Sirius gets you a snitch when you turn eleven, and the next year you join the Quidditch team. When you're twelve it's a crystal ball – you start taking Divination after that, and you're good at it. Fifteen, a beautiful model of the solar system that you know cost him months of pocket money. You ace your Astronomy O.W.L., and that summer he leaves you.
Now you're in your bedroom and it's a minute past midnight, and you're seventeen and Marked for half a year. You wonder what Sirius would have given you today, if he was still in your life – what to get, for the Death Eater who has everything? You let out a short laugh and feel a bit mad. A swift curse to the chest and a kick in the ribs when you're down is what, you think. It's what it's come to in this civil war.
But life has a funny way of countering you, because you see him that very afternoon in a scrap over a street corner in a Muggle village, you with Snape and Dolohov, Sirius alongside Lupin and Dearborn and one of the Prewetts, maybe Gideon. Dearborn blasts a chunk of the wall right above your head and you duck and spin out from beneath the shower of brick before you even notice that it's Sirius who's nearly just taken Snape out with a jet of green light that could have been a Killing Curse, Snape, who blasts Dearborn twenty feet back with something you can't identify before he throws himself down an alley and hides against the wall, panting, staring at you with nervous eyes. You trip and turn back to face the Order members, feeling blood hot on your temple, in time to see Prewett haring off after Dearborn and Lupin slashing a Stunner at Antonin – Sirius, you see it's him now, how could you not have noticed before? he begins to advance on Dolohov's prone form, but Lupin's eyeing you. You're exposed, and you don’t know why he hasn't attacked you but then he glances at Sirius and you realize, he doesn't want to do it with Sirius there. Sirius isn't paying attention, focused with a frightening vindictive malice on Dolohov, and you take your chance.
You shoot Snape a hard look and gesture shortly with your thumb – get Antonin, I'll cover you, you think, and you hope desperately he understands, and then just as Lupin's face flickers with understanding and he raises his wand you've sent an explosive reducto into their midst, the jet of light skidding into the ground beyond Dolohov with a colossal eruption of gravel that obscures Sirius and Lupin in dust, and you only think fleetingly that you hope Sirius is alright as Snape darts out from his alley, reaches Dolohov in two quick bounds, and Disapparates with him.
Then the dust settles and it's just you and Sirius and Lupin, both of them coughing and staggering to their feet. Sirius' eyes fall on you and he stops dead. Lupin is looking at Sirius; Dearborn and Prewett have Disapparated. Everything stops.
sirius/regulus - helplessly hoping (1/2)
***
Sirius gets you a snitch when you turn eleven, and the next year you join the Quidditch team. When you're twelve it's a crystal ball – you start taking Divination after that, and you're good at it. Fifteen, a beautiful model of the solar system that you know cost him months of pocket money. You ace your Astronomy O.W.L., and that summer he leaves you.
Now you're in your bedroom and it's a minute past midnight, and you're seventeen and Marked for half a year. You wonder what Sirius would have given you today, if he was still in your life – what to get, for the Death Eater who has everything? You let out a short laugh and feel a bit mad. A swift curse to the chest and a kick in the ribs when you're down is what, you think. It's what it's come to in this civil war.
But life has a funny way of countering you, because you see him that very afternoon in a scrap over a street corner in a Muggle village, you with Snape and Dolohov, Sirius alongside Lupin and Dearborn and one of the Prewetts, maybe Gideon. Dearborn blasts a chunk of the wall right above your head and you duck and spin out from beneath the shower of brick before you even notice that it's Sirius who's nearly just taken Snape out with a jet of green light that could have been a Killing Curse, Snape, who blasts Dearborn twenty feet back with something you can't identify before he throws himself down an alley and hides against the wall, panting, staring at you with nervous eyes. You trip and turn back to face the Order members, feeling blood hot on your temple, in time to see Prewett haring off after Dearborn and Lupin slashing a Stunner at Antonin – Sirius, you see it's him now, how could you not have noticed before? he begins to advance on Dolohov's prone form, but Lupin's eyeing you. You're exposed, and you don’t know why he hasn't attacked you but then he glances at Sirius and you realize, he doesn't want to do it with Sirius there. Sirius isn't paying attention, focused with a frightening vindictive malice on Dolohov, and you take your chance.
You shoot Snape a hard look and gesture shortly with your thumb – get Antonin, I'll cover you, you think, and you hope desperately he understands, and then just as Lupin's face flickers with understanding and he raises his wand you've sent an explosive reducto into their midst, the jet of light skidding into the ground beyond Dolohov with a colossal eruption of gravel that obscures Sirius and Lupin in dust, and you only think fleetingly that you hope Sirius is alright as Snape darts out from his alley, reaches Dolohov in two quick bounds, and Disapparates with him.
Then the dust settles and it's just you and Sirius and Lupin, both of them coughing and staggering to their feet. Sirius' eyes fall on you and he stops dead. Lupin is looking at Sirius; Dearborn and Prewett have Disapparated. Everything stops.
(cont'd)