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

More of Joy Than Pain

Never say that marriage has more of joy than pain. - Euripides

Having returned the towel to the towel rack by the toilet and ushering Harry back to his bedroom, Sirius washed and disinfected the cut that now decorated his forehead. He went to his bedroom and retrieved a fresh blue jumper, one that was not wet from the mist and smelly from the train system. Pulling his hair back into a low tail, Sirius decided he was suitably presentable and made his way to the living/dining area of the flat.

Lily sat pensively on the couch, for once her long auburn hair hung down instead of being pulled back at the nape of her neck. Two cups of tea, now cold, sat on the low coffee table, accompanied by the matching teapot. Quite plainly, while Sirius was soul-searching in the bathroom, Lily had been waiting for him to join her for tea and a talk.

Sirius smiled tentatively and sat in the armchair across from his wife. He pulled his ivy-patterned teacup into his hands, not to drink the cold and weak tea Lily had brewed, but to have a distraction with which he could toy. After his miniature emotional breakdown in the WC, Sirius was not feeling up to holding an everyday conversation, never mind a verbal sparring match.

"Sirius," Lily began, as somber as he had ever seen her in this world. "I want you to know that I love you."

Oh shit. Sirius, despite his severe lack of experience in romantic relationships, knew that those words were rarely spoken without something terrible happening to the unsuspecting victim shortly afterward. At least, that was what the other Marauders had always told him.

His deer-in-the-headlights emotions must have shown on his face because Lily immediately backtracked. "Oh, no, Siri! I don't mean it like that. We aren't fifteen anymore, I'm not just going to leave you like that."

"Then how do you mean it?" Sirius asked shakily.

Lily looked down at her own interlocking hands as they lay over her checkered tea-length skirt. "Don't be upset with me."

The Animagus frowned. What was Lily on about? "I won't be."

"I think we should go to counseling."

That was one thing that Sirius had not been expecting. Magical people generally did not do that sort of thing, at least, Purebloods thoughts that telling others your problems was just this side of airing dirty laundry in public, something no Pureblood wanted to do. Lily, in his world, had once talked about it. She had said that troubled people often went to professionals who gave them advice about their lives.

"Why?"

Sirius saw Lily's eyes flash from beneath her curtain of auburn hair, though he could not divine whether she was hurt or angry. "Siri, even you have to admit that things haven't been going well between the two of us."

Sirius nodded. Being gay, a recent prison-escapee, and emotionally dysfunctional did not help his marriage to his best friend's dead wife. He knew their marriage was far less than ideal.

"I was talking to Catherine Kiley, you know, from the church group, and she was having trouble with her marriage a few years ago. Do you remember her?"

Sirius vaguely recalled meeting the women from the church group; Madame Kiley was a simple looking woman, with dark hair and bright eyes and as startlingly independent as the other Lily had been. Her husband, Patrick, had been quite friendly with him; apparently they had become friends when Catherine and Lily had. So, he nodded again.

Lily smiled, her raspberry lips parting for the first time since she had run into her ex-husband at the corner store. "Then you must remember when they had trouble. They even separated for a while."

'Separated?' Sirius wondered for a moment. Ah, yes, another term from Muggle Studies. In the wizarding world marriage were insoluble. Once two people said 'I do' that was that. Of course, it was not unusual for two people in such arrangements to have affairs on the side, which was unacceptable in the Muggle world.

"Well, I was talking to Catherine," Lily continued softly. "And she gave me the card of the marriage counselor she and Patrick visited. Apparently the woman is quite good and...well, I think it would do us some good to talk with her." At this, Lily lifted a small rectangle of paper from the table and handed it to Sirius

Sirius quickly read the card. "Gita C. Mahbubani?" he asked incredulously.

Lily nodded quickly, obviously trying to appeal to her husband. "Please, Siri," she whispered. "I don't know what's going on between us and I don't honestly know why, but I know I don't like it. I want it to stop. I want it to be back like it used to be."

Inwardly, Sirius cringed. It would not be 'like it used to be' unless Sirius found a way home, something in which he had lost any real hope a long time ago. But he could hardly tell his wife that. Although, he thought, why would she want that scum back anyway? He seemed to be quite the bastard, even to Lily and Regulus, from what he had heard of his former self.

He looked back at the card. 'Gita C. Mahbubani,' the card read in elegant crimson script with an address and telephone number printed below in a more common, and cheaper, black ink. "Counseling services?"

Lily looked at her hands, her long red hair falling across her face and obscuring her eyes from view. "Siri, I love you, you know I do... But..."

