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The late afternoon sun filtered through the grimy curtains of Number Four, Privet Drive, casting long shadows across the sitting room where Sirius Black sat in his animagus form. As a large, shaggy black dog, he could observe without drawing suspicion—just another stray lurking in the neighborhood, watching the house where Harry Potter slept upstairs.
He had been here for three days now, rotating shifts with Moody and the others, ensuring the blood wards held and the Dursleys kept Harry safe. It was tedious work, mind-numbing in its routine, but necessary. And then, on the third afternoon, something changed.
The front door opened, and Petunia Dursley stepped out into the garden.
Sirius's ears perked up from where he lay concealed behind the hedge. He had seen her before, of course—at Lily's wedding, briefly, and then again at the funeral, though those memories were blurred by grief and rage. But now, watching her move through the flowerbeds with her pruning shears, he saw something he hadn't noticed before.
She had Lily's hands. The same long, elegant fingers, the same graceful way of handling delicate things. And when she turned her face toward the dying light, catching it just so, the resemblance struck him like a physical blow. The same cheekbones. The same curve of the jaw. Different eyes, yes—hard and pale where Lily's had been warm and green—but in that particular slant of light, with her hair pulled back in a severe bun, Petunia Evans Dursley looked startlingly like the sister she had spent her life resenting.
Sirius felt something stir in his chest that wasn't entirely grief. He shifted, his tail thumping once against the pavement before he stilled himself.
She was thinner than Lily had been, sharper in every way—her movements economical and precise, her mouth set in a permanent line of disapproval. But there was something about that severity that appealed to him, a challenge in those cold eyes. Where Lily had been warmth and laughter and open affection, Petunia was walls and barriers and secrets kept close to the chest.
He found himself rising, padding silently along the hedge until he was closer to where she worked. Close enough to see the sweat beading at her hairline, the way her cotton blouse clung to her back in the summer heat. She was forty, perhaps, or close to it, and time had carved lines into her face that Lily would never have—but her neck was still elegant, her wrists still fine-boned and delicate.
Petunia straightened suddenly, sensing something. Her eyes scanned the hedge, and for a moment they locked with his. Sirius held perfectly still, meeting her gaze with the solemn intelligence of his canine form. She didn't scream. Didn't call for Vernon. Instead, she stared back, something unreadable flickering across her features.
"You're a large one," she said finally, her voice surprisingly soft. Not the shrill tone she used with Harry or the obsequious simper she employed with neighbors. Just... quiet. "Filthy, I expect. Covered in fleas."
Sirius tilted his head, maintaining eye contact. He saw her hand twitch toward him, almost involuntarily, before she snatched it back.
"I don't suppose you'd let me touch you," she continued, and there was something aching in her voice now, something that made Sirius's chest tighten. "You're black. She liked black creatures. Said they were misunderstood. Said they needed love more than the pretty ones."
She meant Snape, he realized. She meant the boy from Spinner's End who had haunted their childhood, who had loved Lily and hated her sister. The thought that Petunia Evans—this bitter, narrow woman with her obsession with normalcy—would reach out to a stray because of her dead sister's words struck Sirius with unexpected force.
He stepped forward, just one paw, and let her see him properly. Let her see that he wasn't threatening, that he was something more than a mongrel.
Petunia's breath caught. She looked at him—really looked—and he saw the moment she recognized something unusual. The intelligence in his eyes, perhaps. The deliberate way he held himself.
"You're not a normal dog," she whispered.
Sirius considered transforming. Considered standing up in the garden and introducing himself, explaining that he was here to protect her nephew, that he had loved her sister, that he saw Lily in her face and it was breaking his heart. But the Statute of Secrecy held him silent, and besides, there was something intimate about this moment that he didn't want to shatter with explanations.
Instead, he moved closer, close enough that she could touch him if she wanted. Close enough to smell her perfume—something cheap and floral, lavender and soap—and the faint trace of vanilla that clung to her skin.
