stay with me.

i am seeking. i am striving. i am in it with all my heart. 1x1 penned by jess.

[patronused]

COURTYARD, GRIMMAULD PLACE. POST BATTLE OF HANGLETON. 

@poltcrgcists​

Even the small courtyard connected to Grimmauld Place felt too confined. Harry had not liked it before, when it had been the only outside area he was allowed to go in, and he did not like it now, either, despite the disaster that his temporary respite from the Order’s keeping had been. 

They weren’t keeping him, he reminded himself firmly, rubbing his hands together for warmth in the briskness of the air. They were his family. Some part of him knew that, it was why he’d returned. The guilt had been too much, especially when he’d learnt of the battle at the graveyard. Not that Harry had afforded them much assistance. He clasped his hands tighter, making a more furious movement. Still nothing. They remained as clammy and pale as they had been hours earlier when that creature had attacked him at the graveyard. 

He’d thought it was going to kill him, but instead ... half-formed figures flickered behind his eyes again, faces he could recognise as his children, his wife, a repeating pattern accompanied by flashes of fear and pain, panic and desperation. He was still struggling to understand what it had all meant, but somehow, it seemed entirely unsurprising that if a memory had returned to him, it had been one made of horrors. That seemed to be not only all his new life was comprised of, but all his old life was willing to give back to him, too. 

A noise at his back had Harry stiffen in alert, instincts that formed before his brain seemed able to catch up. There seemed every so often to be a person who either came to check he was still here - he could hardly blame how little trust they had in him now, he thought bitterly - or that they had come for fresh air themselves, and upon seeing him, turned in haste and made an escape. He probably couldn’t blame them for not being able to stand the sight of him either.  He could barely stand himself. He half-turned his head, not moving from his seat position, and recognised Rose. He didn’t know which of the two reasons they were here for and tensed despite himself, knowing they could hardly be happy with him. Maybe he couldn’t remember Rose, but he still knew he was letting them down. “How’s your father?” he asked, not meeting their eyes. “Is he going to be alright after ...” 

[patronused]

‘ and you realize the one person in the world who loves you isn’t the one you thought it would be . ’ (lily & harry)

Harry listened carefully, the conflict between emotions inside of him easing at least a little at the painful sincerity in his daughter’s words. And how true it was. How many times he’d made enemies out of those who could have been friends, made friends when he should have been watchful for enemies. Harry had learnt those lessons bitterly, through blood and war, all of which still stained him, years later. If Lily could learn them and come out with love, then he could only bow his head and nod.

“I’m not going to pretend I’m entirely happy about you and Rahim,” he began. “He’s not what I would have picked for you. I always wanted things to be ... easy for you.” 

The words came slowly. Even now he found it difficult to explain himself, but this truth was one he knew well. Lily was older now, but young enough that the features of her face blurred so easily to reveal the little girl he would always see. Yet not even Harry could fool himself to miss the same stubborn twist to her mouth that had always been there. And where he had seen it before, on no one’s face but his own, bent into a shape of bitter defiance, time and time again. He let out a laugh, half-amusement and half-acceptance. “I should have known you were too much like me for an easy path.”

The amusement faded quickly. Too much had passed that he felt never-ending stabs of regret over. Too many mistakes he’d made. Somehow, they all came to a head in the form of Lily and Rahim Lestrange. After all, it was the boy’s father that Harry had watched for years and failed to act against, until the children - Harry’s own child - had had to step up and fight this war. 

He brushed his hand over Lily’s cheek quickly, the touch still unfamiliar after the distance that had been between them, even now his memories were back.  Things weren’t quite as they had been before. But they were getting there, even if Harry would never entirely forgive himself for how cruel and distant he had been to his family. Or for dying on them in the first place. “After everything I’ve put you through, it’s probably Lestrange who has the right to be angry at me for making your life harder. Rahim,” he corrected himself.

Better to use his first name, anyway. It would take a long time before he could hear Lestrange and not connect it to the gaunt face of Rodolphus Lestrange, Azkaban-bound and yet proud of what he had done to the Longbottom family. 

Or the harrowing laugh of Bellatrix, something Harry awoke from more and more frequently with the return of his memories, fresh with the rage over the death of Sirius, a rage so potent it had been the first that had made him ever turn to the Unforgivable curses. His burden to carry, he reminded himself firmly. He did not want to put that fight onto Lily’s head, not if she had freed herself from it, in a way that Harry had not yet been able to do. No, Harry hadn’t ever been as good at forgiveness as he wanted to be. 

