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There is a world where James Potter survives October 31st 1981.
This is, as Sirius Black will soon learn, not allowed.
Sirius wakes up to the sun in his eyes, the uncomfortable feel of the lumpy mattress of his own bed under him, a strange crick in his neck that is starting to feel familiar and an understandable urge to burst into tears.
He really ought to move past this, he considers, not for the first time, as he brushes his teeth and pointedly avoids looking at his tear-stained face in the mirror. Then again, it has only been eleven resets. Maybe he'll master this strange melancholy by the twentieth. Maybe he'll master his mind by the thirtieth. Maybe fate will take pity on him and let him out by the fiftieth.
He'd lasted a good six months this time, before the ringing of bells and the whispers of fixitfixitfixitfixit came back. He'd finally figured out how to get Harry to say Paddy before either of his parents' names, figured out how to convince Remus to let Sirius get him wolfsbane, figured out how to send a letter his brother will actually read.
Still, still, the bells had come, and still he'd been sent back. It's not as if he's surprised; Sirius might be daft (completely moronic and about as sharp as a marble, in one James Potter's opinion) but he had realised what kept bringing him back somewhere around the fifth time he'd been sent back immediately after Halloween 1981. He refuses to deal with it in any way, however, and usually doesn't even acknowledge the reason, so it's a moot point regardless. He is, as far as his conscious mind is concerned, being sent back to save as many people as possible and foil as many plans as he can, and that is what he will do.
The liquor bottles lazily spread around the apartment indicate this is not long after Marlene broke up with him, perhaps June of 1981. He doesn't know what day it is, but frankly, he thinks anyone who comes to see him right now would be far too surprised to see him awake before two in the noon to worry about anything else. He gives the half-full bottle of vodka on the study table one last longing glance before heading out.
If he times it right, he's certain he can catch Marlene at St. Mungo's with Alice and start his long, long task of apologising to her for being a complete arsehole.
Two weeks into loop eleven, and Sirius thinks he's doing mighty fine.
Peter has been carefully sidelined, even if June is far too late to make any changes in that regard. (Sirius likes to think he knows when to give up on lost causes). James is only slightly worried, but this Sirius had expected—he had, more than once, thanked Merlin and Fate for James' incredible ability to hold onto everything he cares for and never let go, even if his hands hurt. Progress on the Harry front is going less smoothly than expected; he hadn't expected the prank gift he'd gotten James to scare Harry quite so badly. Three days and Harry still kept crying every time Sirius went over. He's meeting Marlene in six minutes, as a quick glance at his muggle pocket watch tells him, and he thinks she might actually agree to at least stay friends with him.
He'd cleaned up his house, prepared tea just the way Marlene liked it, and tried to do his best to not look like he was a loafer who had nothing better to do than wait for her by putting a stack of books by the sofa, as if he'd been reading them. So when Marlene knocks on the door, he's as prepared as can be.
"Marlene! Hey!" Sirius says, opening the door to let her in as if he'd not been overthinking this for three months. (Loop ten's Marlene did not quite like Sirius, to put it mildly).
Marlene gives him a quick hug and pat on the shoulder before moving in. Sirius has only a moment to consider the smell of lilacs from her shampoo instead of the lavenders he remembers.
"You cleaned up," Marlene says, flopping down on the sofa and throwing her purse somewhere in the general vicinity of the table. She grins at him, and Sirius' smile in response is almost instinctual.
"No idea what you mean," he says. He places a teacup in front of her, quashing the sudden, nonsensical worry that he'd forgotten to add sugar. "I clean this house every day."
Marlene snorts. "We have the same friends, Black. I heard about the drinking and the morose poetry."
I know, Sirius does not say, because it would be quite impossible to tell her how he knows. Even James, who'd never once thought Sirius a liar (and had in turn been rewarded with the most honesty a Black could summon), would have a hard time believing Sirius' tall tale. And then Marlene was Marlene. If he told her that she had, at one point, dragged him out of his bed hungover, had a screaming match, cleaned up his house, had another screaming match, and then finally told him to stop being a moron and let his friends help, she might think all the alcohol had actually damaged his brain.
"The idea," Sirius begins instead, "that I would ever resort to poetry is far too absurd. You have to let me know which liar was out there slandering me."
"No issues with the other part of the sentence, then?" Marlene says, her voice playing a dangerous balancing game between caution and teasing.
"Well," Sirius says. Marlene is Marlene, he thinks.
"Look," Marlene says, and she sets down the teacup to let him know she's serious and wants absolutely no puns to be made about that. "I was a dick. You were a dick. I think you were right in sixth year that we are better off friends. It is what it is. We had a good run, but let's not lie to ourselves and pretend half of it wasn't about the shagging."
Sirius does not wince, but it takes effort. Marlene always cuts to the bone, yes, but he doesn't expect her brutal honesty outside of arguments.
"I was more a dick than you were," Sirius offers, not quite sure what else he could say. Maybe in the next loop he'd plan it out better.
Marlene shakes her head, though. "Not the point. I shouldn't have said all of that about your family. And yeah, I guess you didn't have to insult every aspect of my personality, but if we tallied up every thing we'd done wrong, I don't think either of us would come out the victor."
It's hard to have this discussion when Sirius can't properly remember the fight they'd had. He hadn't been sent back enough in any loops to have to go through that again. He deflects, "So what you're saying is I don't have to apologise to you."
Marlene smiles. "Oh, you still have to grovel, I just—" She sighs. "I just didn't think you'd be affected like this. I guess I feel guilty, and I suppose I want to say sorry too."
"Apology accepted," Sirius says, far too quickly and far too gladly. Bad choice, he thinks, watching Marlene's smile turn awkward and her eyes turn away. "Even if it's really not your fault," he throws out, an attempt to fix whatever he did wrong.
A sigh. "Sirius," Marlene says, her eyes turning heavenward and her posture closed off as it usually was after a fight, "do you ever— I mean, did you— I'm messing this up."
"You're not!" Sirius reassures. If anything, he's the one messing this up. He's never gotten this far with her before, and now he's royally cocking this up. "What is it?"
