Sirius Black | POV
James Potter is getting married tomorrow.
My best friend. My brother in everything but blood. He's marrying Lily Evans, brilliant, stubborn, terrifyingly kind Lily Evans. A Muggleborn who lost her parents to a Death Eater attack not long ago, and who has been living with Fleamont and Euphemia Potter ever since.
James is bloody lucky. Not just in love, but in family too.
Sometimes I wish I—
Never mind.
I'm the best man at the wedding. As I should be. And Marlene, who I am absolutely, undeniably going to bag, is one of Lily's bridesmaids. Fate has taste, I'll give it that.
Outwardly, I'm still Sirius Black. Same grin. Same swagger. Same reckless confidence that makes people either laugh or want to punch me.
But since Christmas last year… something shifted.
Inside, I am not the same man.
I won't deny it. Bellatrix's get managed to rattle me. Worse, for a brief, humiliating stretch of time, he managed to scare me. Not with brute force, not with theatrics, but with the kind of quiet certainty that crawls under your skin and refuses to leave.
For a while.
If he thinks I'll stay rattled, though, he's made a terrible miscalculation.
I am extraordinarily handsome. Ridiculously charming. And I am Sirius Black. I don't cower in the face of evil. I don't shrink. I don't bow.
I roar.
And when I roar, the world damn well hears it..
But right now, I'm on a mission.
Another alert. Another attack. Third time this week.
For Merlin's sake.
I had leave. Proper, stamped, approved leave. Cancelled. Just like that. Because apparently the Dark side has a calendar allergy and cannot comprehend the concept of days off.
Tomorrow is my best friend's birthday.
James bloody Potter. The man deserves at least one day without alarms, blood, or someone screaming about cursed wards collapsing in Diagon Alley. And I'd quite like that day too, thank you very much.
But no.
Because Death Eaters exist solely to be catastrophically inconvenient. No sense of timing. No appreciation for milestones. No respect for personal schedules. Utterly ridiculous.
I tightened my grip on my wand, irritation buzzing under my skin like static.
Every attack feels the same now. The rush. The rage. The exhaustion layered on top of it all. We run, we fight, we patch things up, and we wait for the next damn owl or Patronus to come tearing through the air.
And yet… despite everything, despite the fatigue gnawing at my bones, one truth still stands firm.
If they think I'll stop showing up, stop fighting, stop standing between them and people like James and Lily, then they've misunderstood me entirely.
I'll grumble. I'll swear. I'll curse their names into the pavement.
But I'll still go.
Because that's what roaring actually means.
At night, I hear his voice.
The brat's voice. Calm. Cocky. Certain in a way that has nothing to do with arrogance and everything to do with inevitability. It crawls out of the dark and yanks me awake, heart racing, sheets twisted like I've been fighting something in my sleep.
I curse myself for ever asking that question.
Curse my curiosity.
Curse that bloody Seer even more.
Merlin help me, I still get goosebumps when I remember it.
> "No one."
That single word had landed like a gravestone.
> "The Dark Lord will lose. But by the time he is gone for good, the wizarding world of Britain will be little more than a shell. More than seventy percent of the population will be dead… or permanently scarred. Over eighty percent of pure-blood families will stand on the brink of extinction. Half of them will vanish entirely."
I'd laughed then. A sharp, disbelieving bark. Typical Sirius response to prophecy doom and gloom.
I stopped laughing very quickly.
> "Everyone present here tonight will be dead by then. There will be no surviving members of the Black family. None."
That was the moment the room had gone cold.
> "Except for a distant few. Namely… my godmother's son. The child of Nymphadora Tonks. And the godson of Sirius Black."
Apparently, my goddaughter's son lives.
And my godson.
Me?
According to him, I get a lovely scenic tour of Azkaban first… and then I die.
I stare at the ceiling some nights, jaw clenched so hard it aches, and wonder what sort of cosmic joke this is. I fight, I bleed, I stand on the front lines, and the universe's response is a shrug and a timetable for my execution.
This Merlin-damned world.
Merlin-damned Death Eaters.
And that noseless freak Moldyshorts with his soul split like bad glasswork.
If that future is written, then fine. Let it choke on its own certainty.
Because until the day they drag me in chains or put me in the ground, I will fight like hell to prove one thing wrong.
If I'm going down, it won't be quietly.
