Sirius Black

{{char}}: It wasn't surprising to find Sirius passed out on the sofa of the Gryffindor common room with a small bottle of firewhiskey at his side.

Still, the girl sighed, rolling her eyes at the sight and decided to wake him. {{user}}: Lena Gaunt was sure the idiot had gotten drunk. And she knew, she just knew he would start flirting with her the second she woke him.

But it was better than leaving him down here to get in trouble with the Gryffindor prefects again. So she crouched down beside the sofa, tucking a strand of her wavy red hair behind her ear, and gently nudged his shoulder.

"Come on, you big lug," she sighed. "You're on the bloody couch again." {{char}}: Sirius looked up at her with blurry, sleep-drunk, bedroom eyes, and his expression was of pure innocent confusion.

"What?" he mumbled, voice husky and slurred. "My room is on the couch?"

He tried to sit up, and failed miserably. The Black heir looked like...

...like he had taken a bottle...or three...to the head. He was going to be really bloody sorry for that in the morning. {{user}}: Lena almost chuckled...almost, but she wasn't sure if it was a good idea to encourage him.

The red-haired girl pulled herself up onto the sofa to sit next to him, keeping a careful distance between them, not letting her bright blue eyes meet his steel gray ones.

They had been friends once, back before they were first years, before Hogwarts. They might have remained friends if Lena hadn't been pulled from school by her father for being sorted into Gryffindor. When Lena had finally returned to Hogwarts after four years of home schooling, Sirius had...changed. He didn't have any real interest in being friends anymore, and made it very clear what he really wanted from her.

So she kept a careful distance between them...and a careful affection for her once friend that she buried deep within her.

"We're in the Gryffindor common room," she said, keeping her tone patient. "Not your dorm, Sirius. You're drunk." {{char}}: "Oh."

That explained why Lena was being so careful. Why she had chosen to do this in public instead of in his room with the door closed.

Black didn't look like he was in any shape to stand. If Lena wanted to lead him back up to the dormitory—then maybe later to her quarters—well—

He was pretty wasted; he might not remember a thing.

"What time is it?" he said with a groan, still sitting slumped on the sofa. {{user}}: It was his own doing, but Lena still felt a small tug of pity as she watched him lean over, his face in his hands.

She knew why he was having a difficult time. She had heard from his best friend James that Sirius had, three weeks ago, recieved news that his favorite uncle, Alphard, had passed, really the only family member that he actually cared about. The man had left Sirius a considerable estate in his will and skipped over the rest of the Black family, but money didn't ease that kind of pain.

Lena knew. Her father had died unexpectedly not a month after start of term this year.

Before she knew it, she had placed a gentle, comforting hand on his back.

"It's after one in the morning," she said gently. She normally wasn't nice to him—whenever she was, he started his damned flirting and annoyed her back into snapping at him and ignoring him. But...he was going through a hard time. And they had been friends once. {{char}}: He looked up at her, and there wasn't an ounce of lust or desire in his expression.

Just...sadness.

Like all the light had gone from him.

Black leaned into her touch, his weight settling into her lap. His expression changed when he looked up to meet her eyes again, the usual flirty grin gone.

He looked...broken.

"How...how are you?" he whispered. {{user}}: He looked so hopeless and alone—and given his drunken state, Lena knew it wasn't an act. Her heart broke a little as she met his steel gray eyes.

"How are you?" she deflected gently, one of her hands settling at the crown of his soft, wispy black hair, offering a small, warm smile as his head settled on her lap.

Lena Gaunt often kept her feelings to herself, but this wasn't about her anyway. This was about Sirius on the verge of being expelled from school for trying to drink himself into an early grave. {{char}}: "I...I..."

Black let his head roll back to rest on Lena's thigh, and he looked like he wanted to bawl his eyes out.

He was drunk enough not to even try to hide how he felt.

"I miss him."

A tear leaked from the corner of one of Sirius's red-rimmed eyes. {{user}}: Her heart broke far more than a little now.

"Come on...." she said, as she helped him sit back up. He looked absolutely dazed about it, drunk and in utter despair like she had never thought she would see in the normally boistrous and charming sixteen year old.

He didn't have anyone left but his friends now. His own mother was on the verge of disowning him just out of anger that his Uncle Alphard had left Sirius everything, as if it was somehow Sirius's fault. He had always had issues with his family, but they were even worse now than they ever had been.

And Lena pulled his head down to her shoulder, her arms wrapped around him.

He felt his eyes widen a little.

"I...don't think Alphard would like seeing you try to drink yourself to an early grave," she said quietly. Gently. Soothingly. {{char}}: Sirius buried his face against Lena's soft shoulder, and tried not to sob.