"We always fought far more than we talked," Marlene says, a tonal shift so sudden Sirius is thrown for a moment. "I think I always knew something was wrong with that, you know? Put two fires in a room and you're always going to end up with a burnt house."
Sirius doesn't like where this is going. Marlene continues, "I think I stayed because I knew it wouldn't go anywhere. It could never become s– more—" an instinctual avoidance of the word serious to avoid awful jokes "—so I was safe. I think maybe you did the same thing."
Sirius has never wanted the bells to come back and time to restart more than he did right now. He thinks it might've hurt less if Marlene had pulled up a sleeve and revealed a Dark Mark. "I don't know what you mean."
"I had a crush on Dorcas in fifth year, did you know?" Marlene says, and Sirius feels like his stomach being tied to a rock and dropped into the Pacific. "I remember Lily's birthday party in the common room that year, and Dorcas had worn these muggle pants and all of us were stupid drunk and I made three jokes about how nice her ass looked before I realised I wasn't actually drunk."
Sirius thinks his heart will be the next thing to crawl out of his mouth and jump in the Pacific. He wants to tell Marlene to stop, tell her to get out tell her to leave him the fuck alone and then go to the pub down the street and get wasted. He wants to grab his wand and apparate to the Potters and let Harry scream at him until he can't hear his thoughts. He wants— he wants— he—
"I didn't do anything with that. Couldn't, not without making every dorm room conversation awkward and ruining any chance I had at a friendship." Marlene still won't look at him. Maybe she should, Sirius thinks. If she is going to ruin everything, she should at least give him the courtesy of eye contact. "And you were there, loud and perfect and single. I guess I took my shot. I didn't expect— well."
A pause here, where Sirius is supposed to say something. His throat is glued shut, however, and his lips refuse to part. So Marlene goes on. "I liked you well enough. You were a great friend, that was never in doubt. And the shagging was awesome, I wasn't lying about that. I just— I think I didn't really think of this as a relationship and so I didn't do you the nicety of at least ending it properly. I should have."
Marlene doesn't continue after that. The silence that follows lasts at least ten lifetimes.
"What," says Sirius finally, his voice far too rough and hoarse, "the fuck, Marls."
Marlene giggles, then, and she truly does look lighter than she did when she came in. Sirius wishes he could be happy for her, but all he feels is a vicious jealousy, because happiness is about the last thing he's feeling right now. He can't even think of a joke, and anything he had thought of in response is immediately washed away because how is he supposed to go through the next loop and the loop after that, knowing this about Marlene when she'd wouldn't have told him that yet.
Why in Merlin's name would Marlene tell him this? Were there really no better people to unburden herself to? Was her ex-boyfriend, who had only had this one relationship, one shining beacon of normalcy, one certainty, really the only one she could find? Why tell him?
That last part, apparently, he says out loud, because Marlene responds, with an inscrutable look in her eyes (and isn't that new, a part of Marlene he's never seen before), "I thought you deserved to know. And I wanted to ask you why you'd done it."
"Gotten drunk over a one-sided relationship?" Sirius asks, because the least Marlene deserves, after all he'd put her through, is unfiltered statements.
"Stayed with me," Marlene says, ignoring his bitter words, which is about what he deserves. "Merlin knows I didn't make it easy. It certainly wasn't fun. It was good when it was good, but Sirius Black doesn't play losing games and Sirius Black doesn't stick around in places where he's not happy. So why stay?"
"I loved you," Sirius says, and really, really hates the pity in Marlene's eyes.
"Did you?" she asks. "Because that's the first time you've said that word to me."
Sirius doesn't respond, isn't even sure what would come out if he tried.
"Thanks for the tea," Marlene says.
There's almost certainly something messed up about finding a pub more comforting and homely than his actual house.
The conversation with Marlene had happened yesterday, and it took him almost that entire time to force himself to move. If he didn't already believe in Fate, the irony here would certainly force him to: nearly an entire day of steeling himself to not end up here and he ends up here anyway. Just his luck that Marlene would talk to him a day before Dorcas' birthday.
He's here earlier than he has to be, just to reacquaint himself with the pub. It has been a couple loops since he's been here; the company of morose drunks makes it far too tempting to give into his desire for the oblivion. Everything is still as he remembers it, though that isn't saying much given all his memories of this particular pub are drenched in booze.
Sirius shakes himself out of his reverie when he feels James enter. (It's only been two weeks, according to everyone else, since Sirius 'cleaned up his act'. He can't look too longingly at the fixtures of a bar without causing undue worry.) He knows James has entered even before he yells "Sirius!" across the floor. It's less an innate sensor built into him (no matter how their friends joke) and more that everyone in every room always turns to look at James, and it's hard not to notice that sort of thing.
"Sirius," James says again, once he's settled in across him in the booth. James is grinning brightly, and Sirius feels lighter just by virtue of seeing it. "It's been ages, Merlin. If you've forgotten my address, there's no need to be embarrassed 'bout it. I'll only make fun of you for, oh, ten years."
"I have not forgotten your— it's been four days!" Sirius exclaims. "Maybe Lily is right about codependency—"
"Don't you throw fancy words at me," James says. "You're the one who wilts—"
"I do not wilt! If anything, you moan and whine if I don't—"
"I'm only trying to remind you of your responsibilities as a—"
"And what would you know of a godfather's responsibilities, when you can barely even—"
"How was I supposed to know Harry would rip it—"
"Children," Lily interrupts, and James' grin grows impossibly wider as he leans away from Sirius to press a kiss to Lily's lips. Sirius backs off the table too; he hadn't realised just how much he'd leaned forward while trying to get out as many words as he can.
Lily sits down next to James and puts her small bag under the table to keep the rest of the booth clear for the others. "Honestly, I'll never get how you can even manage to understand each other if you keep speaking over the other person."
"He can read my mind," Sirius says, at the same time as James says, "We script it beforehand."
They grin at each other. Lily groans.
Dorcas arrives before Lily can say anything further. Sirius is so caught up in everything else that he barely remembers the anger and upset he'd been saving for her, and by the time he remembers, Dorcas has already settled in next to him and the emotions feel too false.
