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

All We Need of Hell

Parting is all we know of heaven / And all we need of hell. - Emily Dickinson

Sirius grabbed his stepson's duffle bag and helped him heave it onto the train. The plain, normal, gunmetal grey, graffiti-covered train. It made him shiver. The train was supposed to be a bright, fiery red. It was supposed to billow black smoke and say "Hogwarts Express" on the side in big, gold letters.

Students rushed past him, chattering with one another and with their parents. Not one of them wore a black robe or carried an owl in a cage. He did not hear the familiar yowl of a dropped cat or the explosion of misused magic. No harried mothers rushed their offspring through a magical barrier and no mystified, uninitiated and unmagical parents gazed around with mixed horror and awe.

It was not his world. Lily stood at his side, clutching his left arm and grinning at Harry to break her face. Harry, dressed in a new copper jumper and black cotton pants, was waving to his parents - since when had Sirius thought of himself as Harry's father? - out the window of the train, while Draco, Thebe, and Hermione yelled at him to get down. Sirius could even see dark-haired Thebe pulling at Harry's shoulder. No one knew why Harry did not want to see his stepfather go. Every previous year he had settled determinedly in his seat in the car, refusing to look out the window and see Sirius Black's darkly disapproving face watching him back.

This was his first year of not really wanting to leave home and Sirius knew it. Harry had been nearly begging to spend time with him in the past two weeks. They had done everything Sirius could begin to imagine, from playing games of cards at night to going to the cinema together to joining Lucius and Draco one day at the local organic market. The last was not an experience Sirius desired in any way to repeat. But it warmed his heart that he and Harry had bonded.

They had finally spent time together, in a way they never could when they were locked up at Grimmauld Place as virtual prisoners. When they had both been covered in black grief like a death pall they had been entirely unable to reach out to one another and be what they should have been. It hurt slightly that this was not his Harry - not the son of Prongs or student of Moony - but it still mollified him.

Harry truly trusted him now. Harry came to him with stories about Hermione, simple as they were. He told him about Thebe and Draco and how they teased him about his girlfriend, reminding Sirius of how he and Moony had teased Prongs about Lily. Sirius was more than happy to sit at their kitchen table and listen to tales of Harry's life over a game of cards and cup of tea.

They had gone to dinner the previous night. It had been simple an easy: natural. It was only the dimly lit restaurant and pub down on the corner, one Harry, Hermione, and Draco often frequented. The owner, a burly man in a tweed coat, had known his stepson on sight and tipped his head to Sirius and Lily in a slightly mocking manner that Sirius appreciated with relish.

Sirius loved that night with passion. It was a simple dinner: stew and shepherd's pie and more shepherd's pie. It was simple, honest fare; reminisce of Hogwarts' warm dinners on chilly autumn nights. It strengthened Sirius' resolve. He reveled in the fact that he could sit at dinner with Harry and Lily. It was a memory Sirius would treasure during the long months Harry would be at school.

"What classes will you be taking at Hogwarts this term?" Sirius had asked, honestly interested and unsure of what was taught at non-magical schools.

Lily had been quite startled by Sirius' question. Apparently he did not often take sincere interest in his stepson's class choice and general education. Lily, he thought to himself, should stop being so surprised by Sirius' changes in behavior.

Harry had smiled innocently; basking in his stepfather's attention the way a tabby cat will bask in warm firelight on a cold winter's day. "I'm still taking the basics, you know, Sirius. So, that's English, British History, Chemistry Advanced, Algebraic Maths, that sort of thing... and German and a Health Course."

No, Sirius did not know, but he had kept up with the conversation, anyway. Apparently history remained similar in both worlds and, despite Professor Binns' abysmal teaching habits, Sirius knew his British History, if only due to his Pureblood status. He was quite careful, though, never to mention any specifics. Who would have guessed that William of Orange ever took over the nation?

That conversation grew to span topics from Remus' teaching Harry's classes for the first time to the best meal in the restaurant to the local football stars. It relaxed Sirius' immeasurably that he could do this. He finally had enough control over his emotions to speak calmly and rationally about everyday topics. Harry trusted him enough to blather on and on about nothing.

When they had returned to the flat for the night, the three of them - Lily, Sirius, and Harry - had continued talking about this and that as they double-checked that Harry had packed everything he needed for school.

Late into the night, long after Lily had retired to bed, Sirius sat on the edge of Harry's horrific duvet and told him stories about the Marauders and even tales about his wild adventures with Hermione and Ron. Harry still could not believe that he had ever befriended Ronald Weasley, but, beyond that, he was a most receptive audience.

Sirius had longed to do this for such a long, long time. The time had never seemed right at Grimmauld Place, where they were both kept prisoner by their dearest friends. Harry had shared his room with Ron and Sirius doubted that Harry would want to share these stories with Ron, no matter how close they were. And Phineas Nigellus lived in that room as well and Sirius had no intention of telling childhood and teenage prank stories to his long dead, insufferable relatives.

Sitting there, with only Harry's beside lamp for light, and watching Harry's face sparkle as he told him stories, Sirius could not have been happier - or prouder. He told Harry about how hard it was to become Animagi, but that his father did the research and found the spells, that Peter found the unused classrooms, and Sirius himself made the potions, all the while keeping it dead secret from their werewolf comrade. He told Harry about the Chamber of Secrets and how Harry and Ron had risked life, limb, and professor to save young Ginny Weasley's life.

Neither dark-haired man had noticed when Lily passed by Harry's room on her way to retrieve a glass of water from the kitchenette.

"Sirius! Sirius! Come on!"