“Maybe in the end it’s your mother who you’re too much like.” He knelt his head to one side, eyes faraway.  “She certainly didn’t pick easy for herself. And she never gave up on a lost cause.”

He loved Ginny for that, fiercely, and he saw it now in Lily, every last bit of Ginny’s ferociously loving heart. There was nothing he wouldn’t do to protect that, he thought, a steel entering his expression and turning the green of his eyes darker. “I know how much you blame yourself for what happened with that other boy.” If I could make it so that boy had never even spoken to you, I would, he thought. His own anger over it all was still fresh. It had taken every ounce of control he’d carefully built over the years to not do something worse. He’d been talked down by Ron and Hermione. Not Ginny. She’d been right there with him in his rage. He made careful eye contact with Lily, emphasizing each word. “But it was never your fault. It was never your fault. I trust your judgement. With my life. I know how much you fight to do the right thing, I see it. And I know what it’s like to feel you have something to make up for. Even if it’s just being alive when others aren’t. But Lily... you don’t have to fight so hard to do what’s right. It’s in you already.” If nothing else, he believed that. "If you love Rahim, then I know he’s worth it.”  

That was his last word on it, at least for now. If Lily expected recriminations, she wouldn’t get them from him, not for this. 

“And speaking from my experience - the hard path was worth it. For what I got in the end.” 

He kissed her forehead and got up, making to leave the room. At the last second, he paused at the doorway and smiled, eyes tender. “That’s you, by the way, if you didn’t pick up on on the work I’m doing regarding talking about my feelings right now,” Harry said dryly.  “Aunt Hermione will be proud.” 

He took Lily in from across the room, eyes lingering for a long moment. No matter how long he looked, it would never be enough. “I love you, Lily. Very, very much.” 

[patronused]

“Do you believe in fairy tales, Rahim?” + “You saved my life!” (lily & rahim)

1. “Do you believe in fairy tales, Rahim?”

Rahim stilled, exhaling a laugh with a bitter twist to it, that mirrored the curl of his lips. “Not anymore.” 

Maybe, when he looked at Lily, at the light and hope that was still inexplicably in her eyes, he wanted to believe. But he knew what a lie it was, and how cruelly that illusion would one day be shattered for her, just as it had been for him. That was the only thing that heartened him about their upcoming separation - at least Rahim wouldn’t have to see it. 

“This is the Death Eaters’ world now,” he continued, voice harsh. “My father’s. People like Harry Potter, Hermione Granger, the whole damn Order itself ... they’re not invincible anymore. I mean, where are they now? Hiding away? That’s what this world is full of, people who run. Trust me on this one, alright? People leave. They always leave.” His mind wandered to his mother, somewhere in Alexandria. It’d been years since he’d heard from her. She’d been the first to teach him, and now look at how well Rahim was following the lesson. Picking up and running and leaving the world on fire, a fire that his own father had set. 

He had to run. He had to look away from Lily’s face uplifted to his: afraid he’d see trust in him there, the way he’d noticed it slowly growing. He didn’t deserve that from anyone, least of all her. 

Rahim swallowed, the coldness in his words dissipating as his voice shook. “If not worse. That’s all they’re good for.” He looked back to her and felt his heart twist inside of him like a knife. It was impossible. But she looked ... so much like her, hair flaming brighter than anything Rahim had ever seen. Except for her eyes. The light in them was brighter still, a light he’d been dreaming of for years. A horribly familiar and miserable fury crept around his shoulders, as his eyes turned faraway. “There was only one person I ever met who wasn’t like that. She never would have given up. She never would have run.” The ache Rahim felt, half-grief and half-longing, knowing that was true. This Lily - his Lily, as he’d started to think of her as, for all he knew it was foolish - couldn’t really be Lily Potter. She just couldn’t. Fairytales like that, redemption like that, hope like that - it just didn’t exist. His voice cracked. “But she’s dead now. And soon the rest of us will be too.” 

“Except you and me. We’re getting out of here. Call it a fairytale if you like, but that’s the only thing you need to waste our time believing in.” 

2.  “You saved my life!”

He didn’t think he’d ever felt so alive, so aware of his body as Rahim did now, his hand cupping Lily’s cheek, thumb almost brushing against her lip. He hadn’t known it was possible to feel so tender and so hungry all at once, leaning in closer, the distance between his lips and hers almost nothing at all. 