Petunia hesitated for a long moment, her hand hovering in the air between them. Then, slowly, she reached out and buried her fingers in the fur at his neck.
Her touch was tentative at first, then firmer as he didn't pull away. She scratched behind his ears the way Lily used to, and Sirius felt his eyes slide half-closed at the sensation, at the bittersweet familiarity of it.
"You have her eyes," Petunia said quietly, and Sirius's heart stopped. "I know that sounds mad. You're a dog. But there's something... she used to look at me like that. When we were girls. Before everything."
Sirius leaned into her touch, pressing his weight against her leg, and felt her steady herself against him. For a long moment they stood there in the garden, the Muggle woman and the wizard in disguise, connected by the ghost of a girl they had both loved in different ways.
"I miss her," Petunia whispered, so quietly he almost didn't hear. "I miss her every day. I was horrible to her. I was horrible because she was special and I wasn't, and now she's gone and I can never tell her..."
She broke off, her hand still tangled in his fur, and Sirius felt something wet drop onto his head. A tear. Then another.
He shifted then, just slightly, pressing his nose against her wrist in what he hoped was a comforting gesture. Petunia startled, then laughed—a wet, broken sound—and knelt down in the dirt beside him, heedless of her slacks.
"You're a strange creature," she said, looking into his eyes with something like wonder. "I don't suppose you'd let me hold you. Just for a moment. Just..."
Sirius didn't move as she wrapped her arms around his neck and buried her face in his fur. He stood very still, feeling her shoulders shake with suppressed sobs, feeling the heat of her body against his, the press of her breasts against his back, the way her breath came in ragged gasps against his ear.
He shouldn't be enjoying this. He knew he shouldn't. She was grieving for her sister, and he was taking advantage of a moment of vulnerability, cataloging the softness of her body, the way her hands gripped him like a lifeline. But Merlin help him, it had been so long since anyone had touched him with anything but suspicion or fear. So long since he had been close to another human being without the weight of Azkaban hanging over him.
And she felt like Lily. Not exactly—thinner, sharper, smelling of Muggle soap rather than magic—but enough like her that Sirius could almost pretend, just for this moment, that he was home again, that the war hadn't taken everything from him, that he was still the boy who had laughed with the Evans sisters in the garden at Godric's Hollow.
Petunia pulled back eventually, wiping her eyes with the back of her hand, leaving smudges of dirt on her cheeks. She looked at him with something like gratitude, like he had given her a gift.
"Thank you," she said simply. "I needed that."
She stood, brushing off her knees, and glanced back at the house where Harry slept. "I should check on the boy. He's... he's a good boy. Despite everything. Despite how I treat him. He has her eyes too, you know. Her eyes."
Sirius watched her go, watched the sway of her hips as she walked back to the house, the set of her shoulders that suggested she was putting her armor back on, piece by piece. He would see her again, he knew. Would watch her from the hedge, would memorize the lines of her body, would wonder what it would be like to touch her as a man rather than a dog.
Because that was the dangerous thing, he realized as the door closed behind her. He wanted to. Despite everything—despite her cruelty to Harry, her bitterness, her small-mindedness—he wanted to walk up to that door in his human form and knock, wanted to see her face when she recognized him, wanted to push past her shock and take her against the hallway wall where her ridiculous cat pictures hung.
He wanted to make her forget her husband, forget her resentment, forget everything but the way he could make her feel. Wanted to trace those cheekbones with his fingers and pretend, just for a night, that he was touching Lily's ghost.
Sirius settled back down behind the hedge, his tail thumping once against the pavement. He would be here for two more days. Two more days to watch her, to imagine, to plan.
And then, perhaps, he would find a reason to return.
xxx
The Dursley males had taken Dudley to London for some ridiculous competition—smelling a cheese or some such Muggle absurdity—and Harry was safely stashed at the Weasleys for the weekend. Sirius knew this because he had watched the car pull away that morning, had seen Petunia waving them off with that tight, anxious expression she always wore when her precious family left her behind.