"You all better have excellent gifts," Dorcas starts. "Because I just got Lupin's this morning and it's the most beautiful bracelet I've ever seen."
"Moony's not coming?" James asks, and right. They don't know about the spying on werewolves yet. At least James' tone is filled with upset and frustration, instead of the suspicion that filled it in the original timeline because of all of Sirius' doubts. All of their years of friendship, and Sirius ended up no better than every person who'd ever made a snap judgement when they heard the word 'werewolf'.
"You know how Order business goes," Sirius says, always trying to make up for all his sins. They all shake their heads in commiseration.
"I'll get drinks," Dorcas says, and James stops her with a hand on her elbow.
"Let it not be said that James Potter will let the birthday girl do work," he says, and shuffles out past Lily to go to the bar. Sirius has the vague sense that James had some ulterior motive there, but as always, Marlene sits beside Lily and all rational thought leaves his brain.
He almost laughs. All day to prepare for the pub and he'd forgotten entirely to prepare for her.
He sort of wishes James was here; he would've known what to say, how to smoothen over the edges and make Sirius not want to tear open himself and leave immediately. Lily pulls Dorcas and Marlene into a conversation, and Sirius tries his level best to not ruin Dorcas' birthday. It's hard to maintain a facade of happiness, however, when he has to engage, so he tunes out the others and tries to think pleasant thoughts.
His thoughts, apparently just as cruel as Fate, turn to Marlene's words.
So why stay?
Love, Sirius had claimed yesterday, and he'd believed it was the truth just then. But now, now that he wasn't thrown off-course, now that he wasn't struggling to breathe while waves tugged him under, now he knew that it wasn't. He'd known that, at least, for a while. Marlene was good for him and exactly what he needed for a while — someone to pull his head out of his arse — but he had never loved her. That was just an easy label to put on a box, because Sirius would never willingly think of love and he also didn't want to think too deeply about him and her.
Maybe it's just what Marlene said — he needed someone, and she was there. But if that was true, Sirius ought to have been happy with her as a friend, he thinks. Certainly it would have been easier to not have to go to bed with the same person you screamed at.
Maybe he just liked—
James stopped at their booth, the tray held in his hands looking very unstable. "Here, here! Drinks for all! An appletini for our birthday girl, a Bloody Mary for Marlene, Sex on the Beach for my lovely wife, and the girliest mocktail that ever did exist for Mr. Black in the corner."
Sirius lets out a loud, performative groan at the pink monstrosity (with a lemon on the rim!) that James has brought for him, but takes it regardless, because he needs something to do with his hands. James shuffles back in with just a water for himself, probably because he's the one apparating him and Lily back home tonight.
James raises his glass. "To Dorcas," he says, "for surviving another year of knowing us all."
"And looking unfairly good while doing it," Marlene adds with a teasing grin. Sirius used to dismiss those as jokes, but now he wonders...
"To never aging," Lily says, grinning. "And never letting us forget it."
Sirius lifts his glass last. "To finally convincing Dorcas that muggle pubs are infinitely better."
"Say that again when Lily is drunk and sets something on fire," Marlene says, and Sirius doesn't think he could've maintained his easy smile eleven loops ago.
"Surely some part of this... pink thing can act as a fire extinguisher," Sirius says, looking at his glass suspiciously.
"I'm pretty sure magical fires don't gutter out with muggle extinguishers," Lily says. "And I'm pretty sure Remus has made you test that theory at some point."
"Let's not test it again today, how about that?" Dorcas says, taking a long sip of her drink.
July begins with a visit from Remus, who looks far more bedraggled than when Sirius saw him last. Then again, Sirius saw him last in loop ten, after Halloween, when all anyone could do was whisper selfish thanks to Merlin that it wasn't the Potters that Voldemort chose. The end of a war that has defined your entire life would make anyone look younger, Sirius thinks.
"Tea?" Sirius offers, and when Remus nods thankfully, he moves to the kitchen to start preparing tea with his most luxurious brand of leaves that he only really keeps for Remus. He started buying this about two loops ago, when Remus off-handedly mentioned that he hadn't had good tea in ages after the war, because really, why would werewolves keep any?
"You've been in the wind," Sirius says, raising his voice to be heard out in the living room. "Committing any crimes you don't want the Ministry to know about?"
Remus scoffs a laugh. "Would I tell you if I did?" Then, more seriously, "You know how Order business is. Dumbledore points me, and I shoot off."
"Must be exhausting," Sirius says, not deviating yet from his words last loop. He pours the tea into two cups, tries to find a tray of some sort. "And you still can't tell us what it is he has you doing?"
The goal of making Remus tell them, or at least just Sirius about the spying, has been perhaps his only goal since the beginning that he hasn't managed to fulfill. Merlin only knows how Dumbledore's inspired such secrecy in a boy who couldn't even keep his werewolfiness a secret.
"Nope," Remus says, raising an eyebrow at the flowery plate Sirius brings out the cups on. "That can't possibly be yours."
"It's not," Sirius replies promptly. "And why not? We tell you about our missions. I promise Dumbledore hasn't placed a surveillance spell over my house. He won't know." His tone is light, amused, but his heart is running as though Sirius was playing Quidditch, because he's finally gone off-script.
"Whose is it, then? Not James'," Remus says.
"No, of course not— what would James' plates be doing in my house?" Sirius asks, half annoyed. "Stop changing the subject."
"Just because you don't value your privacy doesn't mean I don't either. And besides, my missions are far more... secretive than yours." Remus sips at his tea to hide his amusement at Sirius' offended face.
"See, that's the sort of statement that would be easy to prove if you'd just tell me! I won't even tell anyone else!"
Remus leans back, looks at Sirius with consideration. It is startlingly alike to the look he gave him a month after the horrible Prank in sixth year, back when he'd been considering if Sirius was even worth talking to again. He shakes his head. "Dumbledore will know. And anyway, you'd insist on helping somehow, and this mission is far too delicate for the Potter and Black show."
Well, this is the furthest Sirius has gotten. Maybe he'll try something along the same lines next time too. "Who said anything about James?"
"I don't think it's physically possible for you to keep anything a secret from him," Remus sagely points out, "and I know it's not physically possible for James to sit back when someone he cares for is in danger."
