been pounding in his chest. It was a feeling he couldn’t explain, somewhere between being the happiest man on earth and feeling like the biggest asshole ever for not being around for her growing up. The worst part? She made it very clear that she wanted nothing to do with him.

That had only been two days ago and he had not tried to talk to her since. She was so emotional, he knew that she had not been expecting to meet him any more than he had expected to find out about her. He tried to explain – had he known, had her mother ever tried to contact him, he would have been there in a heartbeat. She wouldn’t hear any of it, she only wanted her mother and grandmother back in her life. He knew how that felt, but he also knew it was something that could never be. He was worried for her – he knew from experience what kind of dark places your mind and heart can take you when something like that happens.

Sirius sat on the front porch of his old home for the first time since he had been taken out of there by force. He had been in horrible shape, barley alive with a fractured spine, his right leg nearly destroyed and bleeding from his head and wounds in his side. He had wanted them to leave him there to bleed out and die with his family, but they wouldn’t let it happen. Actually, Claire wouldn’t let it happen. If she hadn’t shown up with that first group of aurors to arrive at his house, he would be dead right now.

All these memories flooded back to him as he sat outside of his home, smoking a cigarette and sipping on his flask of whiskey. Why had he decided to put himself through this, he wondered for a moment as he sat there. He had been sitting there for over an hour, alone, unable to go inside.

After a while, he finally stood up and opened the door and let himself walk inside. He felt so many emotions all at once, like tidal wave hit him the moment he looked around. The house looked no different than it had the day he left, other than the thick layer of dust that covered the destroyed home after all these years of being left unattended. This wasn’t how he pictured it though, as he limped through the house, taking in all the familiar smells and sights. He still saw this house in its prime, his children running around, and his wife waiting for him to come home from work.

He looked over to the living room from the stairs, standing on the blood stain he had left behind. He could picture everything so clearly, his daughters being held by scraggly looking wizards in the corner by the fireplace, his wife across the room, begging for this all to end. Then there was himself, his wand across the room, his body falling into a heap on the steps after Cato Blackwell had stopped using the torture curse on him, leaving him broken and defenseless as he watched them tear his family from him one person after the other.

Tears started falling from his eyes as the scene replayed in his head as it so often did in his dreams. The details were as clear as the night it happened. Blackwell, standing over him, telling him that there would be no stopping him before leaving him there to die. He didn’t even know how the aurors had known something was wrong, why they had shown up there that night to save him. Sirius wiped the tears away but they just kept coming. He lit another cigarette and headed up the stairs, he looked into each of his daughters’ rooms – everything untouched, just as they had left it, ready to call it a night and go to bed. His youngest daughter was a book worm and a history book she borrowed from his was still sitting open on the bed.

Finally, he found himself in his and his wife’s bedroom. He sat on the bed, tears still falling, harder than they had in years. He picked up a picture of his wife and daughters that sat on his bedside table, tears staining the old photograph as he watched them smiling up at him. ”I think I know why I’m still here, finally…” he said as though they could hear him. ”You girls have a sister… And she really needs someone right now…

A small smile came across his face through the tears that streaked his cheeks. He brushed his long hair out of his face. ”She’s beautiful, just like you… I’m sorry I couldn’t save you… I love you and miss you every day… But now I have the chance to save Juliette… I can’t let her go through all this alone…”

Sirius put the picture in his pocket. This one, he would keep. He hadn’t ever asked anyone to go get him any photographs. He avoided them because he did not want to see the family he had let go. Now though, he was finally realizing that even though he had tried, there was nothing he could have done. What happened, well, it had to happen. Fate was funny that way. Even though it had ended one story in a tragedy, he was sure now, more than he had ever been, that there was a reason for him to be alive.

For Sirius, two gaps had been filled lately. One was the need to love someone again and he had noticed more and more that his old feelings for Claire were still there. He had caught wind of Hogwarts hosting a ball that was to celebrate another 10 years since the downfall of Voldemort and the Death Eaters and he had a plan in mind for that. The second gap that had been filled was how much he missed being a father and now he was being given that chance again. He knew it would take time, but he wanted to be there for Juliette. It would never make up for the time he missed – but it might help them both to recover from the horrors they had experienced.

Wiping the tears away one more time, Sirius took a final look around the house. So many memories, so many emotions, all of which he had left locked away in this house, trying to push them from his mind to ease the pain. Now though, he was ready to move forward in life for real. Every little step he had made in the last few years had brought him here and finally, he knew the reason he lived through that night.

And from this day on he would never regret living ever again, because he had people in his life worth living for.