Chapter Text
CXIX
“Oh, for fuck’s sake.” Luana huffed, folding her arms across her chest. “My day was going so well.”
Fred smiled maliciously.
“Believe me, Teixeira, I wasn’t expecting to have the displeasure of seeing you today either.”
“Don’t worry.” Victoria said with an irritating calm, her white hair pinned up in a braided bun straight out of the previous century. “Your table is far enough apart that there’s no risk of you accidentally kissing.”
Fred made a sound of disgust, and Luana shot her friend an exasperated look. Her loud, intense nature stood in sharp contrast to the elegance and presumption so commonly displayed by Victoria, whose eyes shifted colour as she sat down beside Regulus.
On the other side of the table, Remus and Sirius transfigured a chair to make it five times larger so Hagrid—who had just landed in the empty stretch of the garden on Sirius’s old motorbike—could sit comfortably.
Sirius, seated beside Andromeda, had barely noticed Victoria and Luana arriving minutes before dinner was served. He kept stuffing his mouth with more and more food just to avoid engaging in the conversations and laughter around him.
To be honest, Sirius was completely oblivious to everything happening around him. His body might have been there, but his mind was elsewhere.
“I didn’t think you’d want a…” Andromeda drew his attention, savouring her elf-made wine. Sirius slowly turned his gaze to her, lifting just one eyebrow in a silent question. “A house-elf.”
“She isn’t mine,” Sirius murmured, wiping his beard with a napkin. “She belonged to Reg, and he freed her.”
“He freed her?!” She parted her lips in surprise. “Yes. That does sound exactly like him.” She let out a pleasant laugh, looking at Regulus a few seats away. “His mother would be tearing her hair out if she knew what her grandson is like. He reminds me of you as a teenager.”
Sirius sniffed, attempting a laugh. He failed. Not that he cared—because the only thing that mattered in that moment was Harry, and the way his green eyes—vivid, cheerful, and kind, just like Lily’s—overflowed with a sparkling enthusiasm so intense it even affected Regulus. That carefree smile showed his success, even if only for a moment, in setting aside the anger he felt towards his mother.
“He looks like my little brother.”
Andromeda clicked her tongue twice, dismissing the remark.
“He looks like you, Sirius.” She pierced him with those sharp brown eyes. “The way he carries himself, the way he talks, even the way he eats. You might’ve been apart for twelve years, but he’s you, plain as day.”
Sirius let the air escape his lungs and slowly shook his head in denial.
“Where are you going with this, Dromeda?” He meticulously lined the cutlery up on his plate, silver facing brown.
“It’s curious, Sirius… the amount of time your ex-fiancée was pregnant…”
“She was forced to drink a potion to accelerate the pregnancy.” Sirius cut her off sharply. “I’ve already done what you’re doing, Andromeda. And Reg…” His gaze drifted across the table before returning to scrutinise his cousin. He opened his mouth to continue, but was interrupted by a sharp kick to the shin from Nymphadora across from him.
“Who’s the third adult?” The question was asked so casually that Sirius blinked a few times as it sank in.
“What?!” He frowned, watching Nymphadora’s purple hair slide into a bubblegum pink.
“Penny said she cooked for three adults. You, Remus and…?” She narrowed her eyes, their colour shifting from green to caramel.
“Sometimes Nate comes by for lunch…” Remus slipped into the conversation, answering so disingenuously that Sirius stared at him, still speechless.
“Nate?! Orfy’s uncle?!” Nymphadora let out an awkward little laugh.
“Yeah. My ex-husband.” Remus’s explanation didn’t seem to please her in the slightest, because the restless smile on her lips vanished at once.
“Oh…” Tonks murmured, trying to spear her single pea with her fork.
Dinner went on without many incidents, except for Fred and George sprinkling powdered pepper into Ron’s pie, which caused an immediate allergic reaction and forced Mrs Weasley to dig into her emergency potion collection while the poor sod choked.
While Arthur was telling off the twins, Sirius rose from his seat and checked that Reg was alright, then leaned down towards Harry, resting a hand on his shoulder.
“You alright?” he murmured. The garden lights reflected off the boy’s round glasses, hiding the green of his eyes and making him look exactly like James.