"Are you?" Sirius asks, because he can't really refute the rest of that statement. "In danger?"
"Which of us isn't?" Remus asks in turn.
"That's not an answer," Sirius says, well-versed in the Lupin Book of Deflections. "If you need help—"
"That's exactly what I mean!" Remus cries out. He places his now empty teacup none too gently on the table. "I don't want your help, Sirius. Especially not if you're only offering because you think this is an easy way to avoid your own problems."
"I'm not! Avoiding my problems or assuming it's easy for you," Sirius says. "I can just— I see the toll it's taking on you, whatever it is, and I want to help."
Remus softens. "So this isn't about Marlene in the slightest?"
"How do you even know about that?" There's frustration in his tone he can't bite back. "You weren't even here! What, do all of you discuss my sad, sad life behind my back every day?"
"Sirius," Remus says, now just as calm as he'd been when he arrived. Evidently putting Sirius on the defense is a great way to get rid of Remus' defensiveness. "The only thing I know is that you two ended things on not-great terms. I might not have been in that long a relationship myself," and here a bitterness Sirius can't ease, "but I know it couldn't possibly have turned out well. Neither of you does anything by halves; if you took it badly, you took it badly."
"This isn't about Marlene," Sirius declares, putting a cork in that conversation, hopefully never to be reopened.
Remus hums. It’s noncommittal, disbelieving. "So what is it about, then?"
Sirius splutters. "You! This is about you, and your secret mission, and me wanting to help you and be a good friend for once in my life! Why does it have to have a deeper reason?"
"No, this is about you wanting to fix something for me, because you're trying to avoid fixing your own shite. It's a Sirius Black special, don't you know?" Remus is looking directly at Sirius now, oh-so-comfortable now that he is back in his element of being a judgemental dick. "The first years of Hogwarts have never seen a gentler soul than you trying to avoid me after the Severus issue. Peter has never had a better relationship with his mother than when your brother took the Dark Mark and you didn't know what to do with yourself. You think fixing other people will fix you, Sirius, and that's never worked out for you before, and yet you still keep doing it."
"Remind me to never offer you help again," Sirius quips immediately, because all his other choices of words are far too cruel.
Remus lets the silence hang for a beat too long. Then: "You know what I think it is?"
Sirius groans. "No. But I’m sure you’re going to tell me anyway."
"You thought Marlene would anchor you." Remus shrugs. "She’s sharp and bright and full of bite. Similar enough to be familiar, so that you didn't have to try, but different enough that it wasn't entirely an exercise in frustration. You figured that if you were going to explode, you may as well do it with someone who knew how to throw sparks back."
Sirius doesn’t answer. He can’t answer. Second time in one loop that he can't find the words, that his throat is in knots and pretending to be a rope. Remus watches him. Sirius knows from experience that Remus has said what he wanted to say, and now will let the silence stretch on as long as it will until Sirius replies.
He used to hate that about Remus— his ability to sit with silence, to wait out everything, to never fill empty spaces until he wants to. Sirius hates it, hates the buzzing in his ears, hates how he wants to speak and yet even the thought of saying anything in response makes him want to throw himself into the nearest bottle. He almost wishes it was James who had come here to have this conversation, because then it wouldn't really need to be a conversation. James would just know what he's thinking, and Sirius would be spared the terrible agony of having to talk.
"I did like her," Sirius says, finally, when his need to fill the quiet overcomes his desire to strangle Remus for starting this conversation.
"Not like that," Remus said. "Not in the way you wanted to, not in the way she wanted you to."
You're wrong! Sirius nearly says. Marlene didn't want me either! Take that! But it's not really his secret to tell, and even if it was, sharing it now would only be Sirius doing what he does best: avoiding himself, and Remus would see right through it. Instead, he says, "And you would know this from all your happy long-term relationships and our in-depth talks about me and Marlene, is that it?"
Remus does not flinch, but Sirius knows that the blow lands. He isn't proud of the satisfaction he feels.
"I would know it," Remus bites out, "by seeing the both of you for years. I would know it, because even someone blind could see what you were trying to do—copy what James and Lily had because you couldn't stand the thought of being left behind. You didn't want Marlene, Sirius, you just wanted not to be alone."
"Well, that makes two of us, doesn't it," Sirius says, and Remus does wince this time. Good. Sirius is tired of being the only one bleeding.
"That’s not fair," Remus says, too soft, but not backing down. "You think I don’t know I’m alone? I’ve always known. You've at least had the choice."
"Oh, fuck you," Sirius snaps. "Don't turn this into a pity party. You did have a choice; just because you were too scared of yourself to make it doesn't make you better than me."
Remus blinks. Once. "I’m not trying to be better than you. I'm trying to make you see what went wrong."
Sirius laughs. It's a terrible, pathetic, hollow thing. "Yeah? And what do you see, Professor, from your perch so high above us all?"
Remus doesn't rise to the bait. "I see someone who’s terrified of being the last one left."
That shuts Sirius up, if only because it sounds too plausible. Remus, emboldened by the quiet, presses on. "You’ve always been better with a crowd. You need people. You need an audience. You need someone to bounce off of. You found something good and easy entirely by accident at eleven, and you never learnt how to just be on your own."
That, Sirius thinks, is cruel only because it’s true.
And yet—
Is it? Sirius has been alone. Sirius knows loneliness. It doesn’t scare him. It can't, not when it had been his sole companion in Grimmauld Place for years. He doesn't hate solitude, he just—
He just hates watching everyone else find people to orbit while he stands still.
And there it is. No noble desire to fit in, no understandable fear of abandonment, just shameless, childish jealousy.
Not of Marlene. Not of Lily. Not even of Remus, not really. But of the certainty. Of the knowing.
James, so assured in his love for Lily that he never once second-guessed it. Marlene, self-aware even when she's avoiding herself. Even Remus, for all his miserable martyrdom, had carved himself into someone self-contained.
Sirius is still twelve years old in a stolen leather jacket, all bark and teeth and rebellion, and nothing else.