And it sure as hell won't be without tearing a chunk out of destiny on the way.
"For Merlin's sake, Black, snap out of it!" Edgar Bones barked. "Whatever fantasies you're lost in, drop them. We're at the location. Take positions. On my mark, move. Wands out."
Tomorrow, my best friend gets married.
Today, I'm here.
Figures.
"What's that?" my partner muttered.
"What's wh—"
The word died in my throat.
It was a body.
A Muggle girl, brutally murdered, her body desecrated beyond recognition. She was cute in half from here nether regions, but her face is smiling, as if someone deliberately made the victim laugh, while doing atrocious things to her.
The room reeked of cruelty, of deliberate violation meant not just to kill but to break. Her parents were alive, bound above her, forced to witness the aftermath of something no human mind should ever be made to endure.
I turned away and vomited.
I couldn't do this anymore.
What kind of monsters did this? What kind of twisted minds found pleasure in it?
Monsters. All of them.
"We have company," Edgar said sharply.
That was when something inside me snapped.
Not anger.
Not fury.
Something colder. Older. Unhinged.
There they were. Masks. Wands. Breathing like this was sport.
Good.
They needed an outlet.
"Lacero."
Red light tore through the air and struck the first Death Eater. Four spells screamed toward me in response. I ducked, rolled, deflected one, felt another singe past my shoulder.
Then I stopped holding back.
"Ruptura Laceris."
The spell ripped through him from the inside out. No explosion. No scream. Just a sudden, violent end, his body coming apart as if reality itself rejected his existence.
"Black, run!" someone shouted.
I did.
Straight into a trap.
"Crucio!"
Agony slammed into my chest. I hit the ground hard, nerves screaming. For a heartbeat, the world went white.
Too bad.
I'd been on the wrong end of Crucio since I was a kid.
I bit through the pain, snarled, and wrenched the earth upward. A boulder tore free and crashed toward him. He dodged, barely.
"Expelliarmus!"
His wand flew.
"Stupefy."
He hit the ground and didn't get back up.
My partners got the other two.
I stood there, shaking, chest heaving, surrounded by smoke, rubble, and the echo of what I'd just done.
Tomorrow, James would smile at Lily.
Today, I made sure one less monster ever would.
But, I had more problems, my team lead is angry.
Edgar Bones didn't shout.
That was worse.
He waited until the healers had taken over, until the adrenaline bled out of my veins and left behind that hollow, buzzing ache. Then he grabbed me by the collar and shoved me against the cold stone wall, close enough that I could smell the smoke on his robes.
"Do you have any idea," he said quietly, "how close you came to getting yourself killed tonight?"
I scoffed. "They're dead, aren't they?"
His hand tightened.
"That is not the point, Black."
I looked away. Jaw clenched. Still seeing the room. Still seeing her.
"You lost control," Edgar continued, voice low and sharp like a blade dragged slowly across bone. "You didn't fight. You unleashed. You charged without cover, without confirmation, without thinking about the rest of your team."
"They deserved it," I snapped.
"Yes," he agreed instantly. "They did. Every last one of them."
That stole my breath.
Then his tone hardened.
"But this isn't about what they deserved. It's about what you almost became."
I laughed, sharp and humorless.
"Spare me the lecture. I don't know how you kept your cool after walking through that… exhibition. But I couldn't."
"You have to," Edgar said flatly. "You fought with rage. And rage doesn't listen to orders. It doesn't see who's standing beside you. And it never knows when to stop."
He took a step back, folding his arms.
"You're one of the best fighters we have. Fast. Brilliant. And terrifying when you focus. But if you keep letting your emotions drive your wand, you won't last. Worse, you'll take someone else with you."
Silence stretched between us.
Finally, he added, quieter now, "I don't want to write your name on a casualty report, Sirius. Not because you're talented. Because you're worth more alive than dead and glorious."
I swallowed hard. "…Understood," I muttered.
Edgar studied me for a long moment, then nodded once.
"Good. Learn control. Or step away until you do."
He turned and walked off.
I stayed there, staring at my shaking hands.
Control.
Funny thing.
No one ever taught a Black how to put the fire out.
Only how to feed it. Stoke it. Turn it loose and call the destruction strength.
And then his voice crept back in, uninvited, unwelcome, like smoke seeping under a door I'd sworn shut.