She had stayed home to tend the garden. To water her hydrangeas and fuss over her roses. Alone in that sterile house with its locked cupboards and its photographs of normalcy.
Sirius had watched from the hedge until the car disappeared around the corner, then he had transformed. Stood naked in the suburban street for a moment, feeling the sun on his skin, before pulling on the clothes he'd stashed there days ago—tight jeans, a worn leather jacket, nothing underneath. He wanted to feel everything.
He knocked on the door at half past four, when the light was turning golden and the neighborhood was quiet. He heard her footsteps approach, the hesitation, the peephole darkening as she checked who was there.
The door opened a crack. Petunia's pale eye appeared, then widened.
"You're the dog," she breathed.
Sirius smiled, slow and dangerous. "I'm also the man who's been watching your house for a week, Mrs. Dursley. May I come in? We need to talk about your nephew. And your sister."
She should have slammed the door. Should have screamed, called the police, fetched her husband's shotgun from the closet. Instead, she stared at him—at his wild black hair, his gray eyes, the sharp angles of his face that were so unmistakably wizarding—and she opened the door wider.
"You knew Lily," she said. It wasn't a question.
"I loved her," Sirius corrected, stepping across the threshold into her pristine hallway. "I loved her since I was eleven years old. She was my best friend. My family when my real family tried to destroy me."
Petunia's hand fluttered to her throat. She was wearing a floral dress, something modest that buttoned up to her collarbone, but Sirius could see the pulse hammering there, frantic and birdlike. "You're one of them. One of those... freaks."
"Yes," he said, moving closer, crowding her against the wall where those ridiculous cat pictures hung. "I'm a freak. A wizard. An escaped convict, actually, though I was innocent. And I've been watching you, Petunia. Watching you water your flowers. Watching you touch yourself when you think no one can see through the kitchen window."
Her face went scarlet. "I never—"
"Yesterday morning," Sirius continued, his voice dropping to a register that made her shiver. "You wore that blue dressing gown. You stood at the sink with your hand between your legs, thinking about something that made you bite your lip. Took you three minutes to finish. I counted."
Petunia made a sound like a wounded animal, humiliation and something else—something darker—warring in her expression. "Get out. Get out of my house."
"Make me," Sirius challenged, and then he kissed her.
It was brutal, the way he took her mouth. No gentleness, no courtship—just the collision of teeth and tongue and years of loneliness. Petunia stiffened against him, her hands coming up to push at his chest, but Sirius caught her wrists and pinned them above her head against the cat-branded wallpaper, grinding his hips against hers so she could feel exactly what she did to him.
She tasted like tea and lemon and regret. Like a woman who had spent her whole life wanting things she couldn't name and punishing the world for her own inadequacy.
When he finally let her breathe, she was panting, her lipstick smeared, her eyes glassy with shock. "This is... this is wrong," she whispered, but she didn't push him away. Her hips had tilted toward him, instinct seeking friction.
"Why?" Sirius growled against her neck, finding the pulse point with his tongue, sucking hard enough to leave a mark. "Because you're married? Because I'm a wizard? Because I'm younger than you?"
"All of those things," she gasped, her head falling back against the wall, exposing the line of her throat. Her hands were still trapped in his grip, but she wasn't struggling anymore. Her fingers had curled inward, nails digging into his palms.
"And yet you're not telling me to stop," Sirius observed, releasing one wrist to trace down her side, over the swell of her breast, the curve of her hip. He found the hem of her dress and shoved his hand underneath, groaning when he encountered bare skin above her stockings. "No knickers, Petunia? Were you hoping someone would catch you? Hoping that stray dog would transform and fuck you against your own front door?"
"Don't be disgusting," she hissed, but her thighs parted for him, welcoming his hand as it slid upward, found her wet and wanting and so fucking ready.
Sirius laughed, a dark, broken sound. "You're soaked. Absolutely dripping for me. For your sister's world. For the magic you pretended to hate."
