Chapter Text
«Do you remember the time
when we fell in love?»
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—He’s going to get married, Remus. It doesn’t matter what I do. He’s going to marry that man. That vile man.
Sirius didn’t lift his gaze when he said it. He didn’t need to. The words came out on their own, heavy, weighed down by a resentment that wasn’t new—only more conscious. Remus was there, as always, silent. Sirius wasn’t looking for answers. He was looking for someone to listen. Someone who would validate his version of the story.
Because Sirius could have had everything. A beautiful husband. Exemplary children. A home. A home far from rules, far from the Black name, far from the screaming portraits and the blood that weighed like a sentence. A place where he could be himself without asking permission. Where he could teach his children to fly for the first time, shout absurd instructions from the ground, laugh when they fell onto the grass. A home to return to after long hours as an Auror. Where the smell of food would greet him before words. Where arms would be waiting for him. Where he could kiss his husband the moment he crossed the threshold.
Severus. His Severus.
Sirius clung to those memories as if they were the only proof that not everything had been a lie. Because there had been good moments. Real moments. He couldn’t have imagined all of them. He remembered when they fell in love, even though he would never admit it out loud. He remembered the furtive glances, the secret meetings, the stifled laughter so they wouldn’t be discovered. He remembered the way Severus looked at him as if, for once in his life, Sirius were enough.
And that had to mean something.
I wish —he thought, with a gentle bitterness— that at some point in his life Severus would remember the good moments he spent with me. Not the shouting. Not the arguments. Not the end. Just the good.
But Severus left
That was a fact as well. As real as any happy memory. Severus abandoned him. Closed the door and didn’t look back. Sirius couldn’t understand how it could have been so easy. How he could have let go of everything they had been. Because if Severus had truly loved him, he wouldn’t have left. Sirius hadn’t mattered to him. Never as much as he claimed.
Sirius replayed the same memories over and over again, searching for meaning, trying to find the exact moment when everything broke. And he always reached the same conclusion, the only one that didn’t completely destroy him: Severus pushed him into it.
He wouldn’t have cheated on Severus if Severus hadn’t forced him. If he hadn’t confined him. If he hadn’t always looked at him as if he were failing. Sirius was who he was. He always had been. Free, impulsive, alive. Severus knew that. And yet he tried to change him. Tried to make him someone else. Quieter. More restrained. More his. And that wasn’t fair.
The happy memories were still there, bright, almost painful. The nights when they whispered promises. The days when they believed they could face anything. The times Severus smiled just for him. How could Severus have forgotten that? Why did he choose that idiot Lucius instead of him? Lucius Malfoy. Everything Sirius despised. Blood, surname, rigidity. How could Severus have chosen that? How could he have traded what they had for someone like him?
If Severus claimed to love him so much…
Why did he leave with Lucius? Why didn’t he remember the good moments? Why didn’t he fight? Why didn’t he stay?
The answer Sirius repeated to himself was always the same, because it was the only one he could bear: Because Severus didn’t love him enough. Because if he had truly loved him, he would have forgiven. He would have waited. He would have remembered.
Sirius closed his eyes, clinging to nostalgia like a lifeline. To the memories where he was still loved. Where he was still chosen. Where Severus still looked at him as if he were his world. If those moments had existed, then it couldn’t be his fault that everything had fallen apart. It had to be Severus’s. And as Sirius kept remembering, an uncomfortable doubt began to seep in among the memories—silent, dangerous:
If everything was so real… why did Severus leave?
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