Then he registered her words, registered who she really was, the truth of it at last. Lily Potter. Her touch would burn him as the undeserving. Rahim pulled back, abrupt, his skin still aflame where the contact between them had been lost. 

“No. No, I didn’t,” he said, voice rising in tension. He couldn’t stand the way she was looking at him. Like she wanted nothing else but him in the world. Rahim’s own eyes were still dark with desire, giving away exactly how foolish his heart had been. Again. “Not really. I should have done more. I should have gone with you. I don’t know, anything. Anything at all, but let what happened to you happen!” 

If he hadn’t already stepped back like he’d been burnt, the fury in his words would surely had blasted him back. They resonated around the room furiously, the anger he’d felt towards himself for years finally receiving an outlet. 

What had almost happened between them ... he’d been wanting it for so long, these last few weeks with her. Even longer, he realised, with that same wonderful, horrible realisation all over again, because this was Lily Potter, and she was gloriously, thankfully, alive after all. And he’d fallen in love with her all over again. 

And she was forever out of his reach. 

He tried to collect himself, to still the thousand different emotions warring inside of him, to above all still the instinct saying, hold her close, touch her, you’ve been waiting so long. 

“You don’t owe me anything,” he said. What began as something mangled solidified into the detachment he had been practicing for years. It might hurt her, his coldness, but in the end, she’d thank him for it, Rahim reasoned. His senses, that had been so alive only seconds ago, were already numbing. He’d never been meant to have this. “Nothing has changed. We just know now beyond a doubt that you really are Lily Potter. The plan is the same. We take you to the Order, safe and sound. And then I’ll go...” he paused, momentarily despondent. Though they now knew without a doubt she’d find her family, there was still no one waiting for him. And the only person he’d ever truly wanted, he’d just pushed out of his arms. He could still feel her phantom touch. Probably always will, he thought bitterly, but in the next second was pathetically grateful for it. It’d be something of her.  

“I’ll go where I need to go. We go our separate ways. Not long now.” 

[misskamala]

We’re gonna practice empathy. What’s that? That means being kind to someone when they’re in pain.

[mmcnultys]

Domina (2021)

[patrocles]

You’ve done nothing for me. And all this time Ive been trying to make it up to you.

THE OUTCAST: Part II (2015) dir. Iain Softley

[blakelivey-deactivated20211026]

Whose side are you on, Bruce?

[patronused]

WHO: harry & luna // @thvstral​​​ WHERE: dumbledore’s tomb, hogwarts grounds WHEN: a few weeks after the battle 

The tomb was one of few places that looked the same, that didn’t need the same careful magical reconstruction that was taking place within the castle. Harry might have found that comforting, if the thing itself wasn’t such a reminder of everything that had happened here. And if it wasn’t close, so close, to the forest he was trying not to think about, and the stone hidden there. 

He hadn’t even intended to come here. All he’d meant to do was help with construction efforts and yet now he stood beside the white marble, feeling his eyes prickle. A sensation that only made him feel angrier, though he could hear Dumbledore’s voice in his head explaining in gentle fashion that it was not anger, but love. Then again, perhaps Dumbledore would understand only too well that by now, Harry couldn’t think of him without both.  

It was while he was bitterly fighting against himself to not let any tears fall that he heard the sounds of someone approaching and instantly felt his anger increase. It was always the same, when he came here. Someone always wanted to talk to him - at times for genuine reasons, about the progress of the restoration, but in this moment he didn’t care who it was. He felt his temper coil in his stomach, rising and rising until it expanded into a snarl, “Look, if I could actually just get a minute to myself-” But then he broke off, recognising the silhouette and the wispy blonde head that followed with a jolt.  “Oh. Luna. I didn’t know you were here,” he finished hollowly. Luna had always somehow made it hard for him to hold onto his anger, made it empty out of him. But Harry didn’t feel entirely ready to let it go yet, so it was with a half resentful and half ashamed look he met her gaze now, with it still burning in his eyes. 

[patronused]

thvstral​:

It’s startling, to see him like this. It’s startling to see him in general, that cousin she hasn’t seen since she was eight years old and someone else entirely. A ghost of a person, not just because he seems to be made out of memories, but because he looks half-alive. Tonks has never been particularly good at these bits of life, or at least has her very own way of approaching it that not everyone can always appreciates. She looks at Sirius for a moment, registers the bitter mention of the aunt she’s never met but has heard both horror stories and tragedies about, and then turns to close the door behind them.

