Three O'clock in the Morning

Three O'clock in the Morning

In the real dark night of the soul it is always three o'clock in the morning. - F. Scott Fitzgerald

The Same Dough

Everyone is kneaded out of the same dough, but not baked in the same oven - Yiddish Proverb

"At last, we meet again," Regulus whispered in a falsetto stage voice.

Sasha laughed and kissed his lips chastely before kissing her brother-in- law's stubbly cheek. "I'm so glad you could make it, Sirius. Lily told me you haven't been feeling well lately."

Sirius wondered if "lately" meant since his fall through the Veil or if he generally enjoyed declining health in this world. He quickly decided that the answer did not matter -Madame Pomfrey had told him more than once that his pessimistic attitude since escaping Azkaban was doing a number on his health. So, in the end, it did not particularly matter, as he had not been strictly "healthy" since before the Potters went into hiding. Sirius mentally reeled from the shock - it had been nearly sixteen years since he had been able to relax and have fun. No wonder he was not healthy!

Reminiscing about his poor health and isolation from the world, Sirius did not notice his companions' worried looks or the fact that Lily led him along to their table by his elbow. He did not see Sasha's eyes grow wide, nor did he hear whatever it was that Regulus whispered to Lily. If he had, he might have been worried. If he had, he would not have known what to do. So, perhaps, in the end, it was best that he did not see what his family was doing.

They sat at the restaurant table, making small talk. Regulus and Sirius informed their wives of what happened at the funeral home that day. Regulus regaled everyone with a humorous imitation of Vernon Dursley. Of course, Sirius quickly added, some of the effect was missing because Regulus did not have any rhinoceros blood in him. Everyone laughed at that. Apparently Sirius often made similar comments about his brother-in-law. Sirius was not quite sure what to make of this - should he be pleased that his counterpart shared his humor or should he be upset that his counterpart would delight in mocking family?

When the waitress arrived to take their drink orders, Lily and Regulus were quite shocked when Sirius refrained from ordering an alcoholic beverage. Sirius did not care. He partially blamed the magical incident at his mother's farm on alcohol. If he had not drunk the brandy he had been given, perhaps the portraits of the Blacks would still be hanging on the dining room walls. And Moony had been after him for months to stop drinking as much, that even Harry and Hermione had noticed his developing habits and that drinking oneself into oblivion was not a healthy way to deal with Azkaban. They had never discussed the fact that there was not any healthy way to deal with the side effects of a long-term stay in Azkaban.

Ten minutes later, when Lily was sipping her white wine and Regulus his beer, Sirius and Sasha shared a small pot of tea. Sasha was quite excited about having twins and did not dare go near alcohol for fear of hurting them, but even she shot him odd looks now and again. To be sure, they were confused looks, rather than the suspicious ones everyone else had worn, but Sirius still found them disconcerting.

By the time their meals came, Sirius and Regulus had run out of office stories (Sirius was shocked that there were that many stories to tell in the first place) so the women took charge of the conversation. For the most part, Sirius concentrated on getting his food into his stomach and did not pay attention to the conversation. When he did pay attention, though, he made no effort to take part in it.

Sasha patted her abdomen and laughed at a joke Sirius had not heard.

Lily was smiling at her sister-in-law in such a way that made Sirius wonder if his wife wanted more children than just Harry. Circe preserve him, he hoped that Sasha's new pregnancy would not give her such a desire. It was one thing to lay in bed chastely with his best friend's wife, it was another thing altogether (and one thing he did not want to think about) to impregnate her.

His green-eyed wife sighed. "Twins! I still can't believe it."

"You can't believe it?! I can't! I didn't think we'd have any children after Thebe, but here I am pregnant again. I'm rather worried about her reaction, actually. I mean, she's only fourteen - just getting into those moody teen years - and now she's going to have younger brothers or sisters to boot."

"Brothers or sisters?"

"We've decided not to test for gender," Regulus genially explained. "It'll be something of a surprise."

Lily shook her head. "I wouldn't have the patience; I would want to pick out the names and decorate the nursery." She shot Sirius a nervous look that he did not see. "That's what James and I did."

