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It comes at night: the slightest hint of whispers brushing against the dark; the thing watching you from the darkest corners.
It is the shadow at the corner of your eyes. It is the nightmare of scorching fire and of burning ice. It is the infinite emptiness.
It is a trick of the night. The ultimate illusion.
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They meet in the train.
Looking back at it, it’s almost laughably, boringly mundane. Not special in any way, except maybe for the fact that it was the beginning of something.
But the earth doesn’t shatter and the planets don’t collide upon their meeting. (And maybe that was a sign – normalcy never suited Sirius.)
He – James – is just another boy with unruly hair, skewed glasses and a big, mischievous grin. Ordinary in every sense.
And Sirius has seen the extraordinary since birth. He’s seen dark magic and insanity.
Hell, he embodied extraordinary. He was raised a star – the brightest star in the sky; the little Pureblood King (sitting on a throne of hypocrisy, deep-bone hatred and lies upon lies upon lies).
So none of it explains why it feels as if he’s found his light for the first time when he looks up into the eyes of the utterly ordinary James Potter.
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Once upon a time, I wished upon a shooting star.
Everything with James is easy.
Whether it’s creating hell with fiery explosions, running under the moon or sitting side by side in the dark staring out the window, letting the silence cloak the moment, it’s so easy.
Now James, despite Sirius’ first assumptions, is not ordinary.
He is fire and mischief and constant change like Sirius. So if anyone asks if they like the comfort and familiarity the two provide for each other, they’ll solemnly swear on all that is magic and mischief, that ‘No, we do not like the comfort of habit and routine’ and ‘What the hell are you even talking about? We’re not predictable or co-dependent, that’s just tacky.’
They don’t finish each other’s sentences or promise forever and always because ‘Ugh, the horrors of domesticity!’
But then Sirius bumps into someone in an old broom closet, having just been separated from James running in opposite directions to avoid Filch, and lifts his head to find none other than James fucking Potter staring at him.
It’s so insignificant. There’s probably a good explanation for how in bloody Merlin’s pants they’ve ended up in the same small broom closet out of the thousands in a huge, magical castle. Changing staircases, most convenient routes, eagerness to escape from Filch’s lovely echoing dulcet tones of ‘I’ll skin ya and hang y’ out to dry!’, fate …
They’ve been in smaller and far weirder (don’t ask) places, and Sirius is sure they’ve had more defining moments than being stuck in a broom closet together in terms of their relationship.
But it’s in that moment, sweaty and with a broom poking uncomfortably into his elbow and other more inappropriate places, that Sirius suddenly gets a really inconvenient, emotional surge that almost brings tears to his eyes.
He’ll blame it later on a stupid, hormonal moment of vulnerability that made him wish, irrationally, for a forever.
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Twinkle and whisper, sweetly and gently: myths and fairy tales, magic and lies. Maybe in raining stardust, we can pretend they are promises.
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It’s moments like these when Sirius can fool himself into believing the impossible.
Their final year at Hogwarts is almost over, and he and James had come up to the astronomy tower to get away from the stifling weight of the future
People assumed, understandably so, that Sirius and James were never quiet. Sirius didn’t exactly know what people thought they did on their own, but he had a suspicion to others, he and James ceased to exist outside their personas as Kings and Marauders of Hogwarts. After all, you are only a symbol as long as you represent only the good, the radiant, and the everlasting.
Sirius thinks it’s a small token in exchange for playing kings.
Beside him, James is staring up into the night sky. He’s smoking the joint they’d been passing back and forth, relaxed and intense at the same time. He’s all rough edges yet heartbreakingly gentle when he looks over at Sirius.
They still don’t promise forever.
Once upon a time, it was because of some childish pride. Now, they don’t because they can’t afford to.
But in what may be their last moment as boy-kings, under the stars falling out of the sky, they tell themselves pretty tales.
James raises his hand to brush a stray strand of hair behind Sirius’ ear. Their first kiss is not what Sirius imagined it would be like. He imagined more fire: sharp, filthy grins and biting teeth – sparks and burning eyes filled with dare.
Instead, it’s a soft brush of lips.
So much more devastating that it quietly breaks something in Sirius.
It’s a pretty lie, a fairy tale of promises and forever whispered against his lips.
When the sun comes up, it’ll be buried with the stars. In the morning, they’ll have to exchange their blazing crowns for broken swords and shields.
In the morning, they become soldiers.
But just for one night, they allow themselves to believe a fairy tale.
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I dreamt of catching a shooting star. Call it a hopeless fantasy. Naivety. Greed. But I wanted to hold it in my hands and keep its fire and light. Even though they weren’t mine to keep.
