Nora recognized him from millions of pictures - every one of them the same, pasted everywhere for the past couple of years - but his hair was cut to shoulder-length now and his face had resumed a more human appearance. In the fortress of Azkaban, this man had looked like a sunken and waxy shell, void of any life on the inside.

“I have no idea what you think I may know,” he said loftily, his gaze drifting over her head. “But if I did know, you would never know it. And if you knew what I knew, maybe you would wish you didn’t know. Or maybe you would know that I never really knew in the first place.”

Nora embarks on her shift at the Department of Mysteries.

He hesitated, running a hand through his hair – which looked significantly less stringy than she’d ever seen it. In fact, Severus was looking quite dapper in elegant black robes with silver embroidery. “I don’t want to bother you,” he began, “But I was thinking the other day about…a situation.”

Believe me, Mum, I forgave you a long time ago for mentally checking out, for allowing yourself to go insane while I was made a burden on every relative we have. Being alone at seven years old is a wretched cross to bear, but I forgave you…

“What about the rest of you?” Nora barked, searching for an empathetic face. “Does anyone else agree that there is a bigger picture here, and a little risk would be worth it?”

Etiquette reproached that Severus should at least ring the doorbell first, but he loathed the idea of stooping to such measures, giving Black the status of superiority, the acknowledgment that Severus was a guest under his roof.

She wouldn’t dare be this bold if Tonks wasn’t here to act as a buffer; to add a dash of ridiculousness to everything, and for a second she worried about how to act once Tonks left. She hadn’t been alone with Sirius since last night…

He was walking on eggshells in her presence, not wanting to do or say the wrong thing which could become a catalyst for her departure.

You think you’ve fooled everyone into thinking you’re a man of value, you poisonous little paradox, but I see right through your guise.

Sirius felt defeated in Cargan’s presence – the boy was young, untethered, and admittedly not bad-looking. He could take Nora out on a date whenever he wanted, wherever he wanted. It was something Sirius could never have done himself.

Bad things. Very bad things.
 

“We all have a number. When our number is up, it’s time to go and we can’t avoid it. There’s no use trying to prevent it, or to plague ourselves with ‘what-ifs’.”

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