For the first time since they’d even been friends, Sirius opened up. When Mary had come to Sirius, she’d laid herself out enough so that he would take her seriously. She’d told him about Mulciber, as much as she could bear to say, she’d told him about how she never wanted to feel as weak as she had ever again, and she had told him that she when the war came, she would be ready. None of that called for him to open up, and she had never wanted him too. He was never meant to be anything more than a mentor, and being that entitled him to his secrecy. She had never asked for him to open up about his family or where he came from, but here he was, laying the pieces of himself on the table for Mary to see him for what he was.
Black’s definitely didn’t shelter their young, and the idea that Sirius played with his families enemies in the forms of balls or dolls made Mary realize just how different their upbringings had been. How different the two of them had always been.
He stumbled on the word. Mudblood. It would be etched into his being for the rest of his life, wether he wanted to get rid of the reflex or not. That would always be a part of him, and Mary wondered when he’d stopped seeing her a mudblood and started seeing her as a muggbleborn, or if she’d ever really truly made the transition. If part of Sirius hated himself for allowing himself to care about someone like her.
And then he dropped a bomb. Since she’d known him, he had been so adamant that he had chose to leave. That it was his choice, and he had disagreed with his family so much so that he couldn’t bear to listen to them one more day, but that was all a lie. He had asked questions are made friends without fear of repercussions, and his family had grown tired of him. They had kicked him out, and suddenly Mary realized how much the step towards his father at the Minister’s had meant. She had kept him from retribution, but his biggest fear was that the Order would have abandoned him too.
“Friend? You’re their brother. You weren’t born to them, they chose you.” Peter, and James, and Remus would lay down their lives for him without a moments hesitation. “Molly plans to take care of you for the rest of our lives. Marlene worries about you the way a sister would. They’re your family now, Sirius.” Mary knew, without a doubt that if he decided to tell everyone the truth, it wouldn’t change a single thing. Sirius had fought beside them, killed for them, and protected them, and what had happened with his family wouldn’t mean shit. “And me? There’s not a damn thing you could do that would change the way I feel about you.”
He could hear the conviction in her voice, but, like the sun’s warmth on a frosty winter morning, it didn’t reach his heart. She believed what she said – in Mary’s mind, there was nothing Sirius could say that would change who he is, change who he’s become – and to her, the Order would follow that. If Sirius walked into the Table Room next meeting and told them all he hadn’t wanted to leave his family behind, he’d still be welcome there.
And part of Sirius was glad Mary could still be so naïve. It was an anchor from days past, tugging on Sirius’ heart. A reminder of a girl who stuttered when she asked him to help her, who looked at him with hopeful eyes and saw someone worth loving. A girl who could still cry when things were hurt, who flinched at the sight of blood.
He hadn’t killed that girl entirely.
But regardless of what Mary thought she was wrong. He would not be welcome if word got out about his feelings about his family, and Moody would cast him out of the Order for sure if he knew Sirius had even the smallest bit of a desire to return home.
“You told me you loved me,” he murmured, eyes cast down to his carpet, “Before you left the other night.”
It wasn’t a question. It had been too long since Sirius had asked a girl how she felt about him, since he’d been so dependent on another person’s opinion of him. No one else mattered really – James, Remus, Pete, Molly and Mary – and out of all of them, all they had to do was look at him and tell him they’d been wrong to love him and he’d be destroyed.
He was vulnerable, and his father had always told him Blacks could never be so weak. He supposed Orion was right - Sirius never had been a Black, not truly.