She drops on a spare chair. Her entire mind is made out of questions she wishes to ask, and it’s not a lack of bravery that keeps her from doing so –– it’s because she does not know where to start. Ever since Sirius had gone to Azkaban, Tonks has been filled with questions upon questions that her mother nor father could answer. Her mother’s side of her family has always had that effect on her, leaving her with more questions than anyone could possibly answer. Sirius simply raised the biggest ones, because he was the only family member of her mother’s side she ever knew, and then he’d been gone, suddenly. 

And here he was again. A ghost. She’s forgotten how to behave, but then she’s never been particularly good at behaving herself anyway. If she remembers right, that’s something Sirius once liked about her. “Still just Tonks, yeah,” she says, and she’s grinning a little. “Though I’m definitely not a kid any more.” Something proud laces her voice, and she wants to tell him that she’s an Auror now, that she’s fighting the good fight and part of it is because of him. The word codename stirs up a memory, and she reaches for it for a moment, urging it back. “Padfoot’s yours, right?”

She wonders if he would be okay with her hugging her. With most others, she would do it, no questions asked, but something about the way Sirius sits here, in his childhood bedroom, makes her hesitant. Tonks shifts in her seat, lets her eyes travel around the bedroom for a few moments again, and then her eyes are back on her cousin. “It never made any sense to me, ya know,” she says, “You.” She tries to make her words coherent, to not stumble over them like she did over the umbrella stand earlier. “Guess it does now.” And it’s not something she’s happy about, she hopes he sees that. Tonks pulls her legs up, sits cross-legged on the chair now, a restless thing even in adulthood. “It’s good to see you again, is what I’m tryin’ to say. Wish it wasn’t all so fucked.” She’s quiet for a moment, before letting out a laugh. “Oh, you can swear in front of me now. Mum tried to raise me not to be potty-mouthed but it never worked out.”

Picking a fight with an Order member would have been a good way to break the monotony. But Sirius couldn’t find cause to regret it. There was always a chance of Molly later, or better yet, Snivellus. For now, though there was an ache in his chest upon seeing it, so different from the one he remembered, he matched Tonks’ grin with one of his own. “No. I s’pose you’re not a kid anymore.” The melancholy threatened to overwhelm him again - certainly would if he kept searching her features and trying to match them against the child Tonks. Gone forever, just like baby Harry was. Like James was. All gone forever. If he wasn’t angry about it, he was lonely. He preferred angry, but it was often hard to work up the energy for that.  “Nothing’s the same,” Sirius said, but upon hearing the emptiness in the words, he caught himself and forced his grin to return.“Padfoot to you and a select group only. Don’t go spreading it around indiscriminately, alright?” 

Harry is still here, he reminded himself. Tonks is still here. He didn’t let himself think the other name. He couldn’t. He knew he’d choke on the grief it left behind, Tonks’ presence beside him or not. 

He was glad of her presence, though, and heartened beyond words by the admission that Tonks hadn’t entirely written him off as a mass murderer. The upheaval inside him again was getting familiar now. He was never comfortable with one mood or another anymore, in constant shift from one extreme to another. “Yeah?”  Sirius asked, words heavy with emotion as they rested in the air. There wasn’t much more he could manage to say, though his eyes might have conveyed the depths of it to her. “Good to see you again, too, kid. Tonks. Really fucking good,” he added cheerfully, just for the sake of swearing, and perhaps also to cover the emotion he’d felt. Safer to move past things like that. 

“And you’re in the Order. You would be.” There was pride in that sentiment, her realised now. Another good one, Mum, that’s three on my side now, four if we count Uncle Alphard. Noble house isn’t looking so pure now, is it? The ongoing dialogue with his dead mother no longer unsettled him, commonplace as it was, but he didn’t think he’d share it with Tonks.  “Andromeda,” he said instead, feeling warmth at the thought of his cousin. Questions nearly tripped off his tongue. How is she? Does she know about me? But there was part of him afraid of the answer. Sirius shook his head, laughed a hoarse chuckle around the quiet old room. “She was always too good for our family. Like you. You met my mother yet? She’s a real charmer. I can introduce you.” 