Sirius immediately shoves that thought back into a box and grabs the nearest lie. "Fine," Sirius says, and makes sure his voice cracks just slightly. Not enough to seem deliberate. Just enough to pass. "You’re right."
Remus stills. Sirius doesn’t look at him.
"I didn’t want to be alone. I still don’t. I thought Marlene would fix it. Thought maybe if I had someone—anyone—I'd stop feeling so shitty all the time."
It’s true the same way painting a rotting wall is a solution. Enough truth to be convincing. Enough lie to be safe.
"That’s all it was," Sirius says, softer now, eyes on the table. "You were right about me. Again. Congratulations."
Remus lets out a quiet breath. "I wasn’t trying to win, Pads."
"Good," Sirius replies, bright and bitter. "Because you didn’t."
For a second, neither of them moves. Then Remus gets up, collecting his coat from the back of the chair.
"You’ll let me know," he says, "if you need anything?"
"Yeah," Sirius lies. "You too."
The backdown is so sudden, the truce so immediate, Sirius can't even bring himself to be relieved. At the door, Remus pauses. There’s something in his eyes — not suspicion, not quite. Just a tilt of the head. That look people get when they almost recognise a familiar song in the distance, and can’t place the name.
Sirius smiles, sharp and tired. "I’m okay, Moony."
"You will be," Remus promises.
And then he leaves.
He hadn’t meant to come here. Not really. He’d just kept walking until the streets turned unfamiliar and the pub turned out to have a name he'd already forgotten by the time he walked in.
It's quiet, far too early in the day for anyone to get too rowdy. There are no booths, just three round tables along the wall with small stools around them. The stool he's sitting on creaks every time he shifts, the three legs uneven. The bartender doesn’t know his name. The lighting is bad. The music’s worse. Sirius thinks it might be the best bar in London.
Sirius is twisting his drink round and round, still sober enough to feel bad about being here, still delusional enough to promise himself that he won't drink himself into a blackout. Not that that would be unfamiliar; July had come and gone and Sirius barely remembered four hours across the entire month.
He felt bad about missing an entire month where he could've been looking into breaking out, looking into Peter, looking into any way to get out of this thing without Halloween ending in a tragedy, but Sirius has always lived too much in the present and his current disgust at himself far outweighs his future worries about time loops. And when it doesn't? Well, that's what the drinks are for.
Even just thinking about it—
What sort of selfish, awful asshole feels jealous of a man who is about to die? How terrible a friend would you have to be to throw yourself a pity party while your friend has weeks left to live? How terrible a person do you have to be, to have quite possibly the best friend in the world and then demand more from him?
Sirius downs the warm drink in his mug in one gulp.
He has barely swallowed the drink when he feels a tug in his gut, the bartender looks up at the door, and Sirius knows who he's seeing. He wishes he had brought his wand with him; moments like these are exactly why Hogwarts teaches apparition.
"Really hope you weren't saving this seat for someone," James says, as he sits down on the (smaller) stool across Sirius. (That can't possibly be comfortable, Sirius thinks, but, well. There's really no way to ask James if he wants a better stool without looking like a fool.)
"Was saving it for your mum," Sirius replies automatically, wondering if it was too late to hide the empty mug under the table. The pub suddenly seems so much more awful and dingy than it had mere moments ago.
"Ha-ha," James says, aiming for sarcasm and landing somewhere around fond amusement.
"What are you doing here?" Sirius asks before James can ask him that very same question.
"Looking for you," James says, grabbing the mug from where Sirius was sliding it back and forth from the edges of the table.
"Why?" Sirius asks, genuinely curious. He had been quite normal, he thinks. Sure, he'd been avoiding just about everyone he knows, but other than that, there'd really been no cause for concern. He sent out letters, he attended Order meetings, there was not a single bottle of alcohol to be found anywhere in his house. He'd even sent Harry a nice birthday gift. He'd gone to great pains to make sure no one found out where Sirius was spending his evenings.
James looks at him as if he's stupid and should perhaps get his brain checked out. "We haven't had a proper conversation in four weeks! That's the longest we've gone without talking, except for, of course, the eleven years where we didn't know each other at all."
Sirius feels suddenly, inexplicably warm. James says things like that often, and they never fail to make Sirius feel like he could fly without a broom. James always treats their friendship as an inevitability, like it was destined to happen, like he knew they’d meet even before he knew who Sirius was.
And this is the man you envy. The words appear unbidden in his head, and Sirius has to tense every muscle in his body to stop himself from getting up and getting another drink. He will not let James (or anyone else) worry, come hell or high water.
"Haven't been in the mood for a conversation," Sirius says. "I feel like I'm allowed a month or two of sadly sleeping alone in my house after a break-up before we need to stage an intervention."
"You skipped Harry's birthday," James says, and Sirius tries not to jerk away. A single moment of quiet, before James goes on with a soft smile, "He liked the broom, but I think it's only a matter of time before Lily kills you for shattering every single delicate thing in our house by proxy."
"That was my intention," Sirius says. "Break all your delicate china so you're forced to admit you don't actually like any of it."
"I like the one with the red flowers," James says, because he's a good friend and also far too charming.
"Flattery will get you nowhere," Sirius says, chin up in the air in pretend-arrogance. "I won't take the broom back even if Harry breaks the red ones I gave you."
James grins; Sirius thinks this is what being in the center of a dying star feels like. Then, "Lily wants you over for dinner tonight."
"No," Sirius groans, dragging it out. "This isn't an invitation, it's a punishment. Tell her I'm dead."
"She's cooking," James says, as if Sirius wouldn't know that already. "I'm not eating it alone. And anyway, don't you want to see Harry fly like he's born to do it?"
Sirius doesn’t answer that. He doesn’t need to. Of course he wants to see Harry fly. That kid is his, almost—James might be the dad and Lily the mum, but Harry likes his godfather so much it's not even funny. Sirius adores him for it, but Sirius also knows he'd love the kid to pieces even if Harry hated him.
"Well," Sirius says. "Maybe."