He pushed two fingers inside her without warning, and Petunia cried out, her body arching off the wall. She was tight, hotter than he expected, gripping his fingers with desperate strength. Sirius worked her roughly, curling his digits to find the spot that made her legs shake, watching her face transform from prim disapproval to raw, ugly need.
"Look at you," he taunted, his thumb finding her clit, circling with merciless precision. "Mrs. Petunia Dursley, upstanding member of the community, spreading her legs for a criminal in her hallway. What would the neighbors say? What would Vernon say?"
"Shut up," she moaned, her free hand clutching at his shoulder, pulling him closer. "Just... just shut up and..."
"And what? Fuck you? Is that what you want, Petunia? You want me to bend you over that console table and shag you until you can't remember your own name?"
"Yes," she sobbed, and the admission seemed to break something in her, some final restraint. She reached for his jeans, fumbling with the button, her hands shaking. "Yes, I want... I want you to..."
Sirius helped her, shoving his jeans down his hips, freeing his cock—hard and heavy and aching for her. He lifted her then, hands under her thighs, pinning her against the wall with her legs wrapped around his waist. The position rucked her dress up around her hips, left her completely exposed to him, open and vulnerable.
He didn't wait. Didn't tease. He aligned himself and thrust home in one brutal stroke, burying himself to the hilt inside her welcoming heat.
Petunia screamed. Actually screamed, her nails raking down his back through the leather jacket, her head knocking against the wall hard enough to send a cat picture swinging. She was tight around him, impossibly tight, her body adjusting to his invasion with shuddering breaths.
"Fuck," Sirius groaned, his forehead dropping to her shoulder. "Fuck, Petunia, you feel..."
"Move," she demanded, her voice ragged. "Don't just stand there, you bastard. Move."
He moved. Pounded into her with the desperation of a man who had spent twelve years in hell and needed to feel alive again. The console table rattled with the force of his thrusts, a ceramic figurine toppling over and shattering on the floor. Neither of them cared. Petunia met him stroke for stroke, her hips rolling to take him deeper, her heels digging into his lower back to urge him on.
She was making sounds he had never expected from her—high, keening noises that didn't match her severe face, her pinched expression. She clutched at him like she was drowning, like he was the only solid thing in a world that had always disappointed her.
Sirius shifted his angle, grinding against her with each thrust, and Petunia's eyes flew wide. "There," she gasped. "Right there, don't stop, don't you dare stop—"
"Not stopping," he promised, his voice strained. "Going to fuck you until you forget him. Until you forget everything but this. My cock. My magic. Me."
He reached between them, found her clit again, rubbed it in tight circles as he drove into her. Petunia came with a wail that sounded like surrender, like grief, like relief. Her body clamped down on him, milking him, and Sirius followed her over the edge with a shout that echoed through the empty house, spilling inside her with hot, desperate pulses.
They stayed like that for a long moment, joined and trembling, the only sound their ragged breathing. Sirius could feel her heart hammering against his chest, could smell sex and sweat and the faint trace of her cheap perfume.
Slowly, carefully, he lowered her to the ground, steadying her when her legs buckled. Her dress was ruined, wrinkled and shoved up indecently, her hair coming loose from its bun. She looked nothing like the prim housewife who had opened the door. She looked like a woman who had been thoroughly, completely claimed.
Sirius tucked himself back into his jeans, watching her adjust her clothing with shaking hands. "That was..."
"Don't," Petunia said sharply, not looking at him. "Don't say anything. Don't pretend this was something it wasn't."
"It was exactly what it was," Sirius replied, catching her chin and forcing her to meet his eyes. "You wanted to know what she had. What you could never have. Now you know."
Petunia's lip trembled. For a moment, he thought she might cry. Then she straightened her spine, that familiar hardness settling back into her features. "Get out. And don't come back."
Sirius smiled, leaning in to press a final, soft kiss to her cheek. "I'll be watching, Petunia. I'm always watching."