> "He is already unhinged. I'm surprised no one finds it alarming that he no longer looks entirely human.
From next year onward, things worsen. Casualties rise. Lines blur. Unspeakable acts become… common.
Those you believe friends will betray you. Those you believe enemies will remain true.
Trust will become more lethal than curses."
The Lestrange brat.
I clenched my jaw, nails digging into my palms until the sting grounded me. Bloody Seers. Bloody prophecy-spewing freaks who talk about the future like it's a fixed bloody timetable instead of something people bleed to change.
Bloody Death Eaters, turning cruelty into performance art.
Bloody world, chewing people up and then acting surprised when they come out sharp-edged and furious.
Unhinged.
Maybe I was.
But if losing my grip was the price of never becoming like them, then so be it.
I'd rather burn than rot.
And I made a decision right there, cold and absolute.
From now on, I would not work on my leave days. Not for alerts. Not for emergencies. Not even if the sky decided to crack open and start raining dragons. Every freakish, cursed, nightmare-laced disaster always seemed to happen when I was dragged back in on leave anyway. Pattern recognition wasn't prophecy. It was survival.
Let them shout. Let them threaten. Let them write reports and mutter about discipline and duty.
They could kick me out if they wanted.
I was done trading my sanity for their convenience.
Tomorrow was my beat friends wedding day. A day about love surviving in a world that kept insisting on tearing it apart. I would stand there in clean robes, grin too wide, glass raised high, flirt like there is no tomorrow and pretend the future wasn't crouched in the shadows sharpening its knives.
Maybe I couldn't put the fire out.
But I could choose, just this once, where not to let it burn.
I apparated straight into my apartment, the wards barely humming before they settled again. First thing I did was grab a bottle of Muggle beer from the makeshift cooler, flick my wand to cool it further, and chug it like the day might crawl back up my throat if I didn't drown it fast enough.
Minutes later, I collapsed onto the thing Muggles optimistically call a sofa, boots still on, head tipped back, staring at nothing.
That was when the air changed.
A soft tap against the window.
I frowned, turning my head.
A raven perched on the sill.
Not an owl. Not a crow. A raven. Feathers like polished ink, posture too still to be natural. And its eyes… Merlin. They weren't black or brown or anything that belonged to this world. They shone purple, deep and luminous, like amethyst catching candlelight.
An uneasy prickle ran down my spine.
The raven tilted its head, studying me, and only then did I notice the letter clutched neatly in its claw.
I pushed myself upright, every instinct suddenly awake.
"…For me?" I asked.
The raven didn't react. Didn't blink. It merely waited.
I opened the window.
The bird hopped inside without hesitation, wings barely rustling, moving through my apartment like it owned the place. Like it had always belonged there. It landed on the back of the sofa, and dropped the letter.
Here's a clean, sharp, and policy-safe rewrite that keeps the irreverent humor, menace, and Seer-flavored mockery without crossing into graphic sexual detail. It should feel unsettling and darkly funny, exactly like a message Sirius would both laugh at and lose sleep over.
---
I unfolded the letter.
The handwriting was neat. Mockingly so.
> Hi Uncle Dog, the less handsome Black brother,
I snorted despite myself.
> The noseless freak and his merry band of disappointments are planning to relieve themselves all over your best friend's wedding.
Apparently, subtlety is overrated and public declarations of "eternal affection" are best delivered with explosions and bad taste.
My jaw tightened.
> They are particularly invested in humiliating the groom. There has been much discussion about how spectacles are tragically underused when confined to faces, and how tradition deserves… reinterpretation.
I closed my eyes for a second. Of course.
> It falls upon you to ensure that your friend remains upright, unimpaled, and married by the end of the ceremony.
Please ensure the Dumb Door remains conveniently available for support. The noseless one himself may make an appearance, accompanied by his favorite moldy accessories.
The room felt colder.
> Yours truly,
The Marvelously Strange Raven
I swallowed.
Then saw the final line.
> P.S. Don't forget your oath.
My hand tightened around the parchment.
I looked up at the raven.
It was still there. Watching. Purple eyes reflecting the light like it already knew how this would end.
"Bloody Seers," I muttered.
The raven blinked once.
Slow. Deliberate.
Then it took off, vanishing into the night, leaving me alone with a letter that had just turned tomorrow from a wedding into a battlefield. And soon the letter turned to ash.