James' grins sharpens into a smile with edges, and Sirius will never admit how much he misses that smile. He can barely remember the last time he saw it; he thinks it must have been during their Hogwarts days, before Lily kissed James. That smile is also how Sirius knows he'll hate what James says next (as much as he can hate something James says), because that smile most often made an appearance before their cleverest pranks. "Now that you've agreed," he begins, "I am obligated to tell you that she wants to clean the house again after dinner."
Sirius wishes he had a cushion to throw at James' smug little face. He settles for kicking his shins under the table.
'Cleaning the house' in Lily terms means moving every single bit of furniture thrice over until it's exactly where she wants it. It happens about every three months, she always ropes in any guests who are at the house, it takes about four hours and she hates it regardless.
"I'm not coming," Sirius declares, and James laughs again, with all the confidence (arrogance, really) of someone who's never been denied in their entire life.
"James," Sirius says, raising his voice ever so slightly to make sure he's heard. "I'm serious!"
"You always have been," James says, and Sirius is so distracted by the dimple in his cheek it takes him a moment to understand the joke. He kicks him again, harder this time, rattling the table, which only makes James laugh harder.
Sirius fights a losing battle against a smile, trying to at least pretend to be annoyed about being conned into cleaning James' house for him. "You owe me for this one, don't forget that."
"Not my fault you didn't ask for details," James snaps back, placing his elbows on the table and leaning forward like a teenage girl.
"Yes, well, excuse me for assuming my best friend would invite me over without hidden caveats," Sirius says, leaning back a bit, almost surprised to find there's no chair back behind him, a rather sudden reminder that this isn't Hogwarts, it's a shitty bar in some muggle town.
"You know what they say about assumptions," James says. "They make an ass out of you and..."
James pauses, and Sirius tilts his head. "And?"
"Some guy called 'mptions'?" he suggests, and Sirius' laugh surprises him on the way out.
James looks victorious, like he's just won the House Cup. He leans in even more, arms crossed on the table now, chin resting on his forearms. The lighting’s awful (worse, even, as it gets darker outside), but his hair still somehow shines a million different shades of brown.
"You're ridiculous," Sirius says. "I think I finally understand Lily of three years ago. You are, in fact, an arrogant toerag."
"Counterpoint," James says, lazily raising a finger. "You love me."
"Counter-counterpoint, I would throw you off your broom for maybe two Galleons," Sirius says.
"Counter-counter-counterpoint, no one would pay you to do that, because everyone else also loves me." He tilts his head to the left, an action that weirdly reminds Sirius of Padfoot, and beamed at him. His dimple is back in full force, and Sirius wants to—
Sirius pushes his stool back abruptly, forcefully, which also ends up pushing the table into James, who sits back straight, surprised. "What is it?"
"The stool," Sirius says, quickly, breath sharp in his throat. "It got offended, I think. Must've assumed you were going to do something indecent, what with you leaning in like that."
James grins, still rubbing his ribs. "Oh, you wish I was going to do something indecent to you."
"Oh, I'd need a couple more drinks in my system for that," Sirius says, forcing a smile, because his brain stupidly wants to say, yes, yes I do. Because he’s realised, at the worst possible time, that it’s not really James he’s jealous of, it’s—
James notices his weirdness, because of course he does. "Is something wrong? Are you worried you'll break your back lifting the sofa?"
Sirius forces out a bark of laughter. It sounds hollow even to him. "Terrified," he says, standing up too quickly. The stool legs scrape loud and ugly against the floor. "My spine is very delicate and unused to manual labour, as you well know."
"Pads," James says, slower now. That worried note again. "You okay?"
"Yeah, yeah," Sirius says, already stepping back, waving a hand like he’s shooing away smoke. "Just remembered something. I should go. I'll see you tonight."
"We could go together," James suggests. "I don't think Lily will mind you being over a bit too early."
Sirius shrugs. Tries for a grin, lands somewhere around grimace. "Your wife’s cooking, Potter. I’ve got to brace myself."
"She’s not that bad."
"She made pasta in a cauldron, James."
"We don’t have to bring that up every time—"
"Tell her I’m on my way." Sirius nods, once, sharp enough to hurt.
And then he’s gone, coat half-on, not Apparating because he didn’t bring his wand (a really, really stupid decision), not walking because he’s not really looking where he’s going—just leaving, as fast as he can without turning it into a run.
He doesn’t mean to end up here.
That’s starting to become a bit of a pattern.
One moment he’s walking, hands jammed into his coat pockets like they’re hiding something (they are, surprisingly—apparently he went back home at some point to grab his wand), and the next he’s standing in front of Marlene’s door, blinking up at it like it’s a surprise apparition. It’s not even that close to the pub. He must have Apparated at some point.
He just doesn’t remember deciding to.
Maybe that’s the problem lately—things keep happening to him, and he’s always three steps behind, scrambling to catch up with the version of himself who actually makes decisions.
He doesn’t knock.
He never has, and apparently muscle memory still thinks they’re together, because he opens the door without thinking—and promptly wishes he were dead.
Marlene is standing by the stove. There’s music playing softly (Muggle music, he thinks, even if it's nothing he'd be caught dead listening to), and the flat smells like something baking. Dorcas is at the kitchen table, barefoot and smug and reading the paper.
For a second, Sirius thinks he’s hallucinating.
Then Dorcas glances up. "Haven't you heard of knocking?" she asks lightly, as if her mood is far too good to be ruined by irritation.
"Am I interrupting something?" Sirius asks, just as Marlene steps away from the stove and turns to look at him.
Marlene’s eyebrows lift. Not in shock, exactly, but in something adjacent. "Sirius?"
"I wanted to talk to you," Sirius says, unnecessarily, awkwardly. He has no frame of reference for this, no idea how to ask did you get over your thing for Dorcas already? without sounding like someone who definitely hasn't moved on.
"I thought— did James not find you?" Marlene asks, and Sirius can't even bring himself to be surprised that she knew about James looking for him. Obviously he'd asked her first; she was supposed to be the one who knew Sirius the best, given how long they'd dated.
"He did," Sirius says. "I left."
"Why?" Marlene asks. "Did he say something?"
"Not really," Sirius says, because he'd really rather not think about all the things James had said and how easily every single one could be misconstrued.