Sirius felt the dinner burn in his stomach.
“Yeah.” Harry looked up at him, the likeness to his best friend woven together with Lily’s mannerisms.
The burning threatened to erupt. Sirius cleared his throat.
“Shall we sing happy birthday, then?”
Harry’s gaze drifted around the garden. It lingered far too long on the entrance.
“Can we wait a little longer?” he murmured, without looking at him.
Sirius swallowed hard.
“I don’t think Scar’s going to show up, Harry.” He gently ruffled his godson’s perpetually messy hair. He wasn’t sure whether he was trying to comfort Harry or himself.
“She said she would.” Harry’s voice barely came out.
His wounded tone was the missing ingredient in the cauldron corroding Sirius’s stomach.
He had already grown used to Scarlett’s disappointments and, although he wanted to spare Harry the same pain, he knew it was something beyond his control.
Sirius let out a long sigh. He had hoped Scarlett would show up too.
“I know, but… maybe… maybe it’s better this way.”
Harry pressed his lips into a thin line, his gaze drifting over everyone at the table before returning to Sirius.
“Alright, then.” He shrugged with resignation. Sirius frowned, taken aback. “We can sing happy birthday.”
Why wasn’t Harry angry with Scarlett? Of course, it wasn’t that Sirius wanted him to be, but… he should have been.
Shouldn’t he?
At the very least, as upset as he and Reg were.
Harry, however, went back to chatting animatedly with Hermione and Ginny, laughing alongside Ron when the Weasley twins were grounded and forbidden from producing anything related to Weasleys’ Wizard Wheezes (whatever the hell that meant).
Sirius couldn’t stop a distracted smile from spreading across his face. He looked at Regulus and watched him laugh carefree with Victoria at some joke Luana had told.
He smoothed the bitterness from his expression and waited for Molly and Penny to bring out the cakes. They were placed side by side, each with fourteen candles flickering in the gentle summer breeze.
One of them was perfectly decorated with three layers, covered in icing sprinkled with golden decorations and a neat cursive “Happy Birthday, Harry.” Clearly Molly’s.
The one Penny had made was a chocolate volcano with caramel topping, candles scattered around the centre that spat smoke every so often, on the verge of erupting.
Harry looked from one cake to the other. Reg leaned in beside him, grey-blue eyes drinking in the warm yellow glow the candles cast over his pale face.
“Well, you’ve got two cakes…” He rested his elbows on the table. “Which means you get to make two wishes.”
“Lucky you, Harry.” Fred nudged him with an elbow and shot George an indignant look. “George and I only get one cake on our birthday.”
“And that’s already too much, according to Mum,” George added dryly.
Molly shot them a murderous look, silencing them instantly. Tonks started the birthday song and was joined by Andromeda, Ted and Hermione until everyone joined the chorus.
When he lay on the makeshift bed in the cupboard under the stairs, Harry Potter used to torture himself imagining what it would be like to have a birthday. But to have a birthday, you needed a real family—people who cared about him and wanted to see him happy. It was stupid and something that would never happen, and yet… it could be real.
Especially in the mind of a dreamy ten-year-old boy, whose only comfort was his fertile imagination.
Power and being were very distant things to him. The former, he didn’t have. And the latter, he was an orphan. Which meant turning power and being into stepping stones that would lead him to reality was something utterly unreal.
That was why… Harry didn’t know what to do. Everyone smiled and sang an ode to yet another year of his life. His gaze wandered across the faces of his friends, his family, of everyone he held dear. What was he supposed to do while they sang? Smile? Sing along? Clap? He had never reached that part before, not even in his daydreams.
It was strange to be the birthday boy. It was bizarre to see that so many people liked him, even if they didn’t share a single drop of blood. It was unexpected… that feeling rising in his chest, strengthening the pounding of his heart and sending shivers down his spine.
Two tattooed, warm hands settled on his shoulders. Harry glanced sideways at Sirius behind him, his long black hair tied back, though a few strands escaped the bun, framing his godfather’s handsome face.
“Happy birthday, Harry. Lily and James would be very proud of you,” he whispered. “Just as I am.”