The wizard blinked, stumbling from his reverie as Lily pulled on his arm. He watched the dusty grey train wind off toward Hogwarts, taking Harry with it

"We're leaving, now, remember?" Lily asked, obviously confused as to why Sirius seemed so dazed.

"Erm, yeah, of course," Sirius mumbled, following Lily's lead much more obligingly than he usually did.

Outside on the street, they met up with Narcissa Malfoy, and Sasha and Regulus Black, all of whom had been at the station dropping off their respective children. Despite Hermione's budding friendships with Draco Malfoy and Thebe Black, as well as her romantic entanglement with Harry, the Grangers were not particularly inclined to join the infamous Black family for a casual dinner at Regulus' abode. They, to Sirius' eternal confusion, were rather disapproving of Sasha's pregnancy.

Seeing Narcissa for the first time in years without Lucius, even the all-new granola-crunching Lucius, by her side, reinforced the fact that Sirius would be lacking two of his most important summer allies: Harry and Severus..

He had said his good-byes to Severus a few days previous. Knowing that the dark and sarcastic man would be away for another nine months. Sure, he understood that Severus was a short train ride away and that the man periodically came home for weekends and during the holidays, but Sirius also knew that he could no longer just telephone his friend and show up at the flat or a pub for advice and interrogation.

They, as they sometimes did, met at his house. For whatever reason, Sasha was uncomfortable with meeting the two men at Severus' home, so she had graciously declined, begging off for some doctor's appointment having to do with her pregnancy.

Severus had offered him tea and biscuits in what Sirius had come to think of as "The Green Room." Severus never seemed to keep anything strong than Darjeeling in the house, though he was known to drink if they ever went to a pub or even to Sasha's or Sirius'.

Despite their friendship, Sirius had never dared to ask Severus about it, feeling decidedly uncomfortable about prying into Severus' life. For, whatever world he was in, a Snape was a very private person and even comrades trode a fine line with questions. It had landed Severus into trouble when he was in school: boarding school with a number of other, nosy boys is no place for a quiet, privately intellectual boy more interested in books than friendship.

Sirius appreciated it, nonetheless. Had Severus been drinking, Sirius would have accepted the drink as well. It was his nature as well as his upbringing to never let a man drink alone and never let a friend, however awkward and tentative the relationship, feel isolated or alienated with intent to do so. And he was really trying to avoiding drinking alcohol, especially whiskey, after last year. Hangovers depressed him.

For a long time, the two men had sat in corresponding overstuffed armchairs. Sirius had sipped delicately at his tea, feeling as though he were once more at one of his mother's endless tea parties, where he, at nine years old, had been the only person in the room actually drinking tea. And his mother had never let him have the good chocolate biscuits, only the nasty raspberry ones his Grandmother Hayworth sent his father in the Owl post.

"Sirius?" Severus had asked softly, breaking their long silence.

The man in question had only looked over the rim of his china tea cup, raising a single raven eyebrow.

"What will you do?"

Sirius had settled for looking decidedly confused.

"With Harry and myself gone, what will you do? You love that boy more than life itself," Severus attempted to sound detached and sarcastic, but Sirius could detect the sound of approval. He knew that Severus cared for Harry in the same way Remus had when Harry had come to him for help with the Patronus spell.

Sirius shrugged indecisively. "I'm not sure," he replied honestly. "I mean, I'll have Sasha around..."

"Not for long," Severus corrected. "She's been having difficulty with the twins, and you know the doctors have been warning her about bed rest. And once those two monsters are born, she won't have a moment to spare for the odd escaped convict."

The wizard could not help but smile at Severus. Perhaps a few months ago he would have taken offense at his tone, but now he knew that the chemistry teacher was merely expressing himself in the best way he knew. "I'm not honestly sure what I'll do then. Hopefully I'll know enough to handle myself by December."

"That's not what I'm trying to say Black, and you know it."

"No, really, I don't."

"You need friends, Sirius," Severus explained exasperated.

Sirius knit his brows. "But I have Lily, Peter, and Remus."

Severus looked as if he would have dearly loved to smack Sirius over the head with a rolled up newspaper. "That's not what I'm saying! Stop being deliberately obtuse."

His companion scowled at him.

"You need people you can really talk to," he elucidated. "People who really know your story and whom you can trust. Sasha, Harry, and I can't be here for you all of the time. You still have some troubles you need to deal with and you need some one with whom you can talk."

"Is this your way of getting me to tell Lily?"

"Or Pettigrew."

"Not Remus?"

Severus bit his lip. "I would think that Lupin would think you were outing him in an elaborately cruel joke."

Sirius' jaw dropped in a mix of shock and anger.

"It's not as if you haven't done it before, Sirius." At look of anger in the Animagus' eyes, Severus clarified. "At school you learned that one of the boys two years below us was, what did you call him, a shirt-lifter? In any case, you and James decided to play a joke on him, pretending that you were, in fact, infatuated with him. Then you embarrassed the poor boy in front of the entire school at breakfast, asking him why in all Hell would you want to kiss him, was he gay or something. He was humiliated."

Sirius nearly broke the cup he had been holding.

"Look," Severus had told him gently, getting up and putting a comforting hand on his shoulder. "I know it wasn't you. You would never do something like that. But those three don't. Maybe you could show them some magic or something? Do you keep your wand with you?"

"Stitched a place for it in my jacket sleeve," he had replied, with a weak, albeit proud, smile.

"Just tell me if you give Pettigrew a purple dress, would you? I'll even grant you a parent-teacher meeting for that."