Blackinnon One Shots

Letters from beyond

Summary: Post Askaban Sirius finds some old letters from Marlene at Grimmauld Place

Warnings: angst, drinking, implied depression, mentions of abuse

There was a dead silence at 12 Grimmauld Platz. Walburga Black's portrait was quiet for once, Kreacher had crawled into some corner, the children wouldn't return from Hogwarts for another month and the remaining members of the order were now back home, at work or on a secret mission. One could have thought the house was deserted, but Sirius Black was sitting on one of the chairs in the messy kitchen. In front of him stood an almost empty bottle of fire whiskey, from which he had just poured himself another glass. His grey eyes stared expressionlessly into the void as he continued to drink. This was not the first evening he just sat there, drank and hoped not to feel anything and it was certainly not the last. It didn't take long before the bottle was finally empty and he called out for Kreacher, who, however, didn't show up. He got up cursing the house elf and had to support himself at the kitchen table to avoid falling over immediately. With shaky steps he made his way to get a new bottle, but already had great difficulties to walk straight ahead. His stumbling walk finally became his doom in the hallway as he tried to hold on to a curtain for support to not go down, but tore it down and revealed the portrait of his mother. It didn't take her a second to scream and nag. When she saw Sirius, she became even more angry.

"FILTHY BLOOD TRAITOR! YOU BRING SHAME TO MY FAMILY'S HOUSE! I'LL MAKE SURE YOU WISH YOU WERE NEVER BORN! HOW DARE YOU BE HERE, YOU DISGUSTING LITTLE..."

But Sirius certainly no longer listened. He had already had to listen to her tirade three times today alone and he just couldn't stand any more of it. Knowing that he alone would not be able to silence her again, he tried to escape her voice on one of the upper floors. He tried getting upstairs as quickly as his drunken state allowed him, his mother's voice still echoing in his head. To finally hide from her, he locked himself in the first room without paying much attention to which room it was. For a second he felt something like relief when he was out of reach of the terrible voice, but as soon as he realized in which room he was, his mood dropped. Without wanting to, he had ended up in his parents' former bedroom. The sight of their things almost made him sick. His mother's jewellery on the dresser right next to her wedding photo, his father's shoes, which stood neatly next to the wardrobe and no one felt the need to remove them after his death, or his belt dangling off a back of a chair. Suddenly thousands of memories came to Sirius' mind and he was boiling over with rage. Without having any control over what happened to him, he hit his fist against the large wall mirror. It burst into thousands of pieces, some of which were drilled into Sirius' hand, whereupon it began to bleed. But he was so angry that he didn't even notice the pain. Instead, he began to destroy the room even more, tore everything off the dresser, knocked down a shelf and devastated everything completely.

He was about to move on when he noticed a small pile of letters that must have fallen from one of the back corners of the shelf. The strange thing was that they were all addressed to him, but he had never seen them. He picked them up and looked at them more closely, noticing that they were already open, but he was sure that he had not been the one who had opened them. To find out from whom the letter came, he took one of the letters from the envelope and immediately felt, as if someone had stabbed a knife right into his heart. He knew the ornate handwriting all too well and a look at the end of the letter confirmed his suspicion. He felt all the strength leaving his body, his legs weakening as he sank to the ground. Shocked, he stared at the place where Marlene's name was written in the familiar font. A memory suddenly appeared in his mind. Marlene, as she had waited for him before the beginning of her fifth school year at the platform 9 ¾ and asked him completely surprised why he had never answered her letters. Sirius had no idea what she was talking about at the time, had told her that he had not received any of her letters. Back then he had the feeling that his mother had intercepted them, but he was never completely sure. Completely stunned, he began to read the letter, which now had to be twenty years old.

Dear padfoot,

I hope you enjoy your holidays as much as we all do. Hopefully your mother doesn't ruin them too much for you. Doe, Remus and I want to meet this weekend at Diagon Alley. Do you want to join us? I guess you're not at home most of the time anyway or hiding out in your room to avoid your family. I know they're terrible, but you'll be rid of them soon. Don't let what they say get too close to you. You know just as well as I do that what they say is not true, so you shouldn't worry about it, you're better than them anyway. Anyway, just come to me, if you need someone to talk to.

Love

Marlene

Sirius didn't know whether to laugh or cry. It was absurd. This letter was a clear reminder that Marlene was gone forever and that she would never return, yet these few lines of a dead were more helpful than anything the entire Order had said to him in the past year. He carefully folded the letter, put it back in the envelope and began to read the second letter and the third and fourth, until only one letter was left. Gradually more and more memories came to his mind. He remembered their first kiss when they weren't even together. They were all sitting in the boys' dormation playing truth or dare when James dared Sirius to kiss Marlene. He remembered numerous nights when neither he nor Marlene could sleep and they just sat and talked for hours in the common room. He remembered Marlene's laughter, which could be heard from far away and which made him laugh too all the time. He remembered the small apartment that the two shared after graduating from school and which was actually nothing special, but still perfect for the two of them. He remembered James trying to teach Sirius that Marlene was gone forever. He remembered the funeral and sitting in front of her grave crying for hours. He remembered the guilt that plagued him and how he kept telling himself that he could have saved her, could have stopped her. He remembered the pain that could still be felt years later. He remembered how much he loved her, that he would never see her again and that all that was left of her were these five letters. Everything came up at once and he couldn't help but cry. But he wiped the tears from his face and turned his eyes to the last letter and began to read.

Dear Sirius,

is everything okay at home? You didn't answer my last letters, I hope nothing bad happened. There were rumours about several people who disappeared without a trace and I was worried, even though purebloods probably don't have to worry that much. I met Lily yesterday, she said that the Muggles start to realize something's wrong. Her parents are also worried and her sister frightens her and tells her that it would be all Lily's fault if something happened to one of them. I can't believe the Ministry isn't doing anything about it! Have you heard the rumour that Dumbledore is putting some people together to fight you know who? At least someone who has a plan. Imagine if we were a part of it, would actually help to make a difference and not just sit around useless. It would be great to join them after school. There's a war going on out there and there's nothing we can do. My parents would probably go crazy if they knew what I was going to do, would lecture me on how dangerous that is. But let's be real, what's life without a little risk?

Love

Marlene