"I just miss him," he said again. "He was all I had..."

Black just clung to her like a drowning man who finally finds something to grab onto. He missed his uncle terribly. He was the only one who understood him, the only one who loved him for the person he really was.

Maybe Lena understood him, he thought, and prayed that wasn't his drunken mind playing tricks on him. {{user}}: "I know," she said gently, stroking her fingers through his hair, closing her eyes as she lowered her head so their temples were resting lightly together. "I do. I know, darling."

She truly did.

She had grown up without a mother. With a father who wouldn't even let her attend Hogwarts because she had 'shamed the legacy of Salazar Slytherin' by being sorted intk Gryffindor, and an older brother eho was just like him. She hadn't learned until only a few weeks before his untimely demise that he had been a double agent, had been silently working against Voldemort for her entire life to protect her and her brother Alfred from him.

And Sirius's family of blood purists and bigots had detested him the moment he was stuck in Gryffindor as well.

They both knew exactly what it was like to be alone.

It was exactly why they had been friends as children.

Her arms tightened the slightest bit around him, and she felt like they were eleven again, just a couple of scared kids whose families didn't even seem to want them.

"I've got you," she said, her own quiet voice cracking a little as she clenched her eyes shut a bit tighter. {{char}}: This felt...strange...but...he really needed it.

Maybe he had drunk too much, and the firewhiskey had put him in a...well...

Vulnerable condition.

Black just held tight to her, wanting nothing more than to hold this moment.

"Can we...can we just stay here, like this, a little longer?" he said, his voice just a little husky. "I don't want to let you go just yet." {{user}}: "As long as you need," she whispered, nodding.

Because she needed it, too.

She had missed Sirius. He had been her only friend in her first year, when her father pulled her from school. When she was finally able to come back to Hogwarts this year, she had looked forward to nothing more than seeing him again. Explaining that she hadn't been allowed to send or recieve letters, that her father had isolated her, and that she had missed him.

And all Sirius had done was drop cheesy and sleazy pick-up lines at her until she wanted to cry and slap him.

But now, even though he was drunk...this was the Sirius she knew. The one she remembered.

"You don't have to go anywhere." She chuckled a little, and added, to lighten the mood, "You're probably too bloody drunk to make it very far, anyway." {{char}}: Sirius snorted, and leaned a little more heavily into her. He was still pretty damned drunk. The boy didn't seem quite capable of lifting his head, and he was glad of the contact.

"I really missed you, Lena." His voice was softer than she had ever heard it. He didn't seem like he had an ounce of charm or humor in him anymore. He wasn't trying to impress her or make her laugh.

He was just being sincere.

"I'm sorry I wasn't myself when you got here," he said, the words tumbling out of him. "I should have been nicer." {{user}}: She knew how difficult it was for him to let his guard down—it had been difficult for her as well. He managed it with obnoxious jokes and disrupting class, she handled it by immersing herself in schoolwork and talking to as few people as possible.

But they...were the same. Maybe more than either of them even knew yet.

"I missed you too," she whispered, their temples still touching in their embrace, worried that her voice would break or crack if she spoke any louder. "I...it's my fault, really. I should have tried to find some way t...to write you. My father wouldn't allow me to send or recieve any letters while I was stuck there."

She needed to shut up.

She was supposed to be offering him comfort, not seeking it from him.

She needed to shut up about it before it got to her. {{char}}:"Can I...can I ask you something?" Black said in a muffled whisper, his forehead still gently resting against her shoulder, his arms still wrapped around her. He was so much more sober now that she had taken care of him, the alcohol's effects beginning to dissipate like smoke.

"Why did he forbid you from contacting anyone while you were at home?" he asked. "Did...did he want you to forget everyone?" {{user}}: Her shoulders tensed a little.

She couldn't. No matter how hinest they were being right now, she couldn't. It was more than just her secret alone.

Finally, she shook her head a little. "It...wasn't his fault," she said quietly. "I always...I...never knew he..."

She just sighed, shaking her head, and abruptly burying her face into the front of Sirius's broad shoulder, feeling more like a scared child than ever.

The secret she has been harboring since her father's death—since his apparent murder—would make anyone feel like a scared child. {{char}}:"Never knew he what?" Black said softly, trying not to get too intrusive with the question. But as her reaction told him this was something he shouldn't push, he kept his voice gentle and soothing.

"Do we...can we talk about it later, then?" he said. "Later—when you don't feel so scared?"

His thoughts were already spinning with the puzzle pieces he was putting together, of why Lena's father wouldn't let her contact anyone...of why she had returned to Hogwarts so far behind everybody else her age... {{user}}: "I've been scared all year."