[anctherlife]

—   some order safe house,  with fabian prewett.  ( @patrcnus )

for the first time in — he doesn’t know how much time has passed since being a boy and free. but he is free. osiris can move his arms and legs with volition for a reason he didn’t stick around to listen to. the curse melted away from around his spine and osiris wasn’t prepared to let that chance slip through his fingers. but as death eaters catch his trail not even a day later, si has another first: fearing for his life. a life he’d just gotten control over again. to have it ripped from his hands now would be the cruelest form of torture. so he fights harder than he’s ever had to. it doesn’t matter that they disarm him, because they spent years teaching the prisoner wandless magic. 

but he isn’t given the opportunity to really show them what they’d created when for the first time, si doesn’t fight alone. he didn’t see where they came from, nor did he care. in that moment, he didn’t even care who they were, just that they turned their wands so easily on his oppressors. that’s how he lands himself bound to a chair in an otherwise empty room. it wasn’t his saviors ( he’s not settled on this status, far from it ) who leave him in such a state, but his own suggestion. i don’t trust myself, he tells them upon arriving in what he might later come to know as an order safe house, i’ve spent my whole life under imperius, is the easiest and quickest explanation he can give them. and with that, they leave him alone in a room with only one window, bound to a chair. an improvement, he thinks. 

for a man with so much fight rooted into every fiber of himself, he does a remarkable job of keeping the fear of being trapped again under the surface. when the door opens, he thinks his heart stops for a second, as if his father would be the one opening it. “ who are you? what we’re you all talking about out there?”  maybe the panic is harder to hide than he predicted. “ i don’t want to be tied up like this forever.” 

[patronused]

Fabian hadn’t been able to stop thinking about him. Not as the others deliberated over what to do, an endless discussion that had been unable to break through his apathy the way he had. So now Fabian was here, opening a door, without his better judgement being entirely aware of why. “My name is Fabian. I’ve brought you some things,” he said brusquely. Once he might have done it to be kind, but now it was, Fabian thought, more out of habit, more because it was something he would have done once. It was nothing much - water, some leftovers of Molly’s cooking, a small stack of his own books, what he’d had left lying around at Headquarters, titles on Divination from another lifetime ago. He didn’t even want to look at them now. Where once uncovering the mysteries of the Sight had consumed Fabian’s every last thought, he found he no longer cared. Gideon would be as dead in the future as he was now. 

He roughly placed the stack to the side of their prisoner’s chair, then aimed his wand. First though, Fabian said quietly, “You’re a good fighter. Maybe better than me. You could probably kill me.” There was no particular inflection in his tone - it was probably at least part of the reason why he came in here. He didn’t really care either way if he died at their prisoner’s hand. He did still care about the people outside this room, though, which was why his voice lowered once more in warning. “But you wouldn’t get out of this room. Protective enchantments - I’m very good at that. Even if you killed me, they wouldn’t break. Just so you know.”  He flicked his wand once to conjure a chair, setting it in place so they were only several inches away, before he undid the binding on the prisoner, setting him free.  Fabian leaned forward, leaning on his knees so they were closer still. This was the first real look he’d gotten at him and he had to admit to curiosity, his eyes lingering, noting everything. 

“You won’t be in here forever. But ... you’ve brought us a problem. A mystery.” And that was the thing. Maybe why he was really here. It felt like years since he’d been an Unspeakable, since the thrill of an unsolvable question had burned inside of him. He couldn’t lie to himself. He locked eyes with the prisoner once more. It had been a long time since he’d felt this alive. “They don’t really know what to do with you. We don’t,” he corrected himself. Fabian was still one of them, even if he didn’t exactly feel it, even if he, in truth, felt more akin to what their prisoner clearly felt. Trapped in a nightmare presumably of his own making. He’d been the one to come to them, hadn’t he? With some story about the Imperius Curse - hardly the first person to tell it. But he’d also been fighting against the Death Eaters, and there was something about that fierce look in his eyes that pulled at Fabian, that told him he was truthful. Except after all it had cost Fabian, he’d finally stopped listening to those flawed instincts, so there was little point in thinking about any similiarities between them. He let his eyes go cold instead, harsh. “Why don’t you tell me what you want and we’ll go from there.” 

