Eunoia | Sirius Black

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Haslemere, Surrey, 1980
November 3rd, slightly cold

It's two months later when Marlene finally decides to stop the silent treatment. 

She's been focused on more and more by the Death Eaters after she realised she has nothing left to lose and started writing straightforward and scandalous articles about the Dark Lord in The Daily Prophet. 

They were so outrageous that Rita Skeeter was having a tough time competing. 

All of us were insanely worried, but she'd only talk to Lily. James had told me a month ago that Ella was staying with Marlene for quite some time now. He said she was there for moral support but he suspects that isn't the reality. Nothing ever is with my sister. 

When Marlene said 'hello' to me, I thought my bad days were finally going to be lighter. Little did I know that was far from the truth. 

She didn't talk much and I understood that. She wasn't ready to. She might've forgiven me, but she hadn't forgotten. 

Sirius and I were on normal terms. The little bulb of our romance flickering on and off. We'd been arguing less because all that was to say was hurtful. And angry as we might be, we loved one another too much to say something that might be salt in the wounds. 

On his birthday, James decided to have a gathering at Godric's Hollow. Even Marlene agreed to be there. 

Though later when Sirius came back home, he'd apparently decided there was going to be no celebration. 

His eyes were the type of anger I'd only ever once seen in my life. When he had Regulas in a chokehold against the wall in our last exam.

"Sirius?" I hesitantly ask from the other side of the kitchen counter. 

"How long?" He asks, the tone of his voice flat, completely calm. 

"How long what?"

"How long have you known my brother is dead?"

Sirens went off in my mind the same as they had a while ago when he asked me if I'd been lying to him about the Order missions. Only then, there had been an out. Now, there wasn't.

My silence made him crumble. It made me shatter to know he'd been expecting me to say I hadn't known after all. 

"You knew?" His voice is small and so, so hurt, I don't know what to do. 

"Sirius —"

"You knew all this time?"

"I can explain —"

"You can explain?" He asked tediously. "You can explain that my brother has been dead for nearly a year? Or that you knew about it all along? You can explain why you didn't tell me I had practically no family left? Or why I had to hear about it through a howler from my biological mother?"

Along the way, I'd faced many terrible things, and all that I'd ever wanted is to treat someone the way I needed to be treated. All I'd ever wanted was someone to articulate my thoughts, to understand where I was coming from. 

Regulas was that person, the person in need. So, I treated him like I had wanted myself to be. I gave him what I would've expected from someone. I did what he asked me to in case I never see him again. 

I remained silent. 

Sirius' eyes watered but more than that, more than even the rage inside of his eyes, there was hurt. A new blemish on his already scarred heart, and I was to blame for it. 

I think we'd both made a lot of mistakes in our life and now, I was going to make perhaps the worst one. 

"Elena, why?"