Harry adjusted his glasses in an attempt to hide his tears. His heart hammered in his ears, his tendons, the tips of his fingers. He looked at the flickering candles: twenty-eight in total, counting both cakes.
What more could he possibly wish for? He hadn’t needed any candle for one of his greatest wishes to come true and, unfortunately, his next fantasy could never become reality. It was impossible to bring the dead back to life.
That night, Harry James Potter contented himself with having fulfilled one of his two wishes, but he blew out the twenty-eight candles on both cakes hoping that, somehow, his parents might personally tell him how proud they were.
A selfish, impossible and feverish wish—one Harry was ashamed of—so he tucked it away in the deepest part of his heart, where the utopian scenarios his mind liked to weave were kept.
Applause echoed through the garden. He received congratulations from everyone. Hagrid, in particular, slapped him so hard on the back that Harry lost his breath and choked.
“Now… to what really matters.” Fred threw an arm around Harry’s shoulders.
“Cake!” George offered him an enormous knife that definitely wasn’t meant for that.
“No! Penny’s cutting the cake!” The elf snatched the knife from the twin, and Molly furrowed her brows, brandishing her own cake-slicing weapon.
“Hm, I’ll cut my cake and you cut yours… let’s see who cuts better…” the Weasley matriarch grumbled.
Sirius rolled his eyes, then rubbed them hard.
“I’m far too sober for this shit…”
Harry simply laughed, catching his godfather’s attention and making him smile too.
“What’s so funny?” Sirius pulled his cigarette case from his pocket.
“Dunno.” He shook his head. “I’m happy.”
That was the purest truth. For the first time in his life, Harry felt completely happy.
.
.
.
After the presents had been opened and an extremely unhealthy competition between Luana and Fred over who could handle sampling the largest amount of sweets from Weasleys’ Wizard Wheezes without being sick (which Sirius discovered was the prank business the twins were planning—something utterly brilliant in his humble opinion), Hagrid took Buckbeak away with the saddle strapped to the handlebars of the BSA Lightning that had once belonged to Sirius.
Soon the parents began to leave. Hermione’s were the first, though they stayed for a good half hour chatting with Remus, Arthur and Molly. Victoria’s parents came next, practically ordering Sirius to come have dinner with Reggie and Harry at their house. Andromeda and Ted left soon after, leaving a rather giggly Nymphadora beside a visibly uncomfortable Remus.
It was nearly nine o’clock by the time Arthur and Molly departed with Tonks, so Sirius, Remus and Penny busied themselves tidying up the garden. Harry and Regulus were inspecting the presents; Harry’s favourite so far was the strange lamp he had only ever seen advertised in furniture catalogues.
“It’s a lava lamp, Harry,” Regulus explained, pulling the extension lead plugged into the house to switch it on in the garden.
In an instant, the red liquid inside formed glowing blobs, slowly rising and falling.
“Bloody hell… that’s wicked…” he breathed, wide-eyed and mesmerised.
“I had a green and black one in my room…” Reggie watched the placid movement of the blobs. “But I broke it by accident.”
Harry let out a small laugh.
“You broke it? Not even a Reparo would work?!”
“Ah, I didn’t even think of that at the time…”
Harry picked up Fred and George’s package. Written on the wrapping was: Special Surprise for Harry.
Regulus’s dark eyebrows drew together in suspicion.
“Dodgy,” he murmured, stroking the faint stubble on his chin.
Harry nodded, frowning.
“Definitely.” He opened the packet, stuffed with colourful sweets. “What d’you reckon they do?”
“Well… we saw a sample of the Weasleys’ inventions earlier…” Reg tilted his head. “But I doubt they’d give you sweets that make you burp frogs or stick your hair straight up.”
“God, Luana’s hair all standing on end, like she’d been electrocuted…” Harry’s chuckle turned into full-on laughter, and Reggie joined in. “I thought she was going to murder Fred.”
“Yeah, she would. Just not how you’re imagining.” Regulus stuck his hand into the packet and tossed a sweet into the air, catching it in his mouth. His face twisted—first into a grimace, then relaxed as he nodded. “The taste isn’t even that bad…” He stopped speaking immediately.
“The taste might not be bad, but your voice…” Harry nearly choked with laughter.