He left her standing in the hallway, surrounded by broken porcelain and the smell of sex, her hand pressed to her mouth like she could still taste him there.
xxx
Three days had passed since the hallway, since the broken figurine and the desperate coupling against her cat pictures. Sirius had expected her to pretend it never happened—to scrub the memory away with bleach and righteous indignation, to glare at him from windows and clutch her telephone like a weapon.
Instead, when he appeared at her back garden gate on the fourth evening, transformed and waiting, she had simply looked at him for a long moment, then unlatched the lock.
"You came back," she said. Not an accusation. Almost... hopeful.
Sirius shifted, rising to his full height in the shadows of her hydrangea bushes. He was wearing clothes this time—proper clothes, a clean shirt and trousers, his hair tied back in a way that made him look less feral. He had told himself he was only checking on Harry. That he would stay in animagus form, observe from the hedge, leave before she noticed.
But her car had been gone all afternoon. Vernon and Dudley at some function. Harry at the Weasleys. And Sirius had found himself walking up the garden path, his heart hammering against his ribs like a caged thing.
"I couldn't stop thinking about you," he said, the honesty surprising them both.
Petunia's hand tightened on the gate. She was wearing a different dress tonight—navy blue, softer than her usual florals, with buttons that actually fastened. Her hair was down, brushing her shoulders in a way that made her look younger, less severe. More like Lily.
"That's not..." She stopped, swallowed. "That's not possible. You don't know me. What we did was... it was a mistake. A moment of weakness."
"Was it?" Sirius asked, stepping closer, close enough to smell her perfume—something warmer tonight, vanilla and amber. "Because I've been remembering the way you tasted. The sounds you made. The way you looked at me afterward like you wanted to do it again just as much as you wanted to forget it."
Her breath hitched. She didn't step back. "You're dangerous. You're wanted by the police. By your own people."
"Yes," he agreed. "But I'm not dangerous to you, Petunia. I could never be dangerous to you."
She laughed, a brittle sound. "You don't know that. You don't know what I'm capable of. What I've done."
"I know you took in a child you hated because it was your sister's last wish. I know you protect him even though every instinct in your body tells you to fear what he represents. I know you're stronger than anyone gives you credit for." Sirius reached out, slowly, giving her every chance to pull away, and brushed a strand of hair from her face. "I know that when you came apart around me, you weren't thinking about Lily. You were just... you. Petunia. And you were beautiful."
Her eyes filled with tears. She didn't let them fall. "I spent my whole life being second best. Second to her. Second to her magic. Second to her perfect little family and her perfect little death." She caught his wrist, her grip surprisingly strong. "I won't be second best in my own bed, Sirius Black. If you want me, you want me. Not her ghost. Not some pale imitation of the sister you lost."
Sirius turned his hand, catching her fingers in his. "I know exactly who you are. I watched you for days before I ever touched you. I saw you argue with the postman about a missing package. I saw you cry in your kitchen when you thought no one was watching. I saw you stand between Harry and your husband when Vernon got too loud." He squeezed her hand. "I don't want Lily's ghost, Petunia. I want the woman who looked at me like I was the answer to a question she was afraid to ask."
She stared at him for a long moment, searching his face for deception. Whatever she found there must have satisfied her, because she nodded once, sharply, and stepped aside.
"Come in, then. The neighbors will talk if they see me entertaining a strange man in the garden."
Siriis followed her into the house, closing the door softly behind him. The hallway was different now—the broken figurine replaced, the wallpaper scrubbed clean, no trace of their earlier violence remaining. But Sirius could still smell it, could still feel the memory of her against the wall, and his body responded immediately, heat pooling low in his stomach.
Petunia noticed. Her eyes dropped to the obvious bulge in his trousers, then lifted back to his face with a raised eyebrow that was almost amused. "Already? We haven't even had tea."
"I've been hard for three days," Sirius admitted, shameless. "Since I walked away from you here. I can't stop thinking about what you felt like. How you moved. The way you said my name."
