Standing Under Gray Skies

Pistanthrophobia

(n.) fear of trusting people due to negative past experiences

Sometimes it's really easy to pretend like the bad stuff never happened. Shadows were nothing but stretched patches of blankness that the sunlight streaming down from above missed. Sounds only went as far as the rain, or the windchimes I had hanging from the roof of my front patio. They had little to nothing to do with the pain I felt settling in my chest as I cradled the baby close to my heaving chest, or the pain that rattles my chest from within my ribcage.

I had failed. I had one job, to protect them, and I'd failed. The worst part of it all? This poor infant, now alone in the world, would grow up knowing it. Would he resent me later in life? Would he lie awake at night, cursing my name under his breath? To my face? Behind my back?

As rocked against the curb, skin stained with soot and jeans with mud and dirt from trudging heavily through it, I noticed I tended to look up a lot at the bleakness of gray clouds far above, not quite feeling the same sense of loss as I, seemingly mocking me as they refused to cry. I, on the other hand, couldn't stop. Droplets of salty sorrows were wiped away on my sleeve before they could land on the baby's sleeping face, and for a moment, I envied him. He'd never know the love of his parents, supporting him as he grew into a man. No father to teach him all the things he ought not to have known. No mother to hug him until the skies were clear, and he felt safe again. He would never feel the sudden pang of their loss, or the guilt of thinking he could have done something to prevent it, even though there was nothing that could have been done. However, he would also feel empty, hollow, even. He'd never know his parents–not even the best or the worst of them. He'd always wonder what life would have been like with them there. Would he have gotten in trouble less? More? Would people have understood him on a more personal level than just by what has happened tonight? The poor orphan boy, with no one to go to but the friends he may always wonder the true intentions of their friendship to be. Would he feel lonely in a world without explanations of his character? Losing the two people who brought you into this world leaves a hole that not even the closest of friends, or the most doting guardians, can fill. I knew that feeling; that was my life. How similarly would this child, no more than an infant today, feel as he came of age to learn about what has happened here?

I looked up at the clouds again. The air around me remained stubbornly stale, the wind carrying on the scent of fresh earth and moss. Something smelt of a salty burn, like tears falling on burnt oak. I couldn't shake that gods-awful scent from my nose, no matter how hard I tried. Thinking back to a rumor that stated infants' heads smelt nice, I tried pressing the tip of my nose against the baby's small tufts of raven hair, praying I could somehow be rid of the tainted memory of death from my mind. My eyes stung with unshed tears when I realized where the burnt oak smell was coming from, and it wasn't from the house behind me, or the stale air we breathed.
I clung to the baby like a lifeline. He was innocent, but not everyone seemed to agree. Shadows creeping up the road felt like a threat. The sound of birds, insects, and squirrels felt like the barren whispers of death, taunting us with distance. I prayed they stay that way, pleading with no one in particular to keep this boy in my arms safe. As long as he was in my arms, he would be. I would make sure of that. I couldn't stop the world from coming at him, though. With every moment that passed, I wished I could.

I had to admit, I felt so small right now. Pathetic. Mourning the loss of my best friend. Mourning the absence of another. Mourning the tragedy that filled the air with such a stench I couldn't shake. I clung to this, though. The baby. The fact that he was still even alive was a greater miracle than life itself. Most anyone can bring a life into the world. Even more can take one out. To preserve a life, though? To save one, or prolong one? That was about the damndest, most difficult thing to do. To pull this life, the life of this infant boy without his parents, away from the brink of death, had to be a gift from the Divine. It had to be. How else could he have possibly...

I heard something like a soft gurgle come from the swaddled weight I cradled in my arms, and I pulled back the soft edge of the blanket I wrapped him in to better see his face. His eyes were closed, and his eyelashes, thick as his hair, fluttered as he dreamed about whatever babies dreamt. Tears slipped from my chin onto the soft cotton material as I wondered if he saw his parents. Surely at one he'd have recognized them as his parents. He probably didn't understand their words all that well, but he'd surely know their faces, right? Did he know mine? Probably not as well as theirs, but mine was the one he'd be stuck with for the years to come, so...he would learn it. It just...wouldn't be the same, is all.

At the sight of a familiar orb of white falling from the sky, I wasn't sure what I felt. I cast my eyes downward as it grew closer, and the sound of a motorcycle ran loud and true in my ears as I brought the baby's head closer to my chest and covered his ears. They were pinkish in the cooler, new November air, but not so cold that our breaths came out in puffs of white against the darkness around us, illuminated under the yellow glow of the streetlamps lining either side of the pavement.

I was tempted to ignore him as his footsteps quickly grew closer, his thickly soled boots pounding against uneven asphalt. There was a heaviness in the weight of his presence, and we both knew it. Was it he who gave up the location of our friends to those opposing side? Could it have been someone else? The likelihood seemed slim...but here we were. Our two friends were dead. The other two were gods-knows-where else.

But here we were.

He didn't come any closer to me than a good meter away. He knew better than that. After everything that'd led us up to this point, he knew better. I held our godson close to me, almost as if to shield him from the man standing with his back to the streetlamp. His shadow touched me at my outstretched legs, and even that burned me greater than the wound in my chest. I could only pray that this wound didn't bleed out on the child in my grasp, and as I brought my eyes to scan my husband from the ground up, that wound only tore open further.

He had no right to be here. Then again, neither did I. We stared at each other through misty eyes, hazy obsidian meeting foggy mismatched amber and brown. His skin glistened with either the dampness of the air, or of sweat. His cheeks were flushed pink. His lip tremored, hung agape as he looked down into my arms.

If this had happened any sooner than a week ago, I would have collapsed in the arms of this man, with the infant coddled between us in his favorite blanket, oblivious to the world. I would have clung to that ridiculous black leather jacket as though it were all I had left in this life, my head resting tiredly on his shoulder as his arms held me up. All would have been at least bearable on this dreary, rainless night.

This wasn't happening a week ago, though. This was happening now, and I wanted to scream at him. I wanted him nowhere near me, or this house, or even Harry. I wanted him gone.

For a fleeting moment I wondered how we'd gotten here. Our godson. His parents. Me. Him. He'd meant so much to me up until a week ago, in this very spot. He'd kissed me then, and not an ounce of joy in my still-beating heart felt as though it'd gone to waste. I wore the ring on my finger proudly, wielding it like it was the most powerful weapon in my arsenal. Sirius Black had that effect on me. Had it for years.

So, what the hell happened to us? After everything we've been through, together?

As I stood from my spot on the curb, Sirius took one tentative step closer to me. To us. I looked at him carefully, watching his eyes on Harry. He knew better than to reach out for him. He knew better than to speak. He knew that saying anything would ruin whatever chance there was, of him being involved in anything that had to do with me, and most certainly anything that had to do with Harry. He knew that saying anything would most certainly result in nothing short of a catastrophe. He knew that saying anything would shred anything left between us, which included Harry.

Well, Sirius knew. I didn't.