Stranger From the Past

Getting To Know You All Over Again

Just when Becky finally summoned the courage to face Sirius, she heard footsteps outside her door.

Great, she thought wryly. An interruption just when I'm ready to do the deed. Now I have to begin from square one all over again.

Scowling, Becky yanked open the door and...gasped.

Sirius.

It was Sirius Black.

It took several seconds for her to realise that her mouth was hanging open. Embarrassed, she quickly composed herself.

"Hi," he muttered with matching unease, shifting his weight from one foot to the other.

Unable to find her voice, her only response was to stand back against the door, letting him pass.

Sirius entered and glanced around the hall. It was neat and the furnishing was kept to the minimum. How unlike Becky, he thought, before giving himself a harsh reminder that more than a decade had passed. How well could he claim to know her now?

Becky noted his surprise. "I'm not a very good interior designer," she said awkwardly, rubbing her damp palms onto her skirt.

"It looks great," he quickly assured her. "It's just that this doesn't look like a place you'll - it just doesn't look you." He gave up explaining, knowing he was not doing a good job.

A tinge of smile touched her lips. "Then what will be more like me?"

"A lot more cluttered and messy," he blurted out before he could stop himself.

To his relief, she showed no trace of being offended. Instead, she started giggling like a little girl - almost like the old Becky Pettigrew he used to know.

"You stay here alone?" he ventured and was secretly happy to see her confirmation.

There was another awkward stretch of silence before she finally gestured for him to take a seat and mumbled about getting him a drink. Sirius settled on her couch and watched her disappear into the kitchen. At that moment, it dawned upon him that he did not know what to say to her. He began to search his mind frantically for a topic but came to nought. He was licking his lips and silently berating himself for being so unprepared, when she re-entered the hall with two cups of hot tea.

Sirius sipped the drink slowly, observing Becky from the corner of his eyes. Suddenly, realisation struck him and he peered into his cup.

Becky smiled in understanding. "You've always liked it thick. Two teabags to a cup. Earl Grey. No milk. One teaspoon of brown sugar," she recited from memory.

"You still remember."

"I used to be your tea-maker, remember? There was a period when I made a cup for you daily."

Sirius nodded absently. In the one year that they had been almost a couple, Becky had visited his rented apartment daily, fussed over him and made him feel like a king - at least that was how he thought a Muggle king would feel.

She sensed his mood change and sobered up too.

They sat there quietly, sipping from their cups. About ten minutes later, the tea was gone and they no longer had an excuse not to speak. She set down her now empty cup on her lap and restlessly traced the rim over and over again with a finger.

"Sirius -"

"Becky -"

She looked down self-consciously. "You first."

"No. You go first."

"No. What were you trying to -"

"You should -"

"I'm sorry." They both said together and stared at the other in astonishment.

"You have nothing to be sorry for," he told her.

"My brother - it was my brother who landed you in this mess. If it wasn't for Peter," she swallowed hard, "James and Lily will still be alive and you would not have -" Her voice broke and she looked away hurriedly, blinking back tears of resentment and frustration.

"It's not your fault," he insisted. There was a brief pause before he spoke again. "Do you blame me?"

She whirled to stare at him in surprise. "Blame you? Why would I do that?"

"If it wasn't for my sheer stupidity, Wormtail would never have gotten the chance to betray -" Suddenly, he couldn't bring himself to utter the name of his late friend. "If it wasn't for me, you may still have a brother."

"It's not you, Sirius. Peter would have found a way even if you had not let him be the Secret Keeper." Becky could not stop herself any longer. She got on her feet as feelings bottled up for the past decade come pouring forth. "You've always been more important to me than anyone else, Sirius," she said in a whisper that was barely audible. "Peter doesn't even come close. I never believed for a moment that you betrayed James. I know you would never do that. I thought it was a gross misunderstanding, or some accident that went terribly out of hand. Then I read the recent reports and found out the truth. My brother was the one responsible for the whole nightmare, only that it's one we'll never wake up from. I hate him, Sirius. I hate him to the core and I wish he's dead."

"He is now. He's little more than dead now after the dementors were through with him," he said bitterly. He stood up, crossed the room and stayed beside the windows.

"Can we stop talking about him?" She bit down her lower lip.

Sirius turned to face her and forced a stiff smile. "How have you been all these years?"

"We moved to France soon after that - incident." She shot him a nervous glance. "Then I found a job at a dress shop and have been dolling up French witches ever since."

"Why are you back in Britain?"

"My parents died. I wanted to leave France and start a new life." Her voice sounded hollow. "Enough about me. Let's talk about you instead."

He grimaced. "What's there to tell? That I spent twelve years holed up in that hell? Oh that's great, I can still rhyme."

Becky gave a small nostalgic smile as memories of the young Sirius and his escapades came to her mind. "I read about your escape from Azkaban. That was pretty spectacular." She moved closer and studied his features. "You've changed, Sirius."

