Eunoia | Sirius Black

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Haslemere, Surrey, 1980
November 20th, freezing

I never knew what it felt like to hate and love someone at the same time. I do now. 

Sirius gets up in the morning, cooks breakfast for me and leaves for work before I even get a good look at my husband's face.

I know he cooks for me because he still loves me, I don't need reassurance for that. But the love can be overshadowed very easily by rage. Very easily, indeed. 

I come back and Sirius is already in bed. When he's home early, I have to work on plans for future fights. When I do, he's off to Godric's Hollow to meet James and Lily.

He'd been really giddy when he got to know Harry was growing up. I think he'd be a great father, but I don't entertain that thought for long. With how things are going, we'd be lucky to just survive the war. 

It's three days after when we have our first small talk after the fight. It's barely enough to sate me but I take what I can get. 

Days passed and I saw him mostly in the training area. This time when I did, all I wanted was to sweep my fingers in his hair and kiss him hard. Obviously, I didn't do that. 

During his break, I walked up to him with croissants. "I'll be cooking dinner tonight, you don't have to."

"You don't —"

"You look tired enough as it is, eat well, love."

Sirius gives me only a nod as I walk away. James steals a muffin out of the bag I'm holding and grins. 

"Trouble in paradise?"

My face falls. Trouble in Paradise is far from what we had. I wouldn't have condoned him speaking ill of Remus, ex-boyfriend or not. 

"Oh, that bad?" James grimaced. I gave him a half-smile. "If it makes it any better, Remus and Lily fought, too."

"What?" I snorted, "Those cookies fought?"

"Yeah," He says, biting into his muffin as he walked me back to my office. "Remus came to visit, wanted to see Harry now that he's saying 'mama' all the time." He rolls his eyes and makes a face. 

I lift my brows as he smiles widely at the mention of mini James and Lily and jab him with my elbow lightly. His smile widens. 

"Anyway, he came to visit and we started talking about the missions and one thing led to another and soon we were discussing about what Dumbledore said in the last meeting."

I tried to keep my face neutral as he talked about it, "He had someone in mind?"

James hesitates before nodding, "I don't want you to hate him for it."

"I won't," I assure him. He looks unconvinced but with a roll of my eyes and his smile is back. 

"It was uh. . .Padfoot."

I halt in my tracks, "Pardon?"

James cringed, "I told you that you'd be mad. Remus thinks. . .Sirius might be the spy but obviously, he's wrong. I trust Pads with all my heart and so does Lily. Partly why they got in a fight."

"Partly?" I ask, my breaths shallow. 

James nods, wiping the crumbs off his face. "The other thing was the reason Remus gave for his suspicion."

"I'm not gonna like it, am I?"

"Nope," He popped the P. "His. . .family lineage."

"You're joking," I frown. 

"Unfortunately, not joking. Remus claimed Sirius has been off lately, he even went to visit his mother at Grimmauld Place, and —"

"Wait, what?" I stepped in front of James, his face covered with frosting. 

"You didn't know?" I shook my head. "Sirius went to see Walburga after he found out....about Regulas."

"He went to see Walburga," I repeat.

James worriedly confirmed, "I thought you knew. He told me during his visits but when it reached Remus, he finally seemed to let out his stupid thoughts about Paddy being the mole."

He opened my office door and leaned against it while I placed my baked goods on the table. "Don't let it get to you, alright?" he kissed my forehead. "The war messes people up, El."

I dip my chin and he leaves. I don't think I fully grasped what was going on, though. Two best friends were turning on each other. And though I felt angry at Remus for this, I knew if Sirius got to know he might be angrier. 

No, he definitely would be angrier. And I wanted no civil war right now.

When I get home, I spend all my time preparing a nice dish for Sirius. He's been cooking for me for so long and he definitely deserves rest for some time. 

I wouldn't go as far as suggesting another trip, but perhaps a few days off work would help us both greatly. 

Though all my excitement slowly starts to fade when I sit in front of the TV, rewatching Goolies with no sign of Sirius. 

I wait and wait and wait for hours and hours but he doesn't come back home. By midnight, I am panicking.

It's quite obvious he wouldn't do this deliberately when I told him I'd be waiting, something must have happened. 

At one in the morning, I am cleaning the dishes after having stuffed the food in the fridge. The door rattles and Sirius walks in. 

To my surprise, he's completely fine. In fact, not a hair is touched on his head. He finds me standing in the kitchen and frowns, "You're still up?"

"I was waiting for you."

"Waiting?" He kicked off his shoes. "You didn't have to."

"I told you I'd cook for you."

Sirius pauses and scrunches up his face in regret, "I'm so sorry, I completely got carried away by work —"

"You weren't at the Ministry," I say. I know it, I asked Frank earlier and he claimed Sirius left a while ago. This was at 22 hours. 

"No, some other work." 

I wait for him to explain and he doesn't. And that's when it happens. That's when the first seed sprouts in my ribcage. The first time I have trouble trusting my husband. 

Sirius walks up to me and kisses my cheek before moving off to his bedroom. I stand there for a long while before realising I am now a petty housewife. 

I am that woman. The woman I always criticised, the woman I mocked. The woman who waited for her husband to get back from work while she worried about the food getting cold. The woman who had trust issues. 

Angry at myself, I go to my room and pray for a dreamless sleep on empty stomach. 

In the morning, I don't see Sirius leave, as it happens every day now. But this time, I don't go to the Ministry. I'd sent a letter through Sirius's owl to Moody. He hadn't been happy, no he'd been annoyed but I couldn't care less. 

I wrote a little note for my husband and then apparated away.