“Five points from Gryffindor, Mr Potter!” Regulus elbowed him, grinning, the sweet he’d eaten turning his voice identical to McGonagall’s. “And a year of detention!”
Harry picked up a sweet and chewed it, cleared his throat theatrically and raised his index finger with careless flair.
“Test… test…” He pressed his lips together to suppress a nasal laugh. “Minerva, don’t be so severe! Mr Potter has saved Hogwarts from unimaginable dangers! Therefore, one hundred points to Gryffindor!”
Regulus threw his head back, completely out of breath from laughing. He nearly fell off the bench.
“That’s so spot on…” He struggled to breathe, still speaking in the Deputy Headmistress’s voice. “That’s right, Albus… you’re quite right. Another three hundred points to Gryffindor.” He pretended to adjust imaginary spectacles just like Minerva did.
“I’m rarely wrong… Minerva.” Harry gave him a wink, stroking his non-existent beard.
“What the fuck is going on here?!” Sirius was standing behind them, organising a stack of chairs with a Wingardium Leviosa.
“Weasley present,” Harry explained.
“That does not concern you, Mr Black. Less talking and more work!” Regulus gestured around the garden with disdainful authority.
Sirius pressed his lips into a smile, then looked upwards as he pretended to adopt a stern expression.
“Easy there, Minnie!” He raised his arms in surrender. “Bloody hell, you lot sound exactly like them…”
“Minnie? You’ve called McGonagall that?!” Harry’s eyes widened, still with Dumbledore’s voice.
“Course I have.” Sirius sniffed, smug. “Loads of times.”
“And what did she do?” Reg grabbed one of the Exploding Bonbons Harry had received from Ron and Ginny and shoved the whole thing into his mouth; his voice had already returned to normal.
“Gave me detention. Took points from Gryffindor…” Sirius’s gaze drifted over the presents scattered across the bench. “Your dad… used to get so pissed off when I did that…” His dimples showed as his lips stretched, even his teeth appearing.
Harry wanted to keep going, wanted to ask about James, wanted to share with Sirius the longing he felt for a father he’d never truly known—but Reggie cut the moment short by tossing a package into his lap.
“Open Victoria’s present!”
A single glance from Harry at Regulus was enough for Sirius to go back to organising chairs and tables around the garden. Harry tried to call him, but changed his mind when he noticed the melancholy slipping into the scattered shadows of his godfather’s expression.
“New Quidditch gloves…” Harry said, with less enthusiasm than he should have had.
“You’ll need them when you lose to me next school year…” Reg commented with a smug smile.
His response was to roll his eyes, though he was clearly enjoying the provocation. He picked up the next present—Luana’s: a pair of flip-flops from a brand called Havaianas (which, for some reason, was Brazilian and not Hawaiian) and a self-writing quill with a small note attached:
“Dear Harry, I hope this quill helps you with your essays this school year. Even though it’s part of the endless list of items forbidden by Filch and the Ministry of Magic, no one will ever notice it’s different—after all, it’s only a crime if someone finds out. The quill is activated by the spell listed on the back of the box.”
“Why this quill—”
Harry shut his mouth as soon as they heard a sound coming from the garden entrance. Sirius, levitating the tables with his wand, froze like a statue, even though the spell broke and sent them crashing down with a bang. His neck seemed to turn to stone, so he moved his face as much as he could to the side and glanced, out of the corner of his eye, at that bloody stretch paved with fitted stones and flanked by two bushes trimmed into circular shapes.
Sirius pressed a hand to his chest with the familiar sensation of being shot right there.
“Of course… of course you knocked over the bloody present, Scarlett…”
Her bleached hair was loose, as usual. Her eyes were hidden behind red-framed, rectangular mirrored sunglasses. Her lips were stretched tight from ear to ear. Her body was clad in a leather waistcoat studded with spikes on the shoulders, a Black Sabbath T-shirt with sleeves reaching her elbows, a short skirt, fishnet tights and battered leather boots. In her arms, she carried an enormous present wrapped in floral pink paper, unmistakably shaped like a bicycle.
“HAPPY BIRTHDAY, HARRY!” Scarlett shouted, staggering forward as she let go of the present. It toppled onto its side with a crash.