"I didn't say your name," she protested, but her cheeks were flushing, that telltale pink spreading down her neck.
"You did," he insisted, stepping closer, crowding her without trapping her. "Right at the end. When you were falling apart. You said 'Sirius' like a prayer. Like you were asking me for something."
"I was asking you to stop talking," she said, but she was smiling now, just barely, the corner of her mouth twitching upward.
"Liar," he breathed, and kissed her.
It was different from the hallway. Softer, slower, a question rather than a demand. Sirius cradled her face in his hands, tilting her head to fit them together better, and Petunia melted into it with a sigh that sounded like relief. Like she had been waiting for this, anticipating it, dreading it and wanting it in equal measure.
Her hands came up to rest on his chest, not pushing away but not pulling him closer either—just touching, feeling his heartbeat through the fabric of his shirt. Sirius took his time, learning the shape of her mouth, the way she liked to be kissed—teasing nips at her lower lip, deep sweeps of his tongue, gentle suction that made her whimper and press closer.
When they finally broke apart, they were both breathing hard. Petunia's hands had migrated to his shoulders, her fingers digging into the muscle there, and Sirius had one arm wrapped around her waist, holding her flush against him.
"Bedroom?" he asked, his voice rough.
Petunia shook her head. "Can't. The sheets are... Vernon will notice. He notices everything." She bit her lip, considering. "The sitting room. There's a sofa. And we can lock the door."
Sirius nodded, following her down the hallway, watching the sway of her hips, the way her hand trembled slightly as she turned the key in the lock. The sitting room was exactly as he remembered from his days watching the house—overstuffed furniture, lace doilies, photographs of Dudley covering every surface. It should have been ridiculous, should have killed any desire, but when Petunia turned to face him in the center of the room, the lamplight catching the curve of her cheek, Sirius felt nothing but want.
"Come here," she said, and he went.
This time, she initiated the kiss, rising on her toes to meet his mouth, her hands sliding up into his hair, undoing the tie so it fell around his shoulders. Sirius groaned, gathering her closer, feeling the soft press of her breasts against his chest, the way she fit against him like she had been made for this, for him.
"Tell me what you want," he murmured against her jaw, trailing kisses down her throat. "Tell me how to touch you, Petunia. I want to make this good for you. Better than before."
She laughed, breathless, her head falling back to give him access. "It was already good. I haven't been able to think about anything else."
"Then let me improve on the memory." Sirius found the buttons of her dress, undoing them slowly, watching her face for any sign of hesitation. There was none—only anticipation, her eyes dark and heavy-lidded as he revealed her skin inch by inch.
The dress fell open, and Sirius pushed it off her shoulders, letting it pool at her feet. She was wearing a slip underneath, silk and lace in a cream color that made her skin look like porcelain. He traced the strap with one finger, watching her shiver, then hooked it and slid it down her arm.
"You're stunning," he said, meaning it. She wasn't young—there were lines on her face, softness at her belly, stretch marks on her thighs from carrying Dudley—but she was real. Present. Alive in a way that made his chest ache. "Absolutely stunning."
"Stop talking," she whispered, but she was smiling, her hands working at his shirt buttons with clumsy urgency. "I want to see you. All of you."
Sirius helped her, shrugging out of his shirt, toeing off his shoes. When he reached for his trousers, she stopped him, her hand covering his.
"Let me," she said, and the vulnerability in her voice made him pause.
He dropped his hands to his sides, letting her take the lead. Petunia knelt slowly, her fingers working his belt, his button, his zip. She pulled the fabric down, taking his underwear with it, and Sirius stepped out of the pooled clothing, standing naked before her while she remained in her silk slip.
She looked at him for a long moment, her gaze traveling over his body—the scars from Azkaban, the lean muscle, the evidence of his desire standing hard and heavy between them. Then she leaned forward and pressed a kiss to his hipbone, her breath hot against his skin.
