Thicker than Water (Marauders Era) PART II

22 July, 1995 - Morning (II)

Sirius barely slept a wink that night, sitting there on the floor of the attic. He had fully expected Lavinia to get up at some point and say she needed to get to bed because the Weasleys were coming the next day and it was plenty clear that whatever the family's expectations might be, Lavinia wanted to exceed them. She wanted Mrs. Weasley to do more than tolerate her. She wanted the woman to like her. Sirius wasn't entirely sure why that was, but his best guess was that in the process of overthinking the whole thing, as she was so prone to doing, Lavinia had managed to tangle up Mrs. Weasley liking her with Harry liking her and the latter... well she clearly wanted that very much.

So Sirius had sat there, comforted by the pressure Lavinia kept on his hand and the weight of her head on his shoulder, waiting for her to break the moment. Waiting for her to leave.

But she didn't.

Instead, she fell asleep right there in the attic, leaning against him and cradling his hand to her chest. This was really the only way Sirius even realized she had fallen asleep: because her breathing evened out and the pressure on Sirius's fingers lessened, her muscles going a bit slack as she drifted off.

Sirius sighed slightly as he noticed this, knowing he ought to bring her down to bed so she could get some proper rest in a proper bed. Still, he didn't immediately move. Instead, he sat there, soaking up her warmth as he thought.

He had never really talked to anyone about James. Or more accurately, he had never really talked to anyone about how much he missed James. He had told Harry bits and pieces about his best friend, had spoken about the boy he'd spent nearly every minute of his school years with and about the man that boy had become. But he'd never spoken about how much it hurt that James was gone. It hadn't seemed like a necessary thing to say because it was implied in every word Sirius had ever spoken about how much he had cared about the best friend he'd ever had. And besides... who would he have said it to? Not Harry, certainly. His godson had enough going on in his life. Hee had grief of his own. And, quite simply, that wasn't his role in Harry's life. He would never have unloaded his own problems onto the boy because all he wanted was to protect Harry. To shield him from exactly those sorts of hells.

Perhaps he could have talked to Remus, or even Lavinia before now, but... it had felt weird and wrong because to them, that grief was fourteen years old. And though it was clear enough that they missed their old friends, it wasn't near to the surface. It was a quieter thing. Something they had already processed and dealt with and moved on from.

And Sirius hadn't.

Lavinia knew it too. She had an unfortunate habit of doing that lately: knowing things about him that he'd rather she didn't. And he was reasonably certain that tonight, Lavinia had had a very good guess about exactly how little he had processed that grief. Or that guilt. And from the moment he had mentioned it, something he had rather regretted the moment the words were out of his mouth, she had been calm and comforting and had argued against his guilt with a no-nonsense air about it that was so... so her.

He remembered, after all, how she had always argued against Remus when he claimed to be a monster. When he blamed himself for his condition. Granted, she'd been a bit less calm or restrained those times, but at its core it had been the same thing. The refusal to let him walk away without telling him each and every perfectly reasonable explanation why he was wrong. Why she would never accept that he was right.

And then of course, in case her arguing hadn't been enough, hadn't meant enough, she had brought up James. And his heart had fallen right out of his chest. In the moment, he'd thought it had been merely a casual reference. Another reason she had why he was being foolish. Like she didn't know that the very mention of his old friend from her lips, in this moment, knocked every bit of breath out of him. Like she didn't understand that it was as good as landing a physical blow against him. Like she hadn't realized what she was doing by saying that name. By reminding Sirius of exactly who would have fought him tooth and nail had he ever known that Sirius felt responsible for his death. Because James had always fought for him. Fought with him. And he had thought in the moment that Lavinia might not have realized that Sirius had never forgotten that. And he had never stopped missing it either.