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

Billiards

To play billiards well is a sign of misspent youth. - Herbert Spencer

Click.

Swish.

Thump.

"YEOW!"

Severus stared at Sirius disdainfully. "What was that?"

Sirius rubbed his sore rib cage and glared at his greasy-haired friend. "You make it look easy."

"Are you whining?"

"Who came up with this idiotic game, anyway? Quidditch is the only game that should involve hitting balls with sticks and we have the good sense to hit them broadside."

Severus scowled. Somehow it lost its affect, though, when paired with his forest green sweater vest and matching hat. "It isn't idiotic," he replied in using the tone of a mother monkey protecting her hairless offspring from ridicule. "It has a long and glorious history."

"Well, it does injure its participants."

The scowl deepened. Sirius shivered. Even the sweater vest could not combat it now. "That was not what I meant and you know it."

Sirius raised an eyebrow and then, realizing that he was obviously spending far too much time with Severus and Lily, immediately dropped it.

"Billiards," Severus continued in a voice of false glory, "is a most dignified game. It requires strategy and skill. It-"

"Requires a padded torso," Sirius finished.

"No, it requires a brain, something you seem to be sorely lacking."

The wizard shrugged. "I'm sure I don't have a brain. That's why you're hitting painted balls with wooden sticks and I'm pondering the purpose of life and how I can evade it as long as possible."

"Idiot dunderhead of a..." Severus muttered under his breath, forfeiting the table to a group of young men who had been loitering by the door.

Sirius eyed the men warily, before shoving his cue into a sandy-haired man's hands. The man took a step backward from the force. "Have fun," Sirius said with a wicked grin.

"Must you frighten the natives?" Severus asked dryly, as Sirius joined him at the bar.

Ordering a whisky, the blue-eyed man laughed. "It is called sarcasm, Severus. I was under the impression that you were well acquainted with it."

Severus glared at him. "If I didn't need a good drink to talk to you, I'd pour it on your head for that comment, Black."

"Oh, we're back to last names are we?" Sirius teased, needing to release his stress from home and work. "Whatever happened to calling me 'Mr. Black'? Show some respect!"

"You are a miserable mongrel, Sirius. I shall never call you Mr. Black again, so long as I shall live."

Sirius only laughed and tried to ignore the blonde who winked at him from one of the nearby booths.

Noticing the blonde, Severus snorted. "As if she can't see your wedding ring from here."

He had a point, Sirius realized. The wedding ring was quite light, he had not noticed it when he first arrived here, but the diamond in the middle caught the light like anything. Smiling, he adjusted his hold on his whiskey so that he could make a pattern on the ceiling with reflected light. "Not as if I'd be interested anyway."

Severus raised an eyebrow.

"It's hard enough here," Sirius explained hurriedly, not wanting to discuss his sexuality with Severus, friend or no. "I mean, I have so much - I have a family, a job, friends, even a place in the world. But it isn't home. I don't want anything else to tie me here."

His companion sipped his beer.

Not able to resist, Sirius grinned. "And I really don't want to imagine what my so-called family would do to me if they caught me making eyes at another woman. It was bad enough when they mistook Sasha's message."

Severus did not rise to the bait. "You talk like you don't have any of that at home."

"Is that why you wanted to go to the bar? To get inside my head? You didn't want to just spend time with me? I'm hurt, Severus; I'm really hurt."

The teacher only rolled his eyes.

"Fine," Sirius tilted his stool backward, bracing himself against the bar for support. "So, what do you want to know? I've already told Harry a lot of this."

Severus pondered it for a moment before replying. "Family."

"What?"

"Don't you have family at home? Unless I'm quite mistaken, you weren't shocked to hear Lucius call you cousin and Harry told me that you spoke of Bellatrix the day before we met."

"Sevviekins," his companion winced visibly, "there's family and then there's family."

"Do you have the former or the latter?"

"Does the fact that I'm a blood traitor suggest an answer?"

Severus scowled at him.

"Alright. I have the latter. Both of my parents are dead. Father died during the War and Mother while I was in prison. Regulus was executed when he refused to obey his Master's orders. Narcissa married Lucius, who was a Death Eater. She never became one herself, but for all intents and purposes she may as well have. Bellatrix and Rudolphus were both Death Eaters of the highest order. Andromeda joined me on the side of the Light, but she went into hiding due to her traitorous tendencies."

"Was she threatened by the family?"

Sirius nodded.

"Why weren't you?"

Sirius let loose a barking laugh. "I'm only a blood traitor, Severus. When I shame the name of Black, I do it privately. She defied them by marrying a Muggle, the worst thing she could have done in the eyes of the family. She and her husband raised Nymphadora nearly like Muggles."

"So Nymphadora exists in your world?"

