No Shrinking Violet

I Like Dragons

I approached the bed with my heart beating like the wings of a hummingbird and tears stinging my eyes.

'Si – Sirius?' I called, my voice breaking.

I slumped into the chair beside the bed as relief weakened my body when he opened the stormy grey eyes I had come to love, he forced himself into a sitting position at the sight of me and gripped my hand in a death grip.

'You're okay.' he sighed with relief.

'I'm fine, what happened to you?' I asked as I inspected him for injuries, all I saw were the thick bandages wrapped around his bare torso.

'Dawlish blew me into one of the pillars as I tried to get to you, it's just a few broken ribs. When I get my hands on Pierre -.'

'Pierre is dead.' I cut him off.

'What? How?' Sirius asked.

'He paralyzed me and when he was standing over me about to –.' my voice caught in my throat at the memory of Pierre, standing over me with that evil glint in his eyes about to murder me. 'He was going to kill me but one of the other Death Eaters killed him first.'

Sirius rubbed his thumb over the back of my hand to comfort me and I gave him a soft smile as I wiped my tears away.

'I'm sorry Violet, for everything. What you said in the hospital wing, about me almost murdering Snape...it hurt me...I've always been a Black in name only. But what I did to Severus, that's something that my family would have approved of, they would have thought it was funny. I wanted you to feel the way I was feeling, it was disgusting behaviour and I'm so profoundly sorry for hurting you.'

Sirius couldn't look at me as he spoke, the shame was heavy on his chest, I moved to sit on the bed and he glanced up at me with pain filled eyes, not just from his broken ribs.

'I forgive you.' I spoke plainly.

'How can you forgive me so easily?' he asked.

'Because I know you Sirius, I entered our relationship knowing that there are times where you act without thinking, knowing that there would be times where you would do stupid things and knowing that I would need the patience to put up with those times.'

'But Myrcella -.'

'You just spent some time with her...right?'

My heart began to speed up again as Sirius looked down in shame once again, what had he done?

'Sirius -.'

'I kissed her.' he blurted out.

The blood drained from my face and I physically felt my heart break for what seemed to be the millionth time that month, tears began to course down my face and I jerked away from Sirius as he tried to wipe them away. The reality of what he had done wasn't as bad as what I had been thinking but it didn't make it hurt any less.

'I need – time. I need time, to process this.' I stammered.

I couldn't bring myself to meet Sirius' eyes as I left the room, I made it maybe three feet before I slid down the wall and began to cry. I heard footsteps, but they were too light to belong to Sirius.

'Who are you?' a small voice asked.

Looking up I was met with a young boy, his ginger hair was sticking up in all directions and his blue eyes were clouded with sleep, his small freckled nose was crinkled in confusion as he looked at me.

'My name is Violet, I'm a friend of your mum's.' I answered as I tried to dry my tears.

'My name's Charlie. Do you like dragons?' he asked.