/𝐀𝐍𝐃 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐒𝐓𝐀𝐑𝐒\ [𝒔. 𝒃𝒍𝒂𝒄𝒌]

𝐭𝐡𝐫𝐞𝐞

"I didn't mean that-" 

"I don't care," she said roughly, pushing him away. "I don't care, Remus. You said it anyway." 

Remus didn't say anything. The room was silent save the ongoing crying of Artemis. And then, at last, a knock on the door. 

They both froze. Mad Eye Moody was the only person to ever visit Remus and Artemis- the only person to know their whereabouts, and he always sent them an owl before his visits. Artemis let her arms fall to her sides. She and Remus stared at each other, unsure of what to do, until the knock sounded again. 

Remus finally moved toward the door. He put an arm out to keep Artemis behind him. "Don't show yourself until we know who it is," he said softly. 

Artemis moved to the edge of the room, by the kitchen counter, while Remus opened the door. A voice Artemis could never for the rest of her life not recognize said, "Is there any way I could leave my hippogriff in your backyard, or would that be too much trouble?" 

"Sirius," Artemis breathed, feeling as though the wind had been knocked from her lungs.

There was a beat of silence, and then Sirius sidestepped Remus and was standing in the middle of the kitchen, wearing his tattered Azkaban uniform, his hair a ragged mess, his eyes wild, but still- it was Sirius. 

Artemis took two steps towards him, convincing both herself and him that she would throw herself into his arms, but that wasn't what happened. Her hand collided with the side of his face and Sirius was knocked backwards a few steps, stumbling. 

"Ouch," he said, massagin his jaw with one hand.

Remus leaned against the doorway, the smallest of smirks playing at the corner of his mouth. "I'm going to take care of Buckbeak," he said mildly, and slipped outside. 

Sirius was still holding his face. "Art-" 

She was more angry with him than she'd thought. Through all the missing him, the helplessness, the fear of the future- she hadn't had the time to think about the fact that she was furious with him. "Where the hell were you?" she said in a choked voice. 

"Well, mostly prison-" 

"You escaped," Artemis cried. "You escaped, and left me waiting here for months with no word, no idea where you were- you scared me- I thought you were dead!" 

Sirius stared at her. 

"Not even an owl to let me know you were okay, no word, nothing! I thought-" And at last, she voiced her worst fear, one that had been creeping up on her for years now. "I thought you fucking forgot about me in that place." 

This was worse than the slap in the face. He felt like he'd been hit by the most powerful stupefying hex to ever exist. Sirius blinked twice, then sat on the edge of the table, exhausted. He watched Artemis closely. Her eyes were tearful, but they still had the biting edge he'd always loved so much. She was older now, but still the prettiest person he'd ever laid eyes on. She looked like the woman he'd envisioned himself marrying in the future. The way that he'd imagined her in Azkaban was always the same. The Artemis he knew before the war. The girl he'd fallen in love with over and over as a teenager. He could picture so clearly in his mind the image of her standing in the field behind the Potter's house, arms outstretched, the sun pouring golden light over her, making even the bruise under her left eye look a little better. 

That was how he'd chosen to remember her. Now, she was standing right in front of him, and he realized he wanted to remember her like this forever. 

"Artemis." His voice came out choked, and he swallowed hard. "Artemis, darling, all I wanted was to find you. For the first few days after I broke out, it was the only thing I could think of. I mean- literally the only thing I could think of. But it would've been dangerous. There were dementors and aurors on my back the whole way, and if I had somehow been able to track you down here, it would've been leading them right to you." 

She clenched her jaw and gave him a harsh stare. "I don't fucking care about the danger. I needed you, Sirius. For thirteen fucking years, I needed you!" 

"I know," he said. "I needed you too. But it happened, and it's over, so can we put it in the past? Just- forget about it, pretend like no time went by, and make up for it all-" 

Artemis wanted to say yes. But thirteen years had done a lot to her. She'd become an adult- a real adult, not a kid running around fighting a war for the sake of excitement. She couldn't look him in the eye. "I don't know if you're the same person I fell in love with. And I don't know if I'm the same person either," she said slowly. 

"Art, please-" Sirius was desperate. 

She shook her head. "You can stay here if you want, but- If anything is going to happen with us... I mean, I don't even know you anymore." 

And before she could backtrack or start crying again, she turned on her heel and went to her bedroom. 

The door opened and Remus walked in. When he saw Sirius sitting alone in the kitchen, deadened eyes staring at the floor, his shoulders sagged. "You can sleep on the couch," he said softly. "I'll get some blankets." 

~

It was three in the morning. Artemis couldn't sleep. It wasn't for the usual reasons, though. She wasn't thinking about the war, or the people she'd lost, or the past at all. She was thinking about the fact that Sirius, for the first time in over a decade, was sleeping in the same house as her. And he wasn't in her bed. He wasn't inches away. He was all the way down the stairs and through the hall, in the living room. 

Something washed over her in that moment that she couldn't quite place. She still believed what she'd told Sirius. They were different people now. She couldn't just snap right back into the place she'd been before he'd been taken away. They were older now, and he'd spent years in a place more traumatizing than anything most people could imagine. But he was here now. And she couldn't stand to be away from him any longer. 

Before she could second guess herself, she was out of bed and taking the stairs quietly, so as not to wake Remus. When she reached the living room, she saw Sirius stretched out on the couch. When his eyes were closed, and she could no longer see how haunted he'd become by Azkaban, he looked almost normal. He'd borrowed some of Remus's clothes and taken a shower, and despite the scratches and bruises on his face and the tangled knots in his hair, he looked just like the old Sirius. 

She crept over to him and put a hand on his arm, as lightly as she could. He bolted awake, flinching away from her and making her jump. She immediately felt bad. She could tell he did too. His gaze softened as he relaxed. "What is it?" he asked, uneasy. 

"I just-" Artemis hated going back on her own words, but this was Sirius. She could injure her pride for him. "Can I sleep here? I... It's just..." 

She didn't need to explain herself to him. Even after that much time apart, he could read her mind. He shifted over and held the blankets open for her to curl up next to him, his arm around her waist, one hand in her hair. Neither of them spoke after that. Sirius didn't expect Artemis to change her mind in the morning, to suddenly be in love with him again and to pick up where they left off. All that mattered now was that moment. The fact that after thirteen years, after being locked in Azkaban, after running from dementors and living in hiding, after being so close to killing Peter and failing anyways- he was holding Artemis, and she smelled the same as she did when they were twenty, and this was all he'd wanted his entire life.