Sirius made a sound like a wounded animal, his hands coming up to bury themselves in her hair. "Petunia..."
"I want to taste you," she said, looking up at him with those pale eyes, so different from Lily's and yet somehow just as captivating. "I've never... I mean, Vernon never wanted..."
"I want," Sirius assured her, his voice strained. "Merlin, Petunia, I want everything you're willing to give."
She took him into her mouth then, slowly, carefully, her tongue exploring the shape of him with curious thoroughness. Sirius's knees nearly buckled, his grip tightening in her hair as he fought to stay still, to let her set the pace. She was inexpert but enthusiastic, her hands braced against his thighs, her mouth hot and wet and perfect.
"Stop," he gasped after a few moments, pulling her back gently. "Stop, or I'm going to finish before we even get to the good part."
Petunia looked up at him, her lips swollen and shiny, and Sirius nearly lost his resolve right there. But he wanted more. Wanted to be inside her, wanted to feel her come apart around him, wanted to watch her face as she found her pleasure.
He pulled her up, guiding her to the sofa, arranging her on the cushions with her slip still on, the silk riding up her thighs. "Leave it on," he said when she reached to remove it. "I like the way you look in it. Like a present I get to unwrap."
She laughed, the sound lighter than he had ever heard from her, and opened her arms to him. "Come here, then. Unwrap me."
Sirius settled between her thighs, pushing the silk higher, baring her to his gaze. She was wet for him, glistening in the lamplight, and he touched her gently, reverently, learning what she liked—soft circles around her clit, gentle pressure, two fingers sliding deep and curling just so.
"Yes," she breathed, her hips rolling to meet his hand. "Just like that. Don't stop."
"I won't," he promised, working her with his fingers while he kissed his way up her body, pushing the silk aside to reveal her breasts. They were small, soft, with pink nipples that tightened under his tongue. He sucked one into his mouth, flicking it with his tongue, and Petunia cried out, her hands clutching at his shoulders.
"Sirius, please," she begged, and he loved the sound of it, loved that she was asking, that she wanted this as much as he did. "I need you inside me. Please."
He positioned himself at her entrance, looking down at her face, making sure she was with him, present and willing. She nodded, her eyes bright, her hands guiding his hips.
"Now," she whispered. "Slowly. I want to feel every inch."
Sirius pushed into her with agonizing slowness, watching her face transform as he filled her, her eyes fluttering shut, her mouth falling open in a silent gasp. She was tight, hot, perfect around him, and he had to stop when he was fully seated, had to breathe through the urge to move, to take, to claim.
"You're beautiful," he told her, meaning it with every fiber of his being. "So beautiful, Petunia. So perfect."
She opened her eyes, tears shimmering there, and pulled him down for a kiss. "Move," she urged against his mouth. "Make love to me, Sirius. Please."
He moved. Slowly at first, finding a rhythm that made her gasp and clutch at him, then faster as she urged him on, her legs wrapping around his waist, her heels digging into his lower back. The sofa creaked beneath them, the cushions shifting with their movements, but Sirius didn't care about the noise, about the neighbors, about anything except the woman beneath him and the way she was falling apart.
"Touch yourself," he gasped, shifting his weight to one arm so he could watch her. "I want to see you come apart. Want to feel you squeeze me."
Petunia's hand slipped between them, her fingers finding her clit, rubbing in tight circles that made her breath hitch and her hips stutter. Sirius watched her face, watched the pleasure build, the tension coiling tighter and tighter until she broke with a cry that sounded like his name, her body clamping down on him, milking him, pulling him toward his own release.
He followed her over the edge, burying himself deep and spilling inside her with a groan that seemed to come from his very soul. For a long moment, they stayed like that, joined and trembling, the only sound their ragged breathing and the tick of the mantel clock.
Sirius collapsed carefully to the side, gathering her against him, arranging them on the narrow sofa with her back pressed to his chest. He could feel her heartbeat slowing, her breath evening out, and he pressed a kiss to her damp temple.