“Scar!” Harry leapt up from the bench and ran to hug her.
.
.
.
Scarlett was supposed to be sober. In truth, she had tried to be sober. But everything hurt. Her body hurt, her head hurt, her core hurt. She didn’t know whether it was longing, guilt or regret. So, to avoid it all like a proper coward, she kept drinking in amounts she personally considered quite safe (a bottle of wine in the morning, a shot of brandy after lunch, and only five glasses of firewhisky or similar spirits before bed), certain she would make it to Harry’s birthday without any major incidents.
She bought the bicycle, had it wrapped, stuffed it into the boot of a taxi (after all, she wasn’t about to risk Sirius giving her another lecture about drunk driving), and threw herself into the back seat of the car. The city lights flashed across her pallid face in ever-faster bursts after she offered a hundred pounds if the driver would drop her off on Saltoun Street, number fourteen, before ten o’clock that night.
Her gaze lifted to the rear-view mirror, blue eyes locking onto the stranger staring back at her. Smudged make-up, fine lines sharpened by the neon shadows the city cast across her face, and the purple bruise spreading beneath her right eye.
She touched it with a trembling finger, wrinkled her nose, then covered her face with her hands.
She didn’t know exactly how she’d gotten the bruise.
She’d drunk too much, as always. Her mind had been reduced to a sequence of warped flashes: unsettling laughter, the heavy stink of cigarettes, hands where they shouldn’t have been. The bitter taste of bile creeping up her throat.
Scarlett massaged her temple, pushed the fragments from her mind as she exhaled through her mouth, then pulled her sunglasses from her bag and slid them onto her face. The dark lenses covered the bruise perfectly.
She caught one of the driver’s occasional glances through the mirror—a balding, middle-aged man with unshaven stubble. She turned to the window, watching the mirrored buildings give way to the houses of the city’s affluent district. Shadows sprawled across the asphalt, folded over the fading lights, and made Scarlett’s heart skip a few beats.
She didn’t want to think, yet the tightness in her chest was irrational. She checked the time on her pocket watch… that stupid watch where a tiny Sirius stuck his tongue out at her incessantly. Her eyes threatened to spill sudden tears.
Scarlett didn’t allow it. She buried the urge to cry the way one buries a putrid, worm-ridden corpse deep in dense, barren earth—so it wouldn’t take root, nor allow even the faintest trace of life to grow.
It was easy to do when she was drunk. Feelings were different in that state, easily drowned in the tide of disinhibition and numbness.
The party might not have been over yet, but it wasn’t as though she could walk straight into the middle of it. She was seven feet underground to most of the guests, and to the rest… the ones who knew she was alive…
They wanted to kill her, like Orfy. Or hurt her, like Remus. Or argue, like Reggie. Or… simply cast a steel-hard look that would make her regret every choice she’d ever made, right or wrong… like Sirius.
Seeing them would only remind her of what she could never have. Which, in turn, would remind her of the engulfing guilt she carried. Or make it worse. She shuddered at the thought of her ghosts. Reminders were unnecessary—she lived with them every day.
And it wasn’t as though she’d lost much anyway, because, frankly, Tonks was probably all over Sirius the entire bloody party, and Scarlett… well, she had no desire whatsoever to witness that again, thank you very much.
There was already far too much going on with her. Sirius and Tonks was the final nail in her coffin.
“We’re here.” The driver looked at her through the rear-view mirror.
Scarlett blinked slowly, orienting herself. She hadn’t noticed the car stopping until that moment. She opened the taxi door. Her eyes wandered over the house in front of her, the familiar façade bringing an unexpected sense of belonging and exile to the surface all at once.
She turned her face slowly towards the driver and rubbed her left eye with the back of her hand. Her fingers slid down her prominent cheekbones and she forced an empty smile. She opened her bag, fished out a few notes with unsteady fingers and handed them to him.
The driver raised his eyebrows.
“M-miss, this… this is far too—”
Scarlett didn’t hear him. She was too preoccupied with getting out of the car, walking around to the boot, and facing Harry’s present.