"That's my cue to leave," Dorcas says before Marlene can utter a word. She folds up her paper and slowly stands up, apparently not at all bothered by the other two people in the room waiting eagerly for her to be gone. Or maybe that was just Sirius. She walks to Marlene, instead of the door, and presses a quick kiss to her lips before moving past Sirius and leaving.
Oh.
Sirius has horribly misunderstood what was going on here. Marlene hadn't moved past her crush (or she had, in a way), she had apparently started dating Dorcas.
Marlene’s watching him carefully now, like she’s trying to gauge whether he’s going to bolt or burst into tears. "You wanna sit?"
Sirius responds by collapsing into the chair Dorcas just vacated. He wants to ask her so many questions, starting with How long? and ending somewhere around When did you become more Gryffindor than me? He asks none of them, because he really, really doesn't want to know.
"Tea?" Marlene asks, and Sirius shakes his head. Nothing will stay down right now, he knows, and he really isn't sure how he's supposed to eat anything later at James' house—
Merlin.
Even just thinking about seeing James later makes him want to go to Italy and convince Reg to fake his death too.
Marlene doesn’t press when he turns down the tea. She settles down in the chair opposite him, turning it slightly so they’re not exactly facing each other. It’s a kindness he doesn’t deserve.
For a few minutes, they sit in silence. Sirius stares at the now-empty mug Dorcas left on the table. The handle’s chipped. There’s a faint smudge of lipstick on the rim.
"Don’t tell me you thought I'd stay celibate and pining forever," Marlene says eventually.
Sirius snorts. "I thought you didn’t want to risk the friendship."
"I didn’t," she says, picking at a tear in her jeans. "Then I realised we're in a war, one of us could die tomorrow, and my hesitance seemed so... small, in face of all of that."
"But if she'd said no—" Sirius says, because Marlene's knowledge of him doesn't go just one way.
"—then I'd be learning how to cast Obliviate right now," Marlene admits with a wry grin, and for a moment they are the Sirius-and-Marlene of a year ago (of many loops ago), in their last year at Hogwarts and so full of hope and camaraderie.
"She make you happy?" he asks, because apparently he does hate himself today.
"She lets me be happy," Marlene says.
And Sirius wants to laugh, or scream, or pull his heart out and drop it in the sink with the dishes. Because that’s it, isn’t it? That’s what they never had. They were two people playing tug-of-war with their own guilt, and now she’s free of it and he’s still tangled in the rope.
"I’m happy for you," Sirius says. It comes out too fast to be sincere, too clipped to be true.
Marlene doesn’t comment on it. "You sure?"
"No," Sirius says honestly, eyes still on the mug. "But I’m trying."
It earns him a quiet snort. A heartbeat of quiet. Then she says, like she’s easing into cold water, "You didn’t come here to talk about me."
"No," Sirius agrees, voice low. "Didn’t come here to talk at all, really."
"But you’re here."
"Yeah." He swallows. "Sorry about that."
"You were always terrible at knowing where you wanted to be," Marlene says, not unkindly. "Just good at knowing who you wanted to be there with."
Sirius makes a small, involuntary sound in his throat. Marlene doesn’t point it out. Instead, she says, "You know, I thought it would take a lot longer for you to talk to me again, after everything."
"It's been two months," Sirius says, gladly grabbing the distraction with both hands.
"Figured it'd take you six," Marlene says, "and a good talking to from at least two people."
Sirius lets out a breath. "Don’t give up hope. I might storm out in five minutes and make you wait the other four months."
Marlene doesn’t laugh, exactly. But her mouth twitches like it wants to. "S’pose that means I’ve got four minutes to guess what’s wrong."
"You won’t." His voice cracks a little, and he hates that. "You’d never guess."
"...It's not about me," Marlene says, sounding more resigned than Sirius had thought she would be. "Is it about Dorcas?"
"No and no," Sirius says. "I'm not that mad about all of it. Which, by the way, another reason you definitely did the right thing by ending it."
"Is it just that I've moved on?" Marlene asks.
Sirius snorts. "I'm not—" jealous, he wants to say, but that's not exactly true, is it? He is, horribly, a little jealous of how quickly Marlene seems to have moved on, how easy this seems for her, how nicely she's settled into domesticity. "That's not the issue," he settles for instead.
"Fine, I can't guess," Marlene says. "So what is?"
Sirius shakes his head. "Doesn’t matter. It’s not fixable."
"That never stopped you before."
Sirius laughs, short and mean. "Well. Maybe it should, this time."
"Sirius," Marlene says, in a stern, flat tone that used to turn him on and now just makes his stomach twist. "What is it?"
"With Dorcas," Sirius begins, and resolutely ignores how Marlene's eyes narrow as if he's just handed her a clue, "how did you handle it?"
Marlene doesn't speak right away. She leans back in her chair, arms crossed. "You mean the years of repressed longing or the horrifying panic when I realised I might actually get what I wanted?"
Sirius doesn’t laugh. He wants to, but the sound’s caught somewhere under his ribs.
"I mean," he says, "how did you deal with knowing it might not—wouldn’t—go anywhere? How did you even survive being around her all the time?"
Marlene raises a brow. "You planning on falling in love with someone inconvenient too?"
Sirius doesn't flinch. He doesn't. He just blinks slowly, like he’s tired.
"Oh," Marlene says. "Already done, then."
Sirius presses his thumbnail so hard into his palm it might bruise. "Might be a strong word."
"Is it?"
A pause. Sirius shrugs. A long, slow movement, like every muscle in his body is resisting the motion. "It doesn’t matter, does it? I can't do anything about it."
"That doesn’t mean it doesn’t matter," Marlene says gently.
Sirius doesn’t respond. The silence stretches.
"I just don’t get it," Marlene tries again, "You’re not the type to give up without setting the whole world on fire first."
"I can't do that, not here," Sirius says, and it's not a lie. He'd rather set himself on fire than ruin James' happiness. Sometimes Sirius feels like James is all light and he's all shadow, but then he thinks too much about it and the metaphor falls apart because light is blinding without darkness, but James is still James without Sirius while Sirius is nothing without James.
"Is it Reg?" she asks, uncertain. "You’ve always worried about him more than you let on—"
"It’s not Regulus."
