Dead by Morning

I am sealed by my skin
But broken inside.
--Lori McKenna, Never Die Young

Harry is not asleep. Ron, however, is; he's curled up on his side, facing the window and snoring softly. It's a comforting noise, the kind that Ron doesn't make when he's awake. Harry doesn't like the looks Ron gives him now, the way he cowers around afraid of Harry's temper, the way he knows things Harry doesn't and does things Harry can't. The way he acts as if nothing bad happens when he sleeps, in spite of everything, in spite of the fact that Harry just tried to kill his father. He sleeps as if this is all make believe, where no one really dies, and no one really suffers.

During the day he watches Ron's mouth moving with petty, stupid words and he wants to shove something inside it; something dry and crumbly like stale cake or handfuls of cracker crumbs, something that Ron will have to cough out. He clenches his fists under the table and wonders how everyone else stands it.

When Ron is asleep Harry remembers that he likes him.

The portrait over Harry's bed is silent and dark for now. Nothing to see here, one sleeping boy and one too scared to fall asleep at all.

They don't understand. He's a murderer, lying there.

When the door opens Harry's first thought is that it is Voldemort. His whole body tenses, his brain oozes relief. Finally, yes, here you are, it's over. He is gripping his wand under the blankets but he can't remember a single spell.

The figure closes the door and walks over to Harry's bed. Just as it kneels down, Harry sees that it's Sirius, but this only makes him more nervous. He is waiting for the switch to go off in his head, he's waiting to turn into a snake and tear Sirius limb from limb. He has tasted Weasley blood; he wonders if Sirius would taste any different.

He is not asleep, but he's supposed to be. He thinks that Sirius is here to look down on him while he sleeps as parents are supposed to; babies in cradles, innocent, rosy-cheeked boys with their thumbs inching out of their mouths and teddy bears collapsed face first on their chests. Harry is none of these things. He is a skinny fifteen year old boy; he is not picturesque. He is a boy with a scar and dirty fingernails and the taste of blood still lingering in the back of his throat. If Sirius looks him in the eye, everyone will be dead by morning.

But he is not just looking down at Harry, he's pulling Harry into him, his gathering him up like a baby and holding him to his chest. He's burying his face in Harry's hair and hugging him tight.

For a moment Harry wants to cry out. This doesn't seem right, this isn't what adults do. Adults don't cry into children's hair, they don't curl up fifteen year old boys in their arms like they're infants, they don't rock them as if that makes everything better. No one has ever held Harry like this and he's glad he's supposed to be asleep. He's embarrassed, he's confused. But then he understands; this is love. This is real love, love for a child the way his father must have loved him. His father would still love him even if he were insane, even if he had tried to kill Arthur Weasley, even if he had enjoyed it. His father would have loved him anyway, and cried into his hair, he would have protected him from sleep, from himself. Harry relaxes into Sirius' arms and pretends this feels normal.

Pressed against Sirius' chest, he feels the pressure of air pulled inside and outside of Sirius, the rapid beating of his heart, the stubble on Sirius' chin against his forehead. Harry is suddenly aware of Sirius as more than an idea, more than just hope or memory. He remembers how happy he was when he realized who Sirius was, that this stranger loved him, that he would fight Dementors for him and kill people, wrap his fingers around someone's throat for him. Even then he was an idea. His mother made up a care package for him on the day she died; she put it into his skin and waved goodbye. His father put a stamp on a letter that, one day, would turn into Sirius Black. Gifts from the past, reminders of something Harry has only ever read about. Family, love. Devotion. That look on Ron's face means that he believes the war is a nine-to-five affair, that even in the war there is time and place for family, for belonging. That naïve look that Harry resents so much because he never got to have it.

Sirius is more than just an idea, he's a living breathing person, he's what's left in the world for Harry. If love has a smell, it smells like Sirius Black. But he breathes air like everyone else, he's not just a head in the fireplace or a cryptic letter. He's got blood to spill, just like the rest of them.

Harry feels like he always gets things just to have them taken away.

Sirius reaches up and touches Harry's face. It's like they are both thinking the same thing, like Sirius is testing to see if Harry is breathing, if he's alive. As if Harry might die in the night of sheer loneliness, eaten up by the snake inside him. He brushes his fingers over Harry's tangled hair like Harry is the most precious thing in the world.

"Oh James," Sirius whispers. "I missed you so much."

Harry doesn't fall asleep after Sirius leaves. He stares at the empty portrait on the wall, the one that talks so dismissively about these two boys, one asleep, one terrified to try. A dark interior with its subject missing.