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

Strangled Himself

By putting his hand around my neck, he slowly strangled himself. - Minako Ohba

And when James opened the door, Sirius burst into tears, much to the shock of both James and himself.

Two bespectacled, hazel eyes blinked confusedly at the openly weeping man who stood on their owner's doorstep. This was not a sight usual to James Potter's eyes, or anyone else's for that matter. What stood upon his hundred-year-old stoop was shocking in the extreme.

Sirius Black, with his long raven hair and proud demeanor, a man with a family tradition centuries old and an attitude to match, was standing at his enemy's door, bawling like a child whose balloon floated away in the cross breeze. His dark jumper was soaked and clung to him like a second skin. His hair was haphazardly plastered to his head and he bore a small gash above his eye, as though something sharp had smacked him across the forehead. But most unusual of all were the salty tears that washed down Sirius's proud, pale cheeks.

James could not remember the last time he had seen Sirius Black shed a tear, not even at his own father's funeral. No, he suddenly realized, he did remember when Sirius last cried, at least in public. When they were second years at Hogwarts, twelve-year-old mischief-makers and sworn brothers, Sirius had cried when Patera Black had honestly threatened to remove Sirius from Hogwarts if his exam scores did not improve by the end of the term. Never since had James Potter seen Sirius Black in tears.

"Oh, God, James," Sirius managed to choke out between his sobs, as the mist continued to fall on his already soaked head.

James just stared at him, obviously still in shock.

"Honey, who is it?" a distinctly feminine voice called from within the house. "Aren't you going to invite them in? Don't keep our guest standing in the rain, James-love."

"Er, come in, Mr. Black," James managed to stutter, plainly still in shock. "Eh.... Tea?"

Sirius stumbled into the house, so very different than the one he had imagined earlier that afternoon. James led him to a nicely appointed parlor room, decorated in China blue and dark wood. His host motioned for him to sit in a chair by the fireplace - by Merlin, how Sirius had missed proper fireplaces - while he went off to find the tea he had so foolishly offered.

When James returned with a silver tea service, a brunette stuck her head in the door and gasped. "Is that Black, James?"

James looked back at her sharply, with a harsh, warning look. "Yes," he replied, quite coldly.

The woman took the hint and slipped back behind the door, disappearing into the rest of the house.

As James began to set out the things for tea (and putting an obscene amount of sugar into Sirius's cup in the process), Sirius's pale eyes hardened, though the brine continued to fall from his eyes.

"Why'd you do it, James?" Sirius asked, trying to sound as hard and intimidating as a Black could, but his tone would not hide the fact that his voice broke like an adolescent's over his former friend's name.

"What?" James asked, startled out of distraction. He pushed Sirius' teacup toward him, across the small end table.

"Why did you tell Lily that?" Sirius did not touch the tea. The James he had loved knew that Sirius took his tea black, or with the slightest bit of milk. He knew that Sirius, despite his love of sweet, was nauseated at the thought of an over-sweetened drink.

"That you don't love her?"

"Yes, that." Sirius, for the life of him, could not understand why James was being so cavalier about this whole episode. The comment that had driven Lily to inconsolable weeping seemed to only be a passing conversation to James.

James sipped at his own tea, blowing at it to cool the near boiling water. "I said it because it is true."

Sirius felt his original anger rush back, nearly eclipsing the pain he felt at seeing his late best friend, almost erasing the superimposed image of James' corpse lying far too still in the ruins of the house at Godric's Hollow. "What?" he asked, his voice low and cold and very, very dangerous.

"You. Do. Not. Love. Her," James replied, as if speaking to a particularly dull and insolent child. "You never loved her. You never will love her. It is as simple as that, don't you see?"

Sirius growled low in his throat, a sound more appropriate for Padfoot than for Sirius, but the wizard did not care.

"You wouldn't want anyone to lie to your wife, now would you?" James asked in a mocking tone, now nibbling at a biscuit.

"What in all Hell do you mean by that comment?" Sirius exploded, forgetting the woman who was probably trying to listen to their conversation. "Of course I love Lily. Why wouldn't I love Lily?"

"You? Love Lily?" James laughed, as if Sirius had just told him a rather amusing joke. "That's not possible."