Everyone expected a curt comment from Sirius that never came. Sasha quickly hurried the conversation along. "Well, we did that with Thebe, but we want a more relaxed approach with these two. We didn't kill Thebe, so we probably won't kill the twins."

Regulus laughed. "But we've had Harry and Draco looking after her since they realized she was their cousin. We won't have that luxury this time around." He winked at his brother.

Sirius inwardly winced. No, he thought, definitely no.

Sasha missed the fraternal interchange. "Well, we'll just have to work harder then. And they can look after each other."

After this, the conversation moved onto more mundane topics about which Sirius knew nothing: local politics, national and international trade, a terrorist bombing that made the news headlines last week, and Draco's invitation to a local two-week writers' conference. When the waitress finally came with the bill - which Regulus insisted on paying - Sirius almost breathed a sigh of relief. It was hard to sit there and not know what to say, even when a question was directed plainly at him. Oddly, it was Sasha more often than not who saved him.

He and Lily quietly walked home together. Sirius watched the stars, smiling at his namesakes - Sirius and Leonis. Ever since he was a child, he had made a habit of finding the stars, planets, and nebulae after which he and his relatives were named. Some he had never seen until he took astronomy at Hogwarts, but even his cell in Azkaban had a small, barred window. He knew the stars as a dog as well as he knew the stars as a man.

"What are you looking at?" Lily asked suddenly, breaking him from his musings.

"The stars," he answered softly.

"The stars?" Lily repeated, unbelievingly.

Sirius nodded. "Sirius and Leonis, for me," he pointed out the celestial bodies as he named them, "Ursa, for my grandmother, and I believe Andromeda and Bellatrix would be over there."

Lily nodded, but said nothing until they reached their flat.

After she locked the door behind them, though, was an entirely different story.

"What in all Hell was that?"

Sirius, who had been busy trying to remember what fun he had had with the Marauders, gaped at his fiery haired wife. He realized he probably looked something like a black, hairy codfish, but did not have the presence of mind to do anything about it. Half of his mind was trying to recollect what the Dementors stole from him and the other half was working over time to figure out what Lily asked him.

"Well?"

Sirius blinked at her. "I don't know what you're talking about?"

"What the Hell was that? No wine, no beer, no jokes, no talking?"

He tried to wrap his mind around Lily saying 'Hell.' When he knew her, she always yelled at James when he used foul language. No, he thought, now is not the time to ponder the enigma that is Lily Evans. Now is the time to face her. "I was tired," he explained by way of excuse.

"Tired my left foot!" Lily yelled. "You're quiet as a widow at a funeral and then on the way home you want to talk about the stars! You don't know anything about the stars!"

"Of course, I do," Sirius replied, confused and hurt by her anger. "Astronomy - the study of the night sky."

"I know what astronomy is!"

Sirius nodded, as if the answer were self-explanatory, and began to walk to their bedroom. Maybe if Lily were really angry she would forget about Regulus' comment about the twins needing a playmate.

"You will not leave this room in the middle of an argument, Sirius Black!"

Sirius stared at his wife mournfully. It made Lily shiver and fueled her anger at the same time. Why in God's name was he doing this? What was wrong?

"Why, Siri? Why?" A tear slid out of the corner of an emerald eye.

"Why what? Lily, what am I doing that upsets you so much?"

"You've always been able to tell me everything - even when you were in love with your best friends' wife. What on Earth are you hiding from me?"

Sirius shivered at the thought of being enamoured with a married woman - well, any woman - and thought for a moment before answering. "I'm not hiding anything," he lied. "You know I would tell you."

Lily just watched her husband and shook her head.

Bloody hell, he thought, she does not believe me. She knows I am lying. "Look, what are you worried about?"

"I don't know, and that's what scares me. I don't know what's wrong. And I can't help you." Lily collapsed into the armchair. "Since Friday night you've been acting odd. Maybe I'm overreacting. I mean, nothing could change you that much in three days, could it?"

Sirius could not help but let loose a barking laugh. "I suppose not. I mean, what life altering, cataclysmic catastrophe could have happened to me on Friday night?"

"See? That's exactly what I'm talking about!"

He shrugged. "I have nothing to hide."

