Wild Heart¹ ★ [Sirius Black]

Prologue

December 1995, 12 Grimmauld Place

Harry Potter, Ron Weasley, Hermione Granger, and Briar Lupin had never seen Sirius Black's home so lively, as it was this Christmas. Molly Weasley had gone all out decorating the dreary, grey, dark home for the holidays, and as a result it was unrecognisable. 

Wreaths and tinsel and lights hung from every possible surface, in every single room. All except one corner of the living room. One bookshelf in the entire house remained untouched.

Truthfully, when they first moved into the place over the summer Molly had tried to dust and clean the bookshelf given its state, but Sirius had ordered her not to go near it. She had listened, and at Christmas she had tried to place a string of decorative leaves across it's top, but as soon as Sirius had seen it, he barked at her to take it down, and refused to say another word about why.

The four teenagers could not help but be curious though. In particular, Sirius's godchildren Harry and Briar. 

While the adults had been sat around the dining room cleaning up after a delicious Christmas lunch, the four of them had snuck upstairs and gone to the bookshelf. Unlike the rest of them, this one had glass doors, and when Harry tried to open them, he found it locked. 

So Hermione had pulled the bobby pin out of her hair and crouched down. She fiddled with the lock for a few moments until there was a resounding click, and the doors sprung open.

"You're amazing you know" said Ron Weasley, and a pink hue coated her cheeks

"Alright, what are we looking for?" she asked

Harry and Briar looked at each other. Nervously, Harry reached out and wiped the dust off of one the book's bindings. 

Summer 1975

Harry wrapped his fingers around the book and pulled it out. He coughed as dust flew into his mouth, and wiped the book's cover. He flipped it open and found that inside were no words, only pictures.

The first people he recognised were his parents. They were in the first picture, much younger than the photos of them he had, but he recognised them all the same. 

Briar leaned over his shoulder and pointed at another boy in the photo. "That's my dad"

He saw the resemblance to Remus Lupin now. He had the same brown eyes and messy hair, but did not have the same weak, tired look in his eyes.

There were others in the photo, and by power of deduction they could assume that the other two boys were younger versions of Sirius and Peter Pettigrew. The girls with them were less familiar though, except for Lily.

Briar could recognise another one of them. Only barely, but the woman matched her father's descriptions of her. "That must be my mother" she said, pointing to the brunette on the end

"Then those are Marlene McKinnon and Dorcas Meadows" said Harry, pointing to another two. He recognised them vaguely from the photo of the old Order of the Phoenix which Sirius had given him before school this year.

"So who's that?" asked Hermione, pointing to the other woman

She was beautiful, undeniably, with hair that seemed to shine through the photo. She was sitting between Sirius and Remus, beaming and laughing at something that had been said.

She cast her eyes up to Sirius, and the pair smiled at each other for a moment. Even 20 years in the future all four of them could see that those two were important for each other.

Someone cleared his throat behind them, and they whirled around, relieved to see it was Remus Lupin.

He folded his arms and gazed sternly at them. "What are you doing? Sirius will be cross if he discovered you went through his things"

Hermione snapped the book shut and went to put it back on the shelf, but it was grabbed out of her hands by Briar, who reopened it. "We were curious. Who's this girl, dad? The one next to Sirius"

He sucked in a sharp breath and sadness washed over his eyes. Remus had not thought of her properly in years, let alone seen her face, and now that he was he could feel his heart clenching in his chest.

"What's going on here, Moony?" came his friend's gruff voice and in came Sirius Black

His eyes landed on the book in his goddaughter's hands and he froze. "They want to know about her" said Remus

The four teenagers frowned. Sirius shook his head firmly. "No. I can't Moony, you know I can't-"

"-It's been fifteen years, Pads" replied Remus sharply "You can't lock her memory away in a bookshelf forever. It's about time you think about her again, let alone talk about her"

Sirius scoffed. "You think I don't? You think I don't spend every waking moment of every day thinking about her and what happened? You think I survived Azkaban without thinking about her every second?"

He fell silent, and so did Remus. They looked at each other, silently talking, until Sirius finally drew a breath. 

"Fine" he said reluctantly, and walked towards Briar. He took the book out of her hands and traced one of his fingers along the photo, smiling sadly. "It's about time I told you everything. Because this girl, was your godmother. Both of yours" Harry and Briar looked at each other in astonishment. "She and I were the two people your parents's counted on to protect you both if something ever happened. How badly that turned out" he chuckled 

"Who was she?" asked Ron

Sirius took a deep breath. "She was the love of my life. And Remus's best friend. Chloé Laurent"