Why the fuck had she bought a bicycle? She could’ve bought something far simpler, like a top-of-the-line video game, roller skates, or hell, a LEGO set. Something she could carry easily in her numbed state.
“Fuck.” she muttered, taking a deep breath. She dragged the parcel out with difficulty, the weight of the present seeming determined to tip her forwards and steal her balance.
“Are you sure you can carry that on your own?” the driver leaned his head out of the window.
Scarlett’s forced smile this time showed teeth, sharp with biting irony.
“I am. It’s not the heaviest thing I carry.” She laughed, hugging the bike to herself as she headed for the side entrance of the house without even saying goodbye.
Those unsteady steps across the garden path took so long that Scarlett was genuinely tired of walking. It felt like an eternity before she tripped over a stupid shrub and sent the bike crashing to the ground with a clatter.
“Of course… of course you dropped the bloody present, Scarlett…” she grumbled as she picked it up, the familiar stab piercing her heart with the exact sensation of a hook catching it and yanking it violently towards that man with starry eyes.
She lifted the bike and pushed on. She squeezed her eyes shut against the number of lights lit in the garden, dancing in her vision like a dizzying kaleidoscope, until her irises finally focused on the birthday boy.
“HAPPY BIRTHDAY, HARRY!” She stretched out her arms, completely forgetting about the bike.
“Scar!”
A hug. Scarlett held Harry so tightly in her arms that she was close to suffocating him, but she didn’t care. She buried her face in his messy, James-like hair and dodged the longing for her ghosts.
Two weeks of drinking had freed her from them.
It was strange not to have them with her, and at the same time, it was good.
It was good to feel normal… even if only for two weeks.
What happened to them when she drank that much?
“I missed you, kid,” Scarlett whispered into her godson’s dark hair, his response a little laugh reverberating through her ribcage.
“I missed you too…” Harry was smiling in a way Scarlett had never seen before.
It was that same smile from when James—
No. She wasn’t doing this now.
She’d have plenty of time to torture herself later.
“Why don’t you open your present?!” she suggested, pulling away from Harry and giving him a light tap on the shoulder. “Bloody hell, did you grow in those two weeks or what?!”
“I grew?!” Harry tore into the wrapping with such innocent delight that Scarlett allowed herself—just for a few seconds—to enjoy it too.
She limited herself to witnessing Harry’s joy, even while feeling Sirius’s and Regulus’s scrutinising gazes on her. She didn’t know what to say, nor what to do, so she simply hugged herself and feigned a smile when Harry showed them the bike.
Scarlett followed her godson through the garden, but kept a slower pace, torn between drawing closer or leaving. With every step she took, she moved further from the exit and her heart beat faster in her chest.
“Hi, Reg. Sirius.” Scarlett greeted them, trying to sound as confident as possible. “How… was the party?”
Regulus straightened on the bench, ready to leave. Sirius placed a hand on his shoulder and he stayed put, staring at her with those icy eyes. The blue swallowed the grey of his irises and turned every emotion into pure revolt, made manifest by his knitted brows and flared nostrils.
“It was great,” Sirius answered, his voice measured and impassive. “There’s still cake. Want some?”
In the background, Remus froze when he saw her. Penny did too.
Scarlett and Sirius didn’t even exchange a look. Even so, she could feel the furious pounding of his heart resonating in the same rhythm as her own through the atrocious connection they shared.
“No… I’m not hungry. Thanks.” She swallowed hard, rubbing the back of her left hand where the Ouroboros was hidden by a charm.
Regulus looked away, towards Harry and the bike. He clenched his fists, twisting his mouth.
“That’s wicked!” Harry said, his cheeks flushed and smiling. “But… I don’t know… um, I don’t know how to ride a bike.”
Scarlett looked at Harry. Of course he didn’t. Merlin, Scarlett, what the hell had you been thinking these past twenty-four hours?
“You don’t?” she murmured, gripping the handlebars of the red-and-gold bike. “I… I can teach you.”
“Really?!”
“Of course. It’s instinctive. Once your body understands balance… you’ll never—”
“Scarlett, can I have a word with you?” Sirius cut in sharply.
She made the mistake of looking at him. She was pierced by the aggressive steel of his starry eyes. She opened her mouth to fire back a sharp reply, but all that left her lips was a shaky breath.
