Pawns & Players - Sirius Black

-60-

There may be more beautiful times, but this one is ours  - Jean-Paul Sartre

The doorbell rang once again while she was rushing to get down from the fourth floor.

"It's great to see you finally got the "I can't apparate into people's houses whenever I want" thing" She smiled bitterly while holding the door open.

"Ah Sirius my love, thank you for coming, I missed you too" He ignored her, letting himself in.

"I don't know where you got the idea that I want you to be here, I told you, I'm fine on my own"

"Yeah yeah I know. Here, Mrs Potter made you an apple pie"

"Merlin not the apple pies, you know I can't physically control myself around them" She laughed mockingly. "You'll tell her I said thanks"

"And I put it ?"

"Oh just on the kitchen counter, next to Mrs McKinnon's cookies, Mrs Evans's brownies and Peter's red velvet cupcakes. I didn't get the chance to clean up after letting all the house-elves go"

"Please don't tell me you became one of those elf right activists, I can't have another Kreacher screaming at me"

He suddenly turned around with a questioning face, pointing at the boxes around him.

"Oh yeah since we're going back to Hogwarts in a few days I just thought I would also clean up the whole house and throw away old things"

Old things. Everything around her was old. But she needed to get rid of things that haunted her. Anything that brought up unwanted memories from her childhood.

The childhood she loved to leave forgotten.

"Alright. Let me help since you would probably die before reaching the sixth floor" He looked around with a doubtful examination. "Seriously, six floors just for yourself ? Are you sure you don't want to just live with us ? Or you have the money to do anything-"

"Yes I am very serious" She laughed, going into a small room to carry the box she would later throw away. "This is the place I grew up in, and now it's all and only, mine"

He looked at her with a steady smile and suspicious eye, chuckling to himself. "You sound like a comic book villain"

"I know. We're just waiting for a DC blonde so we can pull a Catwoman-Poison Ivy and Marlene halloween trio"

"Don't you have supergirl ?

"We want villains. Heroes are no fun" She turned around, throwing him a box. "Burn the photos I'm in. And also the ones I'm not"

"So the whole box ?

"No"

"Alright" He chuckled absurdly, opening the box, laughing at one photo in particular. "What's that ?"

"That's um- me and my grandma. Before she passed away, she used to tell me old family stories. That's me in my bed and her high on many things with a book she wasn't actually reading in her hands"

"You don't look so happy here"

"Oh I always looked sad. I loved the story though" It was one of the few vivid memories from the dark mess that was her childhood, one of the very few things she actually remembered.

"Take the stage. Looks like I have long hours of labor ahead of me"

She smiled proudly at that, straightening her back and clearing her throat to get ready.

"Once upon a time, in Alexandroupolis where we all wore blankets and wore weird hats-"

"Are you sure that's- correct ?"