[thvstral]

WHO: sirius & tonks // @patrcnus​ WHERE: 12 grimmauld place. WHEN: early july-ish, 1995

This could have gone more smoothly, admittedly. Upon entering 12 Grimmauld place for the first time, Tonks had – much to Moody’s chagrin, but a lot of the things she did were to his chagrin – stumbled over an umbrella stand, which had kicked of a series of events. A screaming painting, calling her all sorts of names, and Moody scrambling to shut her up while Tonks was still trying to think about how she should try and keep the clumsiness to a minimum while meeting the Order. She’d stood there, a bit incredulous, half-amused and half-enraged, setting the umbrella stand upright again.

And now, having recovered from her general clumsiness and having shaken some hands in the kitchen – “Oh, no, it’s not a dye job, but thanks, I do love the pink too!” – she’s climbing up the stairs. Portraits of people that look like her mother in slight ways follow her and she sticks out her tongue to a few, flips off another. She’s glad every day that she carries her dad’s surname, and not that of her mother. The sheer idea of being related to some of these twats is almost laughable. She reaches the top floor, followed by whispering paintings, and halts.

There’s a nameplate on the door that reads Sirius, and Tonks stares at it for a moment, before knocking. The polite gesture is followed immediately by a less-than-considerate one, and she bursts through the door, impatient and curious without waiting for a reply. How her mother would disapprove. But Tonks has never been good at patience, and curiosity tends to eat away at her if she lets it, and so she stumbles in.

“Holy shit,” she says, eyes falling on Sirius, then on the covered walls, then on Sirius again. “You’re so much cooler than I remember.” A strange thing to say, but it’s the first thing that comes into her head, and Tonks has a fatal lack of filter. “Remember me?” 

[patronused]

Someone had set his mother off downstairs. Sirius had heard her shrieking from all the way up here, but for once it had done nothing to move the thick layer of apathy dulling his sense, like frost on a glass pane. They’d managed to shut her up without him, anyway. They could, apparently, manage a lot without him. He imagined talk was beginning down there, that the meeting might have begun by this time. It did nothing to change Sirius sullenly staying in place. Dumbledore had already said they weren’t going to rescue Harry yet, and Dumbledore had already said Sirius wasn’t allowed to so much as walk in the street, let alone do anything useful. He couldn’t think of a single other damn thing he cared about, not unless they announced they’d found Peter and had him tied up in the kitchen, ready for Sirius to try out the Noble and Most Ancient wizard’s torture rack he and Molly had found in the attic last week. Maybe Kreacher had been onto something, not letting him throw anything out, he thought, with a flash of dark amusement about it, if nothing else. 

The knock on the door took his eyes off the old photo he’d been staring at - unable to look away, like he was stuck into a loop, just like it was stuck onto the wall forever by his very own charm, a fucking reminder forever that he hadn’t just killed Peter right then and there, at fifteen years old apiece - but he didn’t move to open it. He’d already told Remus he didn’t want to be the show for the new members. It had gotten old. His mouth opened, ready to say as much as the door blew open, but then shut again in confusion. This wasn’t Remus. He felt a stronger wave of irritation, enough to begin to crash through his sense of paralysation. 

“Azkaban. It works miracles. Dear old Bella’s sweeter than ever, too,” he said, deliberately scathingly to this stranger, before he was struck right out of numbness entirely by the pink hair. And the mention of Bella - those were her eyes, in this face he didn’t know. It would chill him, except he did know it, had known and mourned for it. He’d never liked to think of little Dora Tonks hating him. It had almost been a relief that the Dementors had taken memories of her away. “Nymphadora?” 

It was only the moment after he said it that he remembered he had never called her that. His memory was like that, these days, more remnants pieced together than anything else. He could never quite predict what would stay and what wouldn’t. But now there was the phantom of the way he’d crouched down beside her and given a conspiratorial whisper, i have a real name, too, different from what people want to call me. it’s padfoot, you can use it, but don’t tell your mum, it’s a secret codename, i think you can be trusted.  The memory was fuzzy, distorted; how cruel Azkaban was to leave something behind, just enough so he knew something was missing. All the same it was the same thought running through Sirius’ mind now, staring at this face that was at once familiar but not, at least not in the form of an adult. I think you can be trusted. He blazoned on a grin, even if it was stretched thin at the edges. His bitterness had not been for her. “Sorry, kid. I meant to say Tonks. Unless you don’t like your codename anymore.” It was half-teasing, half-cautious, a rusty attempt at trying to fall back into an old pattern that he wasn’t sure still existed between them.  

[midsommars-deactivated20201109]

—Greta Gerwig, Little Women (2019) Script

[juiiniko]