She pauses. "Remus?"
Sirius finally looks up at her, and there’s something fractured in his expression. "That would be easier."
Marlene is quiet for a long moment. Then: "I don’t get it," she says softly. "You’ve said every reckless, ill-advised thing that’s ever crossed your mind—hell, you once told Moody to his face that his nose looked like a cursed potato."
Sirius huffs out something that might be a laugh. Or a sob. "It did."
"Point is," she continues, "you don’t scare easy. So why does this terrify you?"
Sirius looks away. His voice is low. "There's just— it's all too much. I don't know what to do with any of it and I don't exactly have long to figure it out and set myself straight."
Marlene shifts in her seat, suddenly wary. "Sirius," she says, like she’s afraid to say more, like she’s stepping onto ice she didn’t realize was thin.
"Marlene," Sirius says in response, and here he looks directly at her, because he knows she'll know and he wants to see exactly how ill-advised this is. "He's married."
His voice sounds far too forlorn and broken, instead of horrified and disgusted as it should be. Marlene leans back. "Not—"
Sirius sighs, and it's about as much of an agreement as Marlene will get.
"But—" Marlene begins, somehow confused by this, as if everything Sirius had ever done hadn't made it more than obvious what was going on. "Sirius," she says finally, her tone now drenched in sadness and pity.
"Do you get it now? Why I said it was unfixable?" Sirius says, sardonically, now looking away.
Marlene purses her lips, considering her words carefully. This is new too; Sirius can't remember the last time Marlene took so long to speak. "But you always joke about that," she says, finally. "I thought— well. That's just how you two were."
"So did I," Sirius says, feeling curiously vacant. It's as though telling someone, even if he never did say anything, has hollowed him out and sapped all his energy.
Marlene doesn’t say anything right away.
The quiet stretches long enough that Sirius glances up again, just in time to see her biting the inside of her cheek, gaze distant, like she’s replaying every moment they’ve ever talked about James and hearing it all different now.
When she finally does speak, her voice is barely a whisper, "Bloody hell."
Sirius shrugs again, like if he doesn’t acknowledge the weight of it, it might float away. "Yeah. That about covers it."
Marlene exhales, breath shaky, hands pressed to her face for a second before she drags them down. "I can’t believe I didn’t see it."
"You weren’t supposed to," Sirius says. "No one is."
"But I should have." Her voice is frustrated, sharp. "I used to date you."
"I know."
"I’ve seen you with him—the way you are—and I still didn’t clock it."
"I didn’t either." Sirius’s voice is thin. "And I was the idiot actually feeling it, so."
"Wait, when did you figure it out?"
"Two hours ago, give or take," Sirius says, slowly, trying to ignore how his mind replays James leaning forward, and Sirius—
"What changed?" she asks, and Sirius shrugs. For a realisation that's changed pretty much every important thing in his life, Sirius understands so very little about it, except that it shouldn't have happened.
"I don’t know," he says. "Nothing. Everything."
Marlene doesn’t speak.
"It wasn’t a moment," he continues, dragging his nail down the edge of the table. "It wasn’t some thunderbolt—I just looked at him today and I—" His voice wavers. "—wanted something."
He presses his palms flat against the table like he might steady himself, like this dingy wood could hold him together when nothing else will.
Marlene leans forward slightly. Her voice is quiet. "You don’t know he’d say no."
"Yes, I do."
"You don’t," Marlene says. "Your codependency and stupidity wasn't one-sided, Sirius. He was just as weird about you as you were about him."
"That's not comforting," Sirius says, for lack of anything else.
"I'm not trying to be comforting," Marlene says. "You should tell him."
"No!" Sirius rears back as though he's been slapped. "There's no world where that's even on the table, Marls, what the fuck."
"You and James are basically two halves of the same person," Marlene insists. "You don't know that he doesn't feel the same, Sirius."
"Weren't you the one who just said we're in a war?" Sirius demands. "I tell him, and either he feels guilty for not feeling the same, or he feels guilty for feeling the same. And then if something happens to him, or to me, or to Lily—"
Sirius cuts himself off. He’s breathing too fast. His voice is shaking.
Marlene doesn’t say anything at first. She just watches him, elbows on her knees, hands loosely clasped like she’s praying. "You’re right," Marlene says eventually, her voice low. "You tell him, and it changes things. For better or worse."
Sirius huffs out a breath. "Mostly worse."
"And you don’t tell him," she continues, watching him closely, "and it still changes things. You think this is sustainable?"
Sirius looks at her. His expression is blank, save for the brittle panic behind his eyes.
"You’re in love with him," she says, softly, like it’s a mercy to say it outright. "You think that’s something you can just keep swallowing down? Every time he smiles at you? Every time he touches your shoulder or asks you to babysit or sits too close without realising it?"
Sirius doesn’t answer.
Marlene leans back. "So, what then? You spend the rest of your life pretending you don’t feel it? Watching them grow old and playing uncle and godfather and best friend until you drop dead with all of this still locked in your chest?"
"What other choice is there?" Sirius asks, and there is genuine curiosity hidden somewhere beneath the hopelessness in his voice.
"I’m not saying he’d say yes," Marlene says. "I’m not even saying it would fix anything. But it might—" she hesitates, and the frustration drains from her voice. "It might let you breathe, Sirius."
"Not worth suffocating him to death," Sirius says immediately. Marlene closes her eyes.
"I can’t ask him for that," Sirius goes on, staring at the chipped mug again. "Not when he’s happy. Not when there’s a war. Not when—" He breaks off, swallowing hard. "If he said no, it would kill me. If he said yes, it might still."
Marlene doesn’t speak for a long time.
The silence stretches—longer than before, heavier, thick enough to choke on. It’s not awkward. It’s not tense. It just is.
Finally, she says, voice soft, "It'll pass."
"Will it? Or are you just hoping it will?"
"I’m not hoping for anything," Marlene says. "I’m just trying not to make you do something that’ll ruin three people I care about."
He nods once, tight, almost imperceptible. Then he stands up, dusts off imaginary lint, and says, "Well. I have a dinner to attend."