Human Design | Sirius Black

xxxiv. Our Hearts Fracture When War Seeps In

REECE HAD BEEN twelve when the war started. He had been lucky to live through a childhood (if it indeed could be called that because there hadn't been much of being a child between the lessons and hobbies he had been placed into) that was free of the blemished of people disappearing or being killed (though he was quite certain that even if the war had started a decade earlier, it wouldn't have made that large of a difference because his parents would have thought it a distraction and not informed him of it anyway). He had got through his entire first week at Hogwarts before the Daily Prophet's reports of the older students became flooded with the war declaration. Dumbledore had given a speech at breakfast.

 In all honesty, Reece couldn't remember what he had said other than some vague clichés about how they had to stick together, to remember to think of the positives, and how youth was the key to the future. He couldn't understand it as a child, and when he was old enough to try, he couldn't be bothered to; the war had quickly become just an accepted facet of reality, just something that existed and nothing could be done to change it. People spoke about it, some more than others, but mostly everyone did their best to ignore it right up to the point that they couldn't anymore.

So when the news arrived to announce its end, Reece felt confused. He supposed that he was supposed to be relieved or happy, but all he could think of for twenty minutes was what now? Would everything change? Or would it remain mundanely exactly as it had always been?

But once the shock, scepticism, and disorientation had passed, the excitement slowly rose to the surface and he grabbed his wand tight and Disapparated without so much as putting on his shoes and knocked on the door of Sirius's apartment, rocking back and forth on the balls of his feet, unable to hold himself still. 

The euphoria that resulted from the end of eleven years of war erased all his other worries; nothing in the world mattered, and he was resigned to mere background noise, and all he wanted was to be with him, wanted him. But the door wasn't opened.

He knocked again. Then a third time. He even attempted to call his name through the material, but the apartment remained silent; there were no approaching footsteps, no grinning Sirius, nothing. Maybe he had left the door unlocked. But after trying the handle, Reece found that this was not the answer. 

"Sirius?" He was probably out celebrating, gathering his loved ones; he simply had other people to find before Reece, a realisation that stung, but it was fine, it wasn't like they were friends or together or anything at all, so it was understandable that he wasn't his priority. It was fine; he could wait.

The corridor of the apartment complex was empty (it was the middle of the night after all, and the Muggle neighbours were none the wiser,) so Reece sat down on the dusty all-floor carpet, his back against Sirius's door. He started at the wall opposite. The top half was painted cement, though there hadn't been much point in it having been done because the chosen colour was just as dull a grey as the original material, but now it was also shiny and reflected the greenish light of the fluorescent lamps above. 

The second half of the wall had a melon and carrot orange floral wallpaper that Reece thought was nothing short of hideous, and it was only made more so by the contrast of the dotted rug that might have been a fresh pear green but had over the years come to resemble something like pickles. Reece weaved through states of sleepiness and relaxation where he teetered on the edge of consciousness and adrenaline rushes so eager that he thought he would keep his eyes wide open for the next two years just to ensure he didn't miss a second of life, crashing and retreating rhythmically like ocean waves commanded by the moon.

But hours passed, and Sirius didn't come.

Reece tapped his bare foot against the carpet that was simultaneously rough and smooth under his soles, and his fingers rapped against his knees. With his head resting against the door behind him, his eyes shifted from the flickering and humming lamps that lined the ceiling, to the azaleas and snapdragons in the dull wallpaper, and to the haphazard dots in the rug, to the movement of his own fingers, and then to the dreams and darkness that waited on the inside of his eyelids.