"Stay," she said softly, her voice barely audible.
Sirius stilled. "What?"
"Stay," she repeated, turning in his arms to face him. Her eyes were serious, vulnerable, nothing hidden. "For a while. The night, maybe. Vernon won't be back until tomorrow afternoon. We could... we could have breakfast. Talk. Whatever comes after this."
Sirius stared at her, something warm and terrifying unfurling in his chest. "You want me to stay?"
"I want..." She stopped, swallowed, tried again. "I want to know what it feels like to wake up next to someone who looks at me like I matter. Just once. Even if it's not real. Even if tomorrow you have to leave and pretend this never happened."
Sirius cupped her face in his hands, his thumbs brushing over her cheekbones. "It's real," he said fiercely. "This is real, Petunia. I don't know what it means, or what happens next, but this—us, right now—is the most real thing I've felt in years."
She smiled, small and tremulous, and nestled closer against him. "Then stay."
Sirius wrapped his arms around her, burying his face in her hair, smelling vanilla and sex and the faint trace of garden soil. "I'll stay," he promised. "For as long as you'll have me."
Outside, the street was quiet, the neighborhood sleeping, the world turning on without them. But in the sitting room of Number Four, Privet Drive, two broken people held each other close and pretended, just for one night, that they were whole.
Epilogue
Nine months later, in a private room at St. Mungo's that Sirius had secured with more gold than discretion, Petunia Dursley gave birth to a screaming, red-faced, perfect little girl.
She had told Vernon it was a late baby, a miracle, something to explain the swelling that had become impossible to hide. He had believed her, or pretended to—desperate for another child, for proof of his virility, for something to replace the disappointment Dudley had become. He had never questioned the timing, never looked too closely at the way his wife smiled to herself in the mirror, her hand resting on a belly that carried another man's child.
But here, in the magical hospital where Muggles never came, there was no pretense. Sirius held her hand through the labor, his fingers white-knuckled in her grip, his voice low and steady as he coached her through the pain. He had been there for every appointment, every scan, every moment when the Healers confirmed what they both knew—that this child was his, black hair already visible on the ultrasound, magic already sparking in her tiny veins.
"One more push," the Healer said, and Petunia bore down with everything she had, screaming Sirius's name this time not in pleasure but in effort, in agony, in the overwhelming work of bringing their daughter into the world.
And then—silence. A wet, indignant cry. The Healer lifted the baby, pink and furious and beautiful, and placed her on Petunia's chest.
"She has your eyes," Petunia whispered, her voice raw, her hand trembling as she touched the downy dark hair. "Oh, Sirius. She has your eyes."
Sirius couldn't speak. He was crying, he realized, great silent tears tracking down his face as he looked at the miracle they had made together. A daughter. His daughter. Something good and whole and alive, born from the ashes of everything they had lost.
"What's her name?" the Healer asked gently.
Petunia looked up at him, her face exhausted and radiant and absolutely certain. "Lily," she said. "Lily Evans Dursley. But we'll call her Lila."
Sirius's breath caught. "Are you sure? After everything..."
"She was my sister," Petunia said softly, her thumb tracing their daughter's cheek. "And she was yours. And this little girl will know both of us. Both worlds. She'll be everything we couldn't be."
Sirius leaned down, kissing his daughter's forehead, then Petunia's lips, tasting salt and joy and the future unfolding before them. "Hello, Lila," he murmured. "Welcome to the world."
Outside, the war raged on. Voldemort hunted. Harry grew older, unaware that he had a cousin, a secret, a tether to the family he had lost. Vernon Dursley waited at Privet Drive, preparing a nursery for a child that was not his.
But in that small room at St. Mungo's, three people became a family—imperfect, impossible, hidden in shadows and lies, but real. Undeniably, irrevocably real.
And when Lila opened her eyes—gray as storm clouds, sharp and clever and full of magic—she looked first at her mother, then at her father, and she smiled.