"Me? Are you trying to tell me I'm no longer the to-die-for bloke you used to be crazy about?" He knew that his feeble attempt to lighten the mood had fallen flat as soon as those words were uttered.

Becky's heart ached. She remembered the Sirius she used to know and searched for some resemblance to the grown man in front of her.

"Can I give you a hug?" she asked suddenly.

His jaws fell apart. This was definitely not what he was expecting to hear.

Taking his silence as consent, Becky closed the distance between them with another step, curled her arms around Sirius and pulled him into a hug. She continued to cling to him and tightened her arms.

"Becky -"

"I missed you, Sirius. I wanted to see you but they won't let me. They said no visitors were allowed. When I just heard about your escape, I wanted to come back at once, to be nearer where you were. But Mum was very ill then and I couldn't leave. Afterwards, I was no longer sure where you were, whether you were still in Britain." She rambled on as she soaked his shirt with hot tears. "Are you the Sirius I used to know? I wish there's some way I can erase all those years and let all of us return to the past. I wish there's some way I can make it up to you. I wish I can undo all the damages we Pettigrews have done to you. And James. And Lily."

She glanced up at him and felt a sharp stab of pain. Sirius' dark eyes no longer contained laughter and arrogance like they used to many years ago. Instead now, there was a haunted look of someone who had experienced and seen too much pain and regret. That was when Becky pulled away from him abruptly and took a few steps backwards.

"Nothing can undo the past," he told her in mixed sadness and bitterness. "I've made a mistake and I have to live with it for the rest of my life."

The stretch of silence lasted longer this time, with neither of them knowing what to say.

Finally, Sirius turned his back to her and made for the door.

"Sirius!" she finally found her voice. As he spun around quizzically, she drew her courage and looked at him steadily in the eye. "I have something that belongs to you." With that, she disappeared into where he presumed her bedroom was located.

Moments later, his breath caught in his throat when he saw what she had retrieved.

His wand.

The wand he had not seen for the past thirteen years.

The wand he last used on the night of James' death and his capture.

"How did you get this?" he croaked.

"I sort of bribed a Ministry official to let me have it. I told him that I wanted to have the wand that killed my brother. He thought I was going to destroy it. That was what the Ministry intended to do anyway, so he saw no harm in letting me do the honours. Of course, my reward of twenty galleons helped him make his decision fast."

Sirius took his wand and stroked it fondly, as though it was an old friend who had died and come alive. He wanted to thank her but words failed him. But the look on his face told her all there was to know, and when he opened his arms to her, there was no hesitance as she flung herself against his chest.

He held her so tightly that she felt almost breathless. But she didn't care. She didn't care about anything else, besides the fact that she was in Sirius' arms once again.

Then she heard the words that made her smile go even wider.

"I missed you too."

His voice was so quiet that she might have imagined it, and it took a swift upward glance to confirm that her ears were not playing tricks on her. "You did?" she asked in a small voice.

In response, he kissed her hair and pressed her harder against him.

Becky sighed contentedly. "I'm not dreaming, am I? Tell me I'm not dreaming."

"Okay, you're not dreaming," he deadpanned.

She pulled away slightly and looked into his face, feigning an angry glare.

Then he started to laugh. His whole face lit up and Becky felt herself melting with happiness as she recognised yet another trace of the former Sirius. Her mouth parted with a smile as she lifted a hand to caress his chiselled features.

"I love you so much, Sirius," she whispered, and felt another flood of tears rushing to her eyes. She refused to let them fall. "I love you, I love you and I love you."

Sirius found his lips curling upwards instinctively, as a warm feeling surged through his body. Did he love her? He had never truly been in love. Perhaps if he had been allowed to live a normal live like the other wizards, he would have fallen in love with a woman, married her and be a father of a handful of kids.

And that woman could have been Becky.

But now, he would never know.

Sirius mentally gave himself a little shake. He could not afford to dwell too much into his past. The future was what he should concentrate on.

So did he love her? He was not even sure if he was capable of loving anyone for the rest of his life.

But there was one thing he knew for sure - he did not want to leave Becky. Not yet anyway. She was someone familiar, a comforting presence and a link to the happier times he was desperate to hang on to.

Her blue eyes searched his face slowly, memorising the now more weathered features of the man she had been crazy about all her life. Finally, she reluctantly pulled her glance away. "You're still the same in many ways," she concluded. "You still can't bring yourself to commit to someone."

"Sorry."

"There's no need to apologise. You've never said you love me and I'm under no such delusions. I know you better than that. Looks like I've to work hard to earn it."

He grimaced as another long-lost memory struck him. "As long as you don't pull the same stunt and make out with everyone in trousers."

She grinned. "But that worked, didn't it?"

"All I would say is, it sure got my attention."

Her grin grew wider. "And that's good enough for me."

Sirius let out a little sigh. "So where do we go from here?"

***