ATLAS -James Potter-

• Chapter XL

"They kicked me out du...during summer..."

And there it was. What was behind that shallow boy she saw in summer, sunken into the chair at Diagon alley, distant stairs in class, that shadow at those early morning hours when she shouldn't meet anyone trying to escape from the world. There was that thing that he just couldn't hide when that one piece from home looked right back into his soul. And all she could say was, "Oh."

"Yeah oh." He laughed, but it wasn't that Sirius Black laugh. That laugh where you knew that he seized every bright moment he could get because he knew there are times way darker. No, this laugh - it makes you think he got lost in that darkness.

"And he tries, and I try, but I can't talk to James about it. He will always try, but even when his words are all so sincere, they are still just words with the knowledge that they never understand this-" he threw his arms out as if still hoping for that bone-crushing hug he never received from the world, with that realization filled face pulled into a pain written grimace "-crap!"

She watched him take those shacky deep breaths. Those you would take when you just reached the surface again. When you held your breath for far too long, and if the world him was that scary, dark ocean of nothingness, Victoria was glad to be the air that pained him when it filled his lungs.

"I don't know why, but... I hate them so much, for everything they did to me, to him, to everyone around them, but-"

"You still hurt. You always told yourself that you don't need them, but then there you are, at the end of the day waiting for them to take back everything that happened. You still feel that pain that only they could cause you." He shouldn't have looked at her with those wide-open eyes. He knew way too much to look at her like that, but in front of him was Victoria Atikson, and no one could fit the description 'perfect pureblood' as much as she did. He never thought further than those smiles the daily prophet always loved to include.

His voice was a lot more careful now, and as if only now realizing who that was in front of him, his eyes didn't dare to leave hers. "Cayden-"

"He has me, and you have James and Peter, and Remus but-" She knew.

When he allowed the corners of his mouth to pull into a hopeless try for that Sirius-Black-grin, he would have laughed for that situation. Victoria fucking Atkinson, again, knows what to do.

Cayden Aktison, the boy who rewrote this whole tragedy of a comedy again... it was a vicious thing to think, but there was a part of Sirius Black that was happy for the curse that struck into Cayden's life. But then again, as much as he didn't want to load his emotional baggage onto him, the boy, even with his tear-filled nods, hopeful smiles and understanding words, just couldn't understand. No, with a mother that loved him, even now from further away, and a sister who would kill for him, he just... Sirius still felt so fucking lost, even when surrounded by so many people, all of who are doing so much to take away that feeling.

He knew that she knew that she hit the mark just perfectly, and for that, he could only offer her that empty smile the world had always offered him. "You just have to know everything, don't you?"

His words could have hurt her, but she chose not to. She just chose to shrug her shoulders in a way that would make you seem she was part of those overly cocky marauders. Sirius smiled brighter, and when she eased, he did as well.

"I mean it is annoying sometimes, did anyone ever tell you that? ," he laughed, and Victoria could only smile along. The pureblood felt that small force in his laugh when he just wanted to be himself again, she just didn't need to point it out.

"Cayden occasionally."

"I mean you have to be perfect - not meant in a romantic way. But damn." There was no reason for her to be perfect, and if anyone would have ever put enough thought to it, they would know, but Sirius Black didn't care to do, and when he laughed again, Victoria just couldn't, because when he was like the rest of them, she could only smile that perfect smile. That cursed, perfect smile.