"Yeah... sweet kid, Tonks. I haven't seen someone so devoted to the Light since James and Lily were alive."

"What about Sasha?"

"I told you, she died."

"You don't seem to be too upset about that."

"I don't know the girl, Severus! I never did! She died when I was, what, sixteen? She was younger than me and in a different House. I would have no reason to know her."

"She's your brother's wife."

"No," Sirius replied with an adamant shake of his head. "No. Here there is Sasha and Regulus Black. There, there was Sasha Sullivan, martyr; and Regulus Black, murdered demon. They are two very separate worlds."

Severus just stared at him.

"You have to understand how different our worlds are. You have this," Sirius waved his left arm, encompassing the barroom in his gesture, but probably meaning something a bit more symbolic. Then he noticed his companion's look of utter confusion. "Would you like me to make a comparison?"

Scowling again, Severus nodded.

"Here there are people drinking themselves into stupors. At home, there are people drinking themselves into stupors. The difference is why they are doing so. Here, people probably just like getting drunk. There, people want to forget that the Second War has begun and we all may very well die in a year if a fifteen-year-old can't find it in him to become a murderer."

Severus paled. "What the Hell are you talking about?"

Sirius finished his whiskey. "I talked to Sasha about this last night; maybe she can explain it better."

"No. Explain it to me."

"I'm not quite sure how relevant this is to my situation, nor your concern for me, Harry, and the general existential existence of humanity."

Severus raised an eyebrow.

Sirius threw up his arms in frustration and grinned. "I had to try, didn't I? Moony always said that to me when I started droning on about 'the good ole days' when I was drunk."

The eyebrow just went higher.

"Well, you see, a Second War has begun. It's really more of a Second Wave, than a Second War, per se. You see, we never had a definitive victory over Voldemort, and therefore-"

Severus held up a hand. "Obviously you will babble all night about inane and purposeless wars and lords and waves and whatever other misinformation clutters up your brain. I want to know about this fifteen-year-old."

"Harry?"

"No, the one who has to become a murderer," the man explained in a pained voice.

"Yeah," Sirius nodded. "Harry."

The counselor frowned. "Harry needs to become a murderer?"

"If the world as we know it is to survive," Sirius said, and motioned to the bartender to order another whisky. "The bastards."

Severus drank some of his beer and scowled at the amount of sheer alcohol his friend was consuming. "I really don't see why the world would depend upon that."

"You wouldn't, would you?"

"And what is that supposed to mean?"

Already feeling a bit tipsy, Sirius explained. "Before Harry was even born, when Lily was only just pregnant, there was a prophecy. Now before you ask, I don't know everything about it, not even Lily and James did. All I know is that a boy born in July would be marked as Voldemort's equal and he would kill Voldemort. Or Voldemort would kill him, and thus gain immortality."

Severus raised his eyebrow again. That simple black curve annoyed Sirius more than he was willing to accept. "A prophecy?"

"I don't normally believe in them, not really, but this one seems to be pointing at Harry quite clearly. Dumbledore told us about it."

"Are you sure this Dumbledore person is to be trusted?" Severus asked. "I've barely heard of him before, but he was a bit odd in his own day."

"Oh, the man's a bit mad," Sirius said, dismissing Severus' worries without a thought. "But he knows what he's doing when it comes down to the war. This is his third Dark War, you know. I can't imagine fighting it without him."

"Third war?"

Sirius drank another shot of whisky and Severus realized he was well and truly on his way to becoming plastered. "Yep, three wars. He was the one to kill Grindelwald, the Dark Lord of the forties. Before Harry, back in the First War, Voldemort was only afraid of Dumbledore, no one else. Still is, I think. Of course, now he has to fight both of them."

"I think we should be getting you home now," was Severus' only answer.

"Humph," Sirius muttered into his empty glass. "That's just the problem. I'm not so sure I want to go home anymore."

"What? Is something wrong at home?"

Sirius frowned at him. "Not that home, you ass. My home, my world, I don't know if I want to return."

"What?" Severus spit out some of his beer. All evidence before this date had shown that Sirius wanted to get back to his Harry and his Remus and his magic more than anything else in the world.

"I mean it. It's so nice here..." Sirius dropped his glass onto the bar. "I've got Harry and you and Sasha and a job... No one wants to kill me."

"We are taking you home right now," Severus decided. "You are too drunk to think straight and Lily will have my head. She'll have you sleeping on the couch tonight."

"I don't want Lily's bed," Sirius slurred. "I want Moony's."

Trying not to think of Remus and Sirius in bed together, Severus took Sirius by the shoulders and began directing him home. Lily would be invariably upset with him; sometimes it seemed that Sirius drank himself silly every time they went out together. Otherwise, he never drank. Lily liked to blame it all on him. Severus did not know how to take that particular accusation.