Sirius’s look tore her apart, pulverising every word that had formed in her mind. For the first time in a very long while, he didn’t look angry. He looked exhausted. Tired of fighting her and, above all, disappointed.
Scarlett’s reaction was a subtle nod. He gestured for her to follow, and the house seemed to draw closer at a speed far greater than normal.
The mild garden breeze was replaced by the air conditioning indoors, and the freshness of the grass mixed with the chlorine scent from the pool became an enigmatic, undefined smell that made the hairs on the back of her neck prickle.
She felt that this was her home, yet she also felt like an intruder. It should have been her home, it should have been her life and her future, and yet… it wasn’t.
She had lost fifteen years, and all she could do was watch the crumbs slip through the corners of her fingers while she tried to piece together shards and splinters of something she would never manage to assemble.
She took a deep breath, bracing herself to hear yet another of Sirius’s lectures about alcoholism, as though he were her bloody father. Sirius, however, walked into his bedroom, waited for her to step inside, and closed the door gently, still wearing that imperturbable façade—though she knew perfectly well his nerves were frayed to the bone.
Scarlett knew him. She knew the effect she had on him. She knew how she could awaken rage and affection at the same speed in the heart of the man who was her downfall.
Sirius said nothing. He wasn’t even sure what he was doing either.
Scarlett was the first to turn her face, taking him in through the dark lenses of her sunglasses at the exact moment he looked at her.
“I’m just living my fucking dream,” she finally said, bringing light to the twilight silence between them. “And it’s a bit hard… living my dream sober.” The corner of Scarlett’s mouth twisted. Sirius couldn’t tell if it was a smile or a grimace of pain. Maybe both. “I’m a fucked-up, headcase murderer who can’t live with her own consequences, let alone take care of two children… I should’ve died…”
Sirius didn’t soften his expression. On the contrary, he let out a sharp, biting laugh as his teeth ground together.
“Welcome to my life, Scarlett, because that’s exactly what happened to me when you were locked up and left me with Reg!” he exploded, grabbing a bottle from the bedside table. “And you’re not dead, so pull yourself together, drink this shit, get sober, and pretend you’re fucking loving Harry’s birthday!” He huffed, angrily throwing his unruly hair back.
It wasn’t a plea. It was an order.
Scarlett tried, but she couldn’t stop her body from flinching at every word he hurled at her. She desperately wanted to give up drinking the way Sirius had years ago, when he’d taken care of Reggie—but Scarlett wasn’t him. She didn’t have the same motivations he did.
In truth, she had no motivation at all.
She took the potion, head bowed, avoiding eye contact at all costs. The lenses of her sunglasses weren’t enough to filter the raw, flayed layers of her heart.
[Radiohead — Planet Telex]
“I feel that…” Her lips betrayed her when Sirius made to leave. He froze like a statue, petrified by her—by what she wanted to say. His face turned towards the door, but his eyes fixed on her. Sirius’s mere attention was enough to dissolve her defences and melt her inhibition. “I feel like I’m a ghost haunting the people I love. Wandering… looking for a cemetery. A grave. For… for a place… where I can finally find peace.”
Sirius sighed and swallowed the frustrated sound clawing at his throat. He opened the door, took a step outside, then stopped with his back to her. He couldn’t bear to look at her.
Her eyes were far too dangerous. Far too honest. Far too full of longing.
“Peace isn’t a place, Scarlett. It’s a state of mind.” Sirius turned slightly to the side and hid behind his eyelids as he closed his eyes. “And there’s nowhere in this world where you’ll find it except inside yourself.”
you can force it but it will not come
you can taste it but it will not form.
Scarlett wanted to say that was bullshit. That inner peace didn’t exist—that it was just some hippie invention, or whatever Asian religion had cooked up that stupid concept to con idiots out of their money.
Inner peace.
What rubbish!
you can crush it but it's always here
you can crush it but it's always near
chasing you home
That was why she drank. Because if that shit were real, she wouldn’t need to get drunk.
And also because… she felt trapped inside herself. Trapped in her trauma, in her emptiness.