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James looked tired.
They just finished the mission that went horribly wrong.
But really, this is just another Tuesday for them.
These days, with Order missions, murders happening left and right, and the sheer tension from being on guard (Constant Vigilance!) every second of the day, it’s hard to find any sort of relief.
But even with all that, Sirius was most worried about James.
Of course, it was inevitable this happened, but every day, Sirius felt like he was losing James. That little by little, something important was slipping through his fingers.
It wasn’t just about them spending less time together, but also losing a part of James to the war. James barely laughed these days, and even when Sirius managed to bring that sparkle back, it was short-lived.
Sure, he was still fundamentally James - reckless, brave and loyal to a fault, but in the end, it still felt like losing.
Maybe Sirius just wasn’t good at letting go something he had absolutely no right to keep. But even knowing that, he tried hard to cling on to that bit of warmth and light in his life. Maybe if he –
“Sirius.”
Sirius rolls his eyes to look at James.
For some reason, despite having called him, James isn’t looking at him. Sirius wouldn’t mind not having eye contact, but it’s the way James is purposely avoiding looking at him that sets Sirius on edge.
After a few seconds of anticipated silence, James finally seems to pluck up the courage to look him in the eyes. And whatever Sirius sees in James face makes him want to run away - to hide or fight or throw himself in front of a Death Eater’s wand.
But he doesn’t. Instead, he stays frozen to the spot as his mind suddenly goes cool. A moment of total silence, then,
“I’m asking Lily to marry me.”
It’s not as if he wasn’t expecting it. He shouldn’t feel this way. Sure, he and James were… whatever the hell they were, but they had never shared more than the one kiss that night at the astronomy tower but they were Sirius and James, they share something so much more profound; something unexplainable and beyond anything any two people can hope for.
“You’ll be my best man, right?”
But he does. He does feel like something is breaking and burning and ending. The warmth and light that’s kept him going for probably what’s longer than is healthy is fading. He just feels empty and cold.
“Yeah, Prongs. I’ll be there.”
He responds and feels the end of forever.
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I trapped a shooting star. Held it tight until my hands burnt black and blue.
Maybe it’ll burn my heart and dry out my tears too.
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Darling, the nights are cold and starless.
Because shooting stars are, in the end, falling stars. No matter how brightly they used to burn.
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He looks so ordinary.
His broken body decorating the haunted house like some sick parody of the Halloween houses on the street.
The earth doesn’t shatter and the planets don’t collide when James Potter dies. It feels absurdly unreal that someone that burned so bright is just… gone.
The world still moves on even with the death of a star.
Everything’s so… quiet.
Morbid? Yes.
But other than the obvious, it’s so calm and fucking ordinary that it makes Sirius want to scream until something happens.
Because James Potter should not be dead like this.
For some reason, Sirius is briefly reminded of the first time he met James.
Perhaps because of the same kind of incongruity with what’s happening in reality and in his mind.
Except when Sirius kneels down, pale and shaking, to gently lay James’ head onto his lap, he doesn’t find the light that he found all those years ago in James’ eyes.
He just finds emptiness.
And Sirius falls.
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They’re now burnt black, no longer warm or glowing.
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It comes at night. When the stars disappear and all that is left is the darkness.
It is your darkest fears and deepest secrets.
It comes with scorching eyes and quirking smiles.
The walls close in and not even the Dementors dare approach when it is here.
“James?”
He steps out, half in darkness, half in moonlight and he’s beautiful and so, so terrible.
You reach out to touch him, but no matter how far you stretch, you can never reach.
“James? I can’t find you. I’ve looked for you everywhere.”
He gives a crooked smile in response.
“I feel like I’m going crazy. Like I’m at the edge just barely holding on. And if I let go… it’s just darkness below, James. No stars, no lights, no nothing.”
You look up and he’s right there. So close and not close enough.
“Don’t let me fall, James. Come catch me.”
Everything freezes in that moment as shadows seem to creep up the walls and grow and grow and grow…
And James smiles, a terribly beautiful smile, and reaches out a hand to tuck a strand of hair behind Sirius’ ear.
With a kiss that burns and freezes Sirius, he whispers,
“Oh darling, don’t you know? We were falling since the beginning.”
Sirius smiles.
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He comes every night, the scorching one - with the most charming lies and ghastly truths.
Your sweetest requiem. Your forever.
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But darling, I’ll fall and burn and dance for eternity for a chance to catch a falling star.
Because you’re just as beautiful now as when I first saw you.