"But what, Lils?"

She looked up sharply, suddenly reminding Sirius of the Lily he had once known, the Muggleborn girl who had fought with the Gryffindor Pureblood boys without showing an ounce of fear. "You will be honest with Mrs. Mahbubani, won't you?"

Sirius lied through his teeth. "Of course." He could not afford to be honest with the marriage counselor, not unless he wanted to become Wolfgang's new roommate. He, being raised in the environment he had been, could create some wonderfully elaborate lies, given enough time and the right motivation. Only, now, he needed to know just what type of lies he needed to make and modify to mollify Lily and this stranger. Maybe Severus could help him.

"Sirius, are you there?"

"Sure, honey. I'm right here."

"For a minute you seemed to be somewhere else entirely. Maybe thinking about someone else, or something else?"

Sirius only tried to smile reassuringly. Obviously, he could not tell his wife that he was trying to find a list of people who would willingly collaborate with him to create some new lies. He wondered if Harry would help, if the situation were explained properly. No, he would not drag Harry into this awful, godforsaken mess. Harry might not like being kept in the dark about things, especially when the information concerned him, but this, the knowledge that Sirius could not love Lily like a husband, that he was willingly to lie and scheme to cover that, would only hurt the boy. He was still so excited that Sirius really and truly cared for him, loved him, that his godfather could not find it in himself to break the boy's still- fragile heart.

"Sirius Black!"

Sirius' head shot upward, some of his dark, damp hair flying out of the low ponytail and plastering itself to his face and blocking his vision. He had not, in this reality, heard Lily use that tone of voice with anyone but Harry, and then only when her son had driven her to the absolute end of her patience.

"Lily?" he queried, a bit nervously, though he would never admit it.

Her emerald eyes flashed something like the way Harry's did when he thought that the Order had been keeping something important from him. "What were you thinking about just then?"

Whether or not I could use Harry to lie to you, he thought. Aloud he only said, "Nothing."

His beautiful, if somewhat broken, wife took a deep, calming breath, as if she were about to step to the edge of a very high precipice. "Sirius, I'm going to ask you a question and I want you to answer me truthfully, okay?"

Sirius nodded, though he was fully prepared to deny everything.

"Is Harry still in his room?"

Utterly confused, Sirius nodded again.

"Are you having an affair?" she asked.

"No!" Sirius exploded.

Lily sagged against the sofa, appearing limp with relief.

"How could you ask that Lily? Really, I though the whole 'Azkaban incident' was behind us." Sirius inwardly winced, remembering all too clearly 'the whole Azkaban incident' and Lily's anger then. How could she possibly believe that he was having an affair? Even if he was interested, he hardly had the time between work, Severus, Sasha, Wolfgang, and Harry.

Lily stared at him as if he were a Neanderthal, one that had once been reserved solely for James Potter. Obviously, he was an idiot. But why? It was not as if that question were so shocking.

"You can't be serious."

Sirius judiciously decided to avoid the traditional pun. "I am."

"Sirius," Lily began, "can you think of anything that might make me think that you could be having an affair?"

Pausing only for a moment, Sirius shook his head, his ponytail rapidly losing its grip on his raven hair.

Sighing, Lily buried her ivory visage in her palms for a moment, as if frustrated with Sirius' answer. Taking a deep breath, she looked up again. "Sirius, we haven't had sex in more than four months. You tense and try to push me away if I even try to kiss you. What else am I supposed to think?"

"I- I don't try to push you away," Sirius protested vainly. Apparently it had had been too much to hope for that Lily would not notice that he was not remotely attracted to her.

"Yes, Sirius, turning away so I kiss your cheek and telling me 'let's not do this in front of company' - even if 'company' is just Harry - is perfectly normal," Lily replied bitterly.

Sirius ran a hand through his hair tiredly; he really had no idea what to tell his wife.

"Siri, do you see why we need to do this?" Lily begged. "I want to kiss you again, I want to have sex again, I want you to hold me even when Remus and Peter are around, but only if you want it, too. Do you see why I want to talk to Mrs. Mahbubani?"

"Did you tell Catherine all of this?" Sirius asked desperately.

"Of course, not."

Sirius sighed with relief and began silently planning an emergency meeting with Sasha and Severus. Lily only smiled her thanks and began putting the tea things away, after giving Sirius an extra biscuit.

Oh Merlin and Ciridwen protect me, what have I gotten myself into? Sirius wondered quietly to himself as he went to tell Harry that he could leave his room.