Dark Synesthesia | Sirius Black ͛

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None of that mattered at this moment, however. Teddy knew his mother was gone; he didn't know that she wasn't coming back. Within a few weeks, he would accept Hera as his caretaker, relying upon her to change, clothe, feed, and shelter him. Now, Hera felt the biggest failure to exist.

Would the misery of losing Remus and Dora, the stress of becoming their child's guardian, cause her to lose the baby that grew within her womb?

Would she show more love toward her and Sirius' child, and forever destroy the self-worth of the helpless baby in her arms?

She drifted off to sleep in Dora's bed, crying silently as she thought of the time they'd next have to change her sheets. At least for now, her scent remained between the duvet and fitted sheet.
That would be enough.

   Sleep would elude Sirius on this night.

From the chair in the corner of the room, he stared over at the small baby resting in Hera's arms, her eyes swollen and red. She had seemingly all but exhausted her tears for the day.

It was still early morning, dawn barely peeking through the trees, and the sky was still clouded in a blanket of despair and ruins.

Returning home after such a calamity felt bittersweet; it was over, they were safe and free, but the chaos and loss wore heavily on his tired eyes.

Sirius had nearly lost everything all over again. The only difference was that when the war had ended last time, it was merely a lapse in time, and few could really bask in that peace. Last time, he was thrown in a cell, isolated from all life and hope.
This time, he was thrown into a life he didn't know how to navigate, but there was something to look forward to, a light at the end of the tunnel that he could follow and eventually end up where he was always meant to be.

There were small solaces between the grief, comforts that would make life easier — at least he had the basics: He had his house, and he would soon have access to his money again, thus being able to eat without worrying about when the small amount of money in his Muggle account for household bills would run out.

Most of all, he had his wife.
He had the woman who had the great gift of understanding. He had always believed that those who understand us enslave something in us. He had already been enslaved by the chains of the family he had been born into, and he never wanted someone to understand him so that he was weakened.
Only with her, that wasn't so.

She was a life-giver in that her understanding of him was the most peaceful freedom he had ever known, and soon she would physically become a life-giver from the child growing within her. To Sirius, she was the Great Spirit, the one who befriends man not only to share his life, but to add to it. Knowing her was the greatest thing in his days and nights, a miracle quite outside the natural order of things.
She made him understand why men went to war for women.

When the battle at Hogwarts had first ended, there was but a second of rejoice for Sirius as misery and pain permeated the air as palpably as the frigid spring wind.

Teddy stirred, though he did not let out the little cry he usually did upon waking. Sirius merely stared at the boy as he frowned, looking up at the dark ceiling.

He wondered what the baby was thinking.
Did they think of much at that age beyond when they'd be fed, changed, or bathed? He liked to believe that they did, that they thought things adults were too narrow-minded to.

Sirius desperately wanted a cigarette, but then he thought of leaving the baby for a few minutes, coming back and picking him up smelling of smoke. He decided against it. Decided he might even have to quit.

Sirius kneeled on the floor closest to Teddy's side and tried to smooth the small tufts of sweaty, electric blue hair on his head.

"Hey, buddy, " he whispered, watching as the baby's eyes searched the small space in front of him. Sirius knew he couldn't see much further away than that. He hoped Teddy would understand him, even if he couldn't talk or understand spoken language yet.