Scarlett rubbed her eyes with her knuckles, exhausted. She let the air escape her lungs and downed the potion in one gulp.
everything is
The effect was immediate.
Being drunk was like sinking into a warm, comforting lake. She felt light, soft; words barely reached her and her demons couldn’t touch her. And being sober… being sober was fucking awful.
broken
everyone is
The surface rushed up violently. Scarlett was torn from her comfortable stupor. She staggered desperately into the bathroom and vomited until her stomach was completely empty.
broken.
Even so, she retched on, choking and gasping as her stomach convulsed involuntarily. Her body twisted, her skin prickling as if she’d just stepped from somewhere unbearably hot into somewhere freezing cold. She shuddered, reality crushing down on her shoulders, gravity weighing on her body, anxiety gnawing away at her sanity. She blinked, stunned and disoriented by the potion’s immediate effect.
It was as if the world were spinning backwards, as if Scarlett herself were an anomaly—unnatural.
you can walk it home straight from school
you can kiss it you can break all the rules
She was used to being on her knees in front of a toilet, vomiting—but this time it was different. First, the bathroom was impeccably clean. Second, there was no bottle in one of her hands. Third, everything she’d been forcing herself to forget was flooding back into her chest with a gurgling fury.
Sobriety was synonymous with longing. With pain. With remorse and guilt. And those sensations fought so viciously within her core that all she could do was curl up on the bathroom floor, her body trembling, her eyes battling the tears that threatened to spill.
No. It was Harry’s birthday. She couldn’t cry. She wouldn’t allow herself to—
“Scar? Are you alright?” The question slammed into her body in a wave of shame and fear.
Everything is broken
It was instinctive. Her troubled eyes fell upon the kindest hazel irises she had ever known. James sat down beside her, hugging his knees in the same way she was, his face—forever untouched by time—now edged with tenderness.
James Potter was one in a million. Always kind. Always understanding. Even when his wife was breathing fire, even when he wanted to wring his best friend’s brother’s neck with his own hands until he spat out every bloody secret he kept.
He reached out, pretending to drape his arm around Scarlett’s shoulders. She was in that catatonic state he knew so well, trapped in that hellish, self-destructive place inside herself.
“Today… today is…”
“I know,” James cut her off, though not harshly. He took his glasses off and rubbed at one eye, fixing them on Scarlett without judgement or accusation.
Something very strange bloomed in her heart—something only a very small number of people were ever able to reach.
Everyone is, everyone is broken
Comfort.
“I’m trying, but… they all hate me and…” Scarlett faltered, her voice breaking, her shoulders shaking as a sob she didn’t want to feed took hold of her anyway.
“They don’t hate you.” James brushed away one of her tears, watching it pass straight through his hand and fall onto the tiled floor.
“Even Reg hates me, Jamie… you… what he said to me…” She choked between sobs.
“Every teenager says they hate their parent, Scar. You’ve been one—you know what I’m talking about…” James sniffed out a small laugh.
“It’s different! And… and Sirius… and Remus…”
“Scar… look at me.” He demanded, shifting on the floor to face her fully, hazel eyes brimming with conviction. “It’s Harry’s birthday. Fuck Padfoot and Moony—you’re here because of him!”
Scarlett rubbed her eyes and wiped her nose with the back of her hand.
“F-fuck Sirius and Remus?” she repeated, frowning.
“Yeah. You care far too much about what they think of you.”
Scarlett shook her head and pressed her lips together.
“Do you hate me?” The question came out trembling.
James let out a sharp breath, as if the idea were ridiculous.
“Of course not. You’re my best friend.”
“Not even after… after two weeks…” Scarlett’s mouth kept moving, though her voice vanished halfway through the sentence.
Why can’t you forget?
James lifted his face and took a deep breath, thin lips touched with a smile that made Scarlett’s chest cave in. He slowly turned his face towards her, dark lashes framing a look full of complicity.
why can’t we forget?
“Aren’t friends for that?” He touched her face, ghostly fingers brushing her tear-soaked cheeks. “To forgive us and give us a chance to be better people?”
The urge to cry was driven away by James’s presence. Scarlett wanted to say yes, even as she wondered whether she was a friend to Sirius and Remus.
She hoped so.
why can’t you forget?
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