"Excuse me?" The growl was back in Sirius' throat.

"You don't love Lily," James repeated. "You can't love her. You might love what she represents. No, you want what she represents. I don't think you're quite capable of love, old friend."

Sirius's eyes flashed treacherously.

"You want what you cannot have. You've always wanted what you cannot have."

"What does Lily have to do with any of that ludicrous drivel?" Oh, Sirius thought, I have been spending far too much time with Severus.

James raised an eyebrow at that. "Watch it, or you'll end up being just like poor, old Snivellus. That kid had it coming."

"His name is Severus," Sirius spat. "And I still do not see what any of this has to do with my love for Lily."

"You wanted her because I had her."

Sirius blinked at him.

"You've always wanted what I have, Sirius Black," James continued blithely on, not realizing that he was angering a very powerful and very repressed wizard. "I had the freedoms that you could not dream of. Your mother and your father had your future planned before you were even born. You would go to Hogwarts. You would go on to university, preferably, but not necessarily a prestigious one. You would inherit that blasted funeral home. You would marry. You would have children. You would continue your family line."

"I hope this has a point."

"Oh, it does." James clearly enjoyed torturing Sirius. "It does. I, on the other hand, had a great deal of freedom. Raised by my grandparents, I believed I could do anything I wanted to - and I can. If I saw something I wanted, I reached for it and I got it. If I didn't want something, I let it be."

"Get to your point!"

"You saw everything you wanted - and I had it. You cannot honestly tell me that you wanted to inherit your stupid little company. Regulus, the little brat, obviously did, but you always had greater dreams than that."

"So what?!"

"You wanted what I had. You want what I have."

"And, by this decidedly twisted logic, I married Lily because you married Lily?" Sirius asked incredulously. "You're daft!"

James plainly did not enjoy being spoken to in such a manner. "What?" he asked, matching Sirius's growl for coldness and dangerousness.

"Would you like me to use your logic or explain it in a manner that would make sense to normal people?" Sirius demanded bitterly, his anger fully eclipsing the loss of his friend, much as it had so many years ago on Halloween.

"My logic does make sense to normal people."

It was Sirius's turn to raise his eyebrow. "If I so desperately wanted what you had, why would I marry Lily after you divorced her? I was hardly wooing her during the marriage, James."

James shrugged, once again unperturbed. "I don't know if you weren't 'wooing' her during our lovely little marriage. Were you?"

"What kind of question is that?" Neither man noticed the crack in the glass face of the mantle clock.

"It's an honest question, Sirius. Were you? I know you always wanted to chase after her yourself, but you never did have the balls to escape from your parents' little regime, now did you?"

"Of course I wasn't!" Sirius exclaimed, fervently praying that he spoke the truth. "I would never do that! I honored your marriage."

James shrugged again. "Wouldn't matter to me, at this point. I mean, it's been nearly fifteen years since we divorced."

Sirius saw shades of his old friend in this strange, belligerent imposter. He knew that James obviously still cared, no matter his casual words or a decade and one half. James would not have spoken to Lily as he did, not if he still did not care even a little bit for the once vibrant red-head.

"No."

"No?"

"No, I would never do that." Sirius rose to his feet, his sweet and milky tea long gone icy cold. "Even if you were my enemy - which I suppose you are now - I would not do that to you. That insults the woman as much - more - than it hurts the husband."

"Are you leaving?" James leaned back, precariously balancing his chair on two legs; reminiscent of their youthful days at Hogwarts.

"Yes, I am leaving." Sirius' voice broke again and it had taken on its old, hoarse quality once more. "I don't think I'll be back to see you again. You or your wife."

"Well, that's not very polite, old friend. And after we took you in out of the rain."

"I ask that you leave Lily alone," Sirius continued desperately onward, in that broken, hoarse, pained voice. "I don't want to hear about you bothering her or Harry."

"Finally taken a liking to my son? Too bad really. I think he's far too much like me for his own good."

"Shut up," Sirius snapped. "Harry has more maturity at his age than you do at yours. You- you can't compare the two of you."

As Sirius stormed out of the house, back into the rain of Parish Hill, James's dancing hazel eyes followed him.