All the Young Dudes ( Sirius' Perspective )

Grimmauld Place

Breaking up is hard

But keeping dark is hateful

I had so many dreams

I had so many breakthroughs

But you, my love, were kind

But love has left you dreamless

The door to dreams was closed

Your park was real dreamless

Perhaps you’re smiling now

Smiling through this darkness

But all I had to give was guilt for dreaming

 

Friday 15th July 1995

The house was disgusting.

Truly, horrifyingly, terribly disgusting. And Sirius had spent the better part of a year eating garbage and living out of a cave.

“What the fuck?” He muttered, recoiling from the stench—he pressed a hand over his mouth and nose, stomach turning with an uncomfortable lurch. It smelled like a thousand flobberworms had crawled into the walls and died.

Beside him, Remus coughed, wrinkling his nose.

“I’m assuming that it, er…wasn’t always like this, then?”

“No,” Sirius shook his head, braving a few steps in past the front door. The house was as well-warded as he remembered, but the blood magic that bound it was very old and very powerful. Even if his mother had tried to change it (which Sirius had no doubt that she had), the estate would always belong to the closest blood relative of the Black heir.

“Don’t get me wrong,” he said, frowning at the skittering spiders that fled from underfoot, “It’s always been a cesspool. Just not…a literal one.”

Remus came to stand beside him, allowing the door to swing shut. He glanced around—at the thick layer of dust, the cobwebbed corners, the mildewing wallpaper.

“Well,” he said, after a moment, “Home sweet home.”

Sirius felt his lips twitch, despite himself. When he turned to look up, Remus was smiling down at him, gently, though his eyes had that cautious expression—the one he’d worn so often since Grant had left. The one that made Sirius feel like something fragile, as though Remus was only waiting for him to break.

He smiled back. He was trying. None of it would be worth it, if he didn’t try.

Sirius’s fingers twitched, as though his body knew better than his mind what he wanted, and he had just reached out to take Moony’s hand when—

“TRAITOR!”

They both startled, nearly jumping out of their skin as a horrible screech echoed from down the hall. Sirius felt his blood run cold—he knew that voice. He knew it. But it couldn’t be—it couldn’t be—Dumbledore told him, he said she’d been dead ten years…