❝𝐀𝐋𝐋 𝐈 𝐖𝐀𝐍𝐓 𝐅𝐎𝐑 𝐂𝐇𝐑𝐈𝐒𝐓𝐌𝐀𝐒 𝐈𝐒 𝐘𝐎𝐔❞
the most wonderful time of the year had never really felt that way at all for sirius black, because after all, what was christmas without family? then again, family comes in all shapes and s...
NINETEEN-EIGHTY-ONE thinking of you is a poison i drink often
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THERE were no twinkling Christmas lights as Callie Carter sat, alone, on the year-old couch in her flat near Diagon Alley. In her hands, moving faintly against the fresh paper was the photograph snapped at the first July meeting of the Order of the Phoenix that year. Staring blankly at her friend's hopeful faces, she couldn't quite fathom how much had changed.
Lily and James were dead. Cold and rotting away six feet under, their young lives had been ripped away by Voldemort's vile cruelty. She never understood his motive, - power - never understood why it did what it did to people. Still, she mourned her friends and the magical life of their young son, Harry, who had been shipped off to live with Lily's sister. She knew that would never end well, but she had no authority to stand in the way.
Peter too, was gone. She assumed so, anyway. They'd only found a finger left of him at the scene of the explosion, and he'd taken twelve muggles with him when he died. She missed his exuberance, his childish glee when they were all together. She wrap her head around who'd have done it, not when they were blaming her fiancé for it.
Sirius had been ripped from her grasp just weeks before their wedding. He was ever the defensive one, and on the night they found Lily and James had been murdered, Sirius demanded he had to leave, telling Callie to lock the doors and stay where she was. She feared for his life, but what happened was almost worse. The next thing she knew, he was jailed for betraying his best friends, spying on the Order, and murdering Wormtail and the muggles in cold-blood.
She would never believe that. Not even when Remus tried to make her accept it. No-one, not Remus, not Dumbledore, no-one could expect her or make her believe that Sirius was guilty. She knew, deep down in her gut, that her boyfriend was an innocent man, and she would try her hardest for eternity to free him.
Her devotion to him scared her. She would risk her entire being for him, ruin her reputation, whatever it took. Some said Azkaban was a sentence worse than death, but she'd go there for eternity to just give him one more chance at life. She had to let the world know he was innocent, she didn't care how.
Remus hadn't been on the same wavelength, and their relationship would have hit a standstill had it not been for the immense grief they had to wade through. Their only shot at hope and joy was being together, and yet even then she couldn't help but overwhelmed, her mind clouded with what seemed ancient thoughts of Sirius and their friends.
She'd sat on that couch all day, not eaten a thing. She couldn't bare to do so, much like she remembered Sirius was as he grieved his brother joining the dark side. Now she too hated Regulus with a burning passion, his devotion to Voldemort undoubtably a help to her friend's own downfall.
Remus came over when he felt he could bring himself to, yet she knew he too was struggling with the prospect of daily life without the James' humour, Lily's gentle care, Peter's gentle compliments and encouragement. Sirius' vibrance, his advice, his defensive nature had all been a lie, and that was what hurt Remus the most. What made Callie believe the whole thing was a hoax.
She had never fallen in love with a murderer, a man who would betray his friends. Sirius was the most loyal, protective, honest man she knew, and she could sense deep down this wasn't his fault. She couldn't have trusted him had she not sensed his innate faith and love for those around him, and his fierce dedication was something she knew he hadn't made up.
The clock struck midnight, signalling Christmas Day. Callie felt her heart sink into the pit of her stomach as the room stilled around her, almost pitch black apart from a dull lamp in the corner that had belonged to her grandma. She looked to the door, almost expecting Sirius to come bounding through, grin carved onto his face with effortless precision. Almost. Yet she knew now he wasn't coming back. No-one ever made it out of Azkaban, not with those Dementors floating around like the physical form of depression.
She couldn't bare to think of him suffering in a cell somewhere far out without bursting into tears. She stared down through bleary eyes at her engagement ring, twisting it back and forth upon her finger as she shook her head in disbelief. Christmas wasn't the same without him here, nor was life in general.
This was life now, and she knew she would never get used to it. She would always miss him, love him, but this was it. As she headed to bed, she tried restlessly to remove him from her mind, momentarily giving up on her fight for his freedom.