"Then I suppose this conversation is over?"

Sirius nodded and poured himself a glass of water while Lily checked the messages on the telephone machine. As he sipped his water, he watched her intently, wondering what the mechanism was for. He could tell that it probably had something to do with the telephone, hence the name, but a telephone was already a machine. Why would one machine need another machine? Needless to say, he was slightly surprised when he realized that it was used to record telephone messages.

The first two messages were for Lily, one regarding a book club to which she belonged and the other a message from Arabella Figg, asking if Lily would mind cat sitting the next weekend so that Arabella could visit her granddaughter in York. In Sirius' world, young Grace Figg had been killed in the Death Eater massacre of December 1979, but apparently she was alive and well in this Voldemort-free world. The third and final message was from Remus.

"Hey, guys. I guess you're out. Just wanted to know how you were doing and let you know that Harry is readjusting to school life. I made sure he went to all of his classes today, and he shocked me by going to the library, apparently to see Miss Hermione Granger. He said you'd know something about that, Sirius. It was a pretty normal day, but I knew you would want an update. And, Sirius, Snivellus told me to tell you that if you have any problems, feel free to call him. I have no idea what he's talking about, but feel free to use to the number to verbally abuse him to your heart's content. That fellow must be going soft in the head." Remus' voice gave them a telephone number, which Sirius promptly wrote on a pad of paper by the machine, and then clicked off.

Lily glanced apprehensively at her husband before going to the bedroom.

Sirius was sitting on the edge of the bed, dressed only in some old plaid pants, watching Lily brush out her long auburn hair, when the telephone rang. When it became obvious that Sirius was not going to answer it, Lily picked up the extension in their room.

"Hello?" she asked into the receiver, as Sirius watched curiously. "Yes, yes, of course. Well, yes, it is getting late. Yes, I will tell him. Of course. Good bye."

When the simple one-sided conversation ended, Lily perched herself on one end of the bed, studying her husband. Sirius, uncomfortable with the scrutiny, sighed. "Who was that?"

"That was Sasha. She was acting very curiously."

"Really?" asked Sirius, not really knowing what to do. Moony had never been like this; either he would say something or he would not. Maybe it had something to do with being female.

"Yes, in fact, she sounded rather like Dr. Snape."

Sirius silently tried to reconcile the images of Sasha and Severus and did not journey very far. They were rather opposites, in personality, at least. And Sasha did not have greasy hair. "What?"

"Remus told us," Lily replied, slowly and deliberately, "that Dr. Snape said that if anything was wrong, you could call him."

"Well, yes. But what does that have to do with Sasha?"

"Sasha said the same thing. To tell you that if anything was wrong, feel free to call her, anytime."

Sirius just stared at his wife. He did not even know Sasha! Why would she do that? Unless she thought he was mad, the way many in the Order had.

"Sirius, what is going on? Why are these people offering you their support? Will you please tell me what's going on?"

Maybe it was time to mix some truth in with his lies. Prongs had always said that was the best way to make them believable. "I have no idea why Sasha said what she did. You know we aren't close. Severus is, well, he's not a friend, but he's something kind of like that... He's a confidant. That's it. So we talk. It's not that important, Lils. Really, it isn't."

Lily nodded and began to brush out her hair. Sirius found he liked to watch her do that, since he had nothing else to do. They did not speak to each other, each lost in his or her own maelstroms of thought. For once, their thought patterns were similar: what did Sasha and Severus want?

As she climbed into bed, though, Lily said one thing that kept Sirius cold and awake for hours. "Sasha asked me to tell you something, if you felt uncomfortable talking to her. I don't understand it."

"What?"

"She says she knows Askavan."

Sirius froze. "Azkaban?"

"That's it."

Sirius swore silently to himself. Why would Sasha know about Azkaban?

"Is Azkaban some Middle Easterner or something?" Lily asked innocently.

"No."

"Who is it then?"

"Nothing. It's nothing," Sirius replied silently defaming his former abode with an anger and fervor that Lily could never understand.

And though Lily fell asleep with relative ease in their warm bed, Sirius lay silently awake, wondering what he had gotten himself into when he fell through that Veil.