Saying Goodbye

Saying Goodbye

-1-

Unfinished Business - Sirius Black

I still remember the day he died. I don't think I can ever forget it.

He was my family. He was my friend.

James Potter.

That cocky bastard.

Prongs and me, we didn't believe in saying goodbye. We were best friends, and we were always going to be best friends. When I went home for the summer--number 12, Grimmauld Place--we laughed and joked until our parents dragged us apart. We didn't say goodbye. Not even 'see you soon.' Nothing of the sort. We were best friends and we were always going to be best friends. We didn't need goodbyes.

When he married Lily, it wasn't goodbye. He'd been crazy about her for years. It was never a surprise. Now he was going to be spending more time with her, at home, and leaving us poor bachelors--me, Moony, and Wormtail--but it still wasn't goodbye. We were still best friends. We were always going to be best friends.

Harry was born, and they asked me to be the godfather. I was ecstatic. James and I were singing and dancing so loud everyone thought we were drunk-and so we were, without a drop of alcohol. We were drunk on happiness, toasting to the joy of new life, the honor of parenting. We knew then that we were best friends and were always going to be best friends.

I never said goodbye.

It's been fourteen years since it happened. Lily and James dead. Pettigrew a traitor. Azkaban.

Harry's grown up and gone to Hogwarts. The Boy Who Lived. He's been through so much. There's so much of James in him-that stance, that messy black hair, that grin-sometimes I feel it's James come back to me.

Fourteen years since he died. I've never been to his grave. The funeral was held during my trial. I couldn't attend.

What the wizarding world believes is true. I did kill Lily and James Potter. If it wasn't for my suggesting they make Peter the Secret-Keeper--no one would ever have suspected him-they'd still be here today.

He'd still be alive today.

All my fault, James, for betraying you. For killing you.

I'll never forget that day. Fourteen years you've been gone-I don't know where, I don't know what's beyond-and I know I'll never see you again.

And yet...

We're best friends. We're always going to be best friends.

I never said goodbye.

-2-

Patronus

"Personally, I'd have welcomed a Dementor attack. A deadly struggle for my soul would have broken the monotony nicely."

"He's not James, Sirius!"

"I'm perfectly clear who he is, thanks, Molly."

"I'm not sure you are! Sometimes, the way you talk about him, it's as though you think you've got your best friend back."

"What's wrong, Harry, is that you are not your father, however much you might look like him!"

"I think a part of him was really hoping you'd be expelled. Then you'd both be outcasts together... I sometimes think Ron's mum's right and Sirius gets confused about whether you're you or your father, Harry... I think he's been very lonely for a long time."

"You're less like your father than I thought. The risk would've been what made it fun for James."

"D'you think your father and I would've lain down and taken orders from an old hag like Umbridge?"

"... I think he'd love to be forming secret Defense societies right under the nose of someone from the ministry. ... I think he's really frustrated at how little he can do where he is..."

"... Surely you have noticed that Potter is very like his father?"

"Yes, I have."

"Then you know he is so arrogant that criticism simply bounces off him."

... James's eyes were hazel, his nose was slightly longer than Harry's and there was no scar on his forehead, but they had the same thin face, same mouth, same eyebrows; James's hair stuck up at the back exactly as Harry's did, his hands could have been Harry's and Harry could tell that, when James stood up, they would be within an inch of each other in height...

... Sirius was the only one for whom James would have stopped showing off...

... Harry saw Sirius duck Bellatrix's jet of red light: he was laughing at her.

"Come on, you can do better than that!" he yelled, his voice echoing around the cavernous room.

The second jet of light hit him squarely in the chest...

"... did you love him, little baby Potter?"

"Sirius was a brave, clever and energetic man, and such men are not usually content to sit at home in hiding while they believe others to be in danger."

"... he gave Narcissa information of the sort that is very valuable to Voldemort, yet must have seemed much too trivial for Sirius to think of banning him from repeating it."

"Like what?"

"Like the fact that the person Sirius cared most about in the world was you," said Dumbledore quietly. "Like the fact that you were coming to regard Sirius as a mixture of father and brother. ... Kreacher's information made him realize that the one person for whom you would go to any lengths to rescue was Sirius Black..."

-3-

A Few Last Words - Harry Potter

I still remember the day he died. I don't think I can ever forget it.

He was my family. Real family, like it's supposed to be. People who are always there for you, always care about you. The sort of people you miss when you're away. That's one thing Ron and Hermione can never understand. Their parents are always there for them. Their parents believe in them. My parents are dead, and the Dursleys--don't make me laugh. They aren't parents. They're only family by blood. They never cared for me.

Sirius cared.

He was my friend. He was the sort of person I could look up to, the sort of person I want to be when I grow up. Even when the whole world hated him, all his friends, all the people he loved, even when everyone rejected him and locked him away, he still knew he was innocent, and he still stayed a good person.

The thing that hurts most isn't that he's gone. It's that he never had a chance to live. His childhood was spent in that awful house--number 12, Grimmauld Place--with his parents--they never believed in him, either-and so quickly after he left school, Voldemort came, and he was sent to Azkaban. He lost twelve years of his life there. When he went in, he was young, and when he came out, he was old. Even after he escaped, to be cooped up, hiding in that horrible house with the portrait of a mother who hated him, and a mad old house-elf who made his life miserable...

A few years at Hogwarts, with his friends, were all he ever had. Those were the only times he ever had to live his own life, to be his own person. That's what hurts most. We were so close to defeating Voldemort, to clearing Sirius's name forever, to giving him his life back...

It hurts so much to think he's gone forever. I wonder what he wanted to do with his life. I wonder if he ever had a list of things he wanted to do before he died, and if he ever did them.

Sirius always hated saying goodbye. He thought it was so permanent. If you don't say goodbye, then you've got to see the person again, one last time. He told me once, he'd never said goodbye to my father. They didn't believe in saying goodbyes. So I never said goodbye to Sirius after that. That way I knew that I'd see him again, one last time, that Voldemort or the Ministry could never take him away from me, not without the chance to say goodbye.

Now he's gone.

I walk through the graveyard, hands in my pockets, feeling the snow crunch beneath my feet. I left some flowers on my parents' graves, stopped and talked to them for a few minutes. I don't know if they can hear me, but it makes me feel better to think that maybe they can, and if they can, they'll know I haven't forgotten them and I still love them.

Sirius Black

1958-1995

Padfoot

We kept his gravestone simple. I thought he'd want it that way. He never believed in fancy speeches and philosophy about life after death. He lived in the moment, said what was on his mind. Straightforward, no reason to be ashamed of anything he ever did.

I'm here to say goodbye, Sirius.

I'm here to tell you that I loved you, as a father, as a brother, as a friend. I'm here to tell you that I'm going to make you proud of me. I'm graduating from Hogwarts this year, and I'm going to be an Auror. I thought you'd like that. I miss you, but I know you're never coming back, and I've got to move on.

I drop to my knees, laying a single flower on the grave, petals a red so dark it's nearly black. The stars shine above me and I look up, studying the sky until my eyes focus on the Dog Star: Sirius.

I'll never forget you.

Goodbye.