The Haunting of Peter Pettigrew

Grimmauld Place and The Strong Woman

"Oh I wish you wouldn't go back in there," Lana told Sirius, staring up at the house that gradually revealed itself. A house of darkness, a house of bigotry and hatred. A house of pain, built by the kind of people that Lana and Sirius had spent their lives working against. A house that had haunted Sirius in both the deepest of sleeps and in his every life decision.

A house that he'd run away from at sixteen. His childhood home. Grimmauld Place. The new headquarters of the Order of the Phoenix.

The only way Sirius Black was able to survive Grimmauld place was because Remus had gone to Sirius and Lana's old apartment and put everything that he possibly could into Sirius's childhood bedroom. The only way Sirius wouldn't go nuts would be if he was surrounded by Lana and it had helped a bit.

Sirius was honestly proud with how well he was doing. After all, he only yelled at Kreecher twice a day. Given the fact that the house elf had taken great pleasure in helping his mother beat him bloody...well he thought he was downright generous.

Then, when it would all get to be too much, when his feeling of uselessness to the Order, his frustration that he was once again, trapped in this hell, his anger that Peter was free and that Voldemort was back, and that all consuming grief that his best friend was dead and that his soulmate was dead...when it got to be too much he would go to Lana.

There was a comfort that he couldn't describe, being able to see her face again. Remus, the best of friends, knew what he needed and the first items he'd brought over were the pictures of Lana.

He often traced her face, as it smiled or laughed out at him, longing and hungry to touch her for real. However, despite this desperate, yearning heartache, as it had since they were eleven years old, the sight of Lana's smile brought him peace. Such wonderful peace.

Of course, having Lana's stuff in his room had a negative affect as well as a positive. It highlighted that Lana herself wasn't there. He slept with her picture at his bedside, her eyes the last thing he saw when he went to sleep and the first he saw when he woke up.

He loved this.

And he hated it.

It didn't help that the day he found a bouquet of dried wildflowers at the bottom of one of the boxes Remus brought him, was the same day he spoke Bill Weasley for the first time in 14 years.

"So," Bill looked at the older man. "You aren't a killer. That...that's a relief."

"Why?" Black raised his eyebrows, his mouth quirked into a half smile at the conversation.

It wasn't how he'd imagined the reunion, but he hadn't really known what to expect. The last time they'd really seen each other had been at Lana's funeral and neither had exactly been happy. Before that, he'd just been a little boy who'd had a crush on the woman he'd loved. A boy who glared at him when he'd seen Sirius put his arm around Lana before pushing Sirius out of the way to give her wildflowers.

Sirius had scowled at him and Bill had matched his expression before giving Lana an award winning smile. Sirius had tried to tell her the boy had hated him, but Lana had laughed and called him ridiculous for being jealous over a child.

Sirius hadn't been jealous, he'd argued, just irritated. But, looking back, she was right. Lana was always right.

Bill shrugged sadly. "Lana. It made me sad to think that she'd loved you so much and you had betrayed her. Said I'd kill you myself there for awhile."

Sirius smiled, a twisted kind of smile. In his childlike way, Bill Weasley had been half in love with the woman and when she'd died he'd been devastated. So much so, that he'd wanted to avenge her. Sirius...just seeing how much other people loved her made him feel a little bit warm. It was just a confirmation of how much she was loved and how much love she gave to others.