Her voice was so quiet, muffled into Sirius's shoulder, that he felt her qords more than he heard them. Felt the small catches and hitches in her breath, and he knew she was crying, struggling to make it less noticeable.

"I just...can't tell anyone."

Lena Gaunt knew not talking about it meant that everyone would see her father as a villain, even after his death...but the more people who knew his secrets, secrets he had carried with him for his entire adult life, the more people that would be in danger.

And she refused to put Sirius, of all people, in any danger. {{char}}: Black's heart was breaking.

Was she...crying? Was he the reason she was crying?

His gut told him to leave it alone—that this wasn't the time—but he was also a teenage boy who wanted to save the girl he was head over heels in love with.

"You...can trust me, Lena." He lowered his own voice so low that it was not much more than a whisper.

Was she worried about trusting anybody? Had she been burned before that she was so cautious now? {{user}}:"I know," she said quietly. "It's not about trust. O...only Dumbledore knows, apart from me and Alfred. "

Sirius felt the slightest twinge of irritation, but hid it well—Alfred Gaunt, Lena's older brother, seventh year Slytherin and Head Boy, was the absolute bane of Sirius's existence.

"I guess it's part of why my brother and I are getting along a bit better now. I just...."

Say it.

She bit her lip. It was eating away at her, and she did trust Sirius not to tell anyone...but she wasn't sure if she trusted him not to do anything reckless. Reckless was practically his middle name.

Say it.

"My father...was forced to remove me from Hogwarts. T...to homeschool me. Isolate me from everyone but him and Alfred and...family acquaintances. He didn't want to do it. He never did. I...only found out a month before he...before he was..."

Murdered. But her throat caught on the word, and she couldn't say it out loud. {{char}}:Murdered.

Black thought hard on her words. Murdered...

"So..." he began.

Lena's father had pulled her out of school, and hid her away from the world to protect her...for reasons Sirius wasn't totally sure of yet, but his guess was that the Gaunts were hiding something...

...and then her father was murdered.

"Was it...was it about Hogwarts? Did he think you were in trouble?" he asked, trying to make sense of what he had just been told. {{user}}: She shook her head.

"You...I mean, everyone knew about his allegiences," she said quietly.

Her father had been the right hand, the second in command, to Lord Voldemort. She didn't like saying it out loud, but she knew that Sirius knew. That his entire family knew. That half the school knew and that was why it had been so difficult for her to befriend anyone.

Except for Sirius.

She turned her head against his shoulder as they stayed locked in that warm embrace on the Gryffindor common room sofa, resting her cheek there.

"Voldemort is obsessed with our family," she said quietly. "The Gaunts. We're the last heirs of Slytherin. He...believed having us on his side would strengthen his ranks. He...expected my father to raise Alfred and I to be sympathetic to his cause. And...he considered it a failure on my father's part when I was sorted into Gryffindor. Voldemort commanded my father to pull me from school and teach me the Old Ways himself. If he refused...Voldemort intended to kill him and just...take me away." {{char}}: Black stilled with shock.

Lena's father had not just been a Death Eater, but Voldemort's second in command?

And Voldemort had personally ordered Lena's father to teach her 'the old ways'?

"He was...he was going to kill your father just for...just for what Hogwarts House you were in?" Sirius's voice was almost a whisper. "Just for that?" {{user}}: "Voldemort isn't exactly the picture of mental stability," she sighed, shaking her head. "He's obviously killed for less. In his eyes, no heir of Slytherin should be sorted anywhere but Slytherin without outside influence. He believed that outside influence was my father, and saw it as a sign of betrayal. Believed that my father had been secretly raising me to oppose Voldemort. Which would mean I would need...retraining, if I was to become one of his followers one day."

Her stomach churned as she recalled everything her father had told her before he died, everything Dumbledore had relayed to her and Alfred after the fact.

"Voldemort murdered him...because he allowed me to return to Hogwarts," she said, her voice small. "B...because my father betrayed him by finally exposing the truth of the situation to Dumbledore. B...because he'd been acting as a double-agent for decades and gathering as much information as possible that could lead to Voldemort's defeat. He died because he did the right thing, and everyone still looks at him like a bloody terrorist." {{char}}: Black went silent for a few moments, absorbing all of the shocking new information.

So that's why her father had isolated her.

"Voldemort killed him?"

Black was genuinely speechless. Even knowing this new information about the Gaunts, it was absolutely beyond him that her father had actually been a double-agent the entire time. What a complete badass.

"Did...did your brother know about your dad? Does he know now?"