A Piece of Sun

Sometimes a piece of sun

burned like a coin in my hand.

*

A woman lies in her bed.

Her lank hair fans across her pillow in heavy, autumn strands; a blazing sunset over a snowy hillside. Her body is bathed in sheen of sweat.

After multiple freezing charms, the room is cold as winter, but outside, the air shimmers. It's a steamy summer evening.

The woman sweats and grunts and weeps, and finally, with a low, guttural cry, it's over--finally, finally, over. She melts into the mattress beneath her and heaves.

And at midnight, on the hottest night of year, in a small, anxious home in Godric's Hollow, Harry James Potter is born.

*

Four men stare at the oaken door.

Two are seated by the fire; another paces neurotically, hands kneading his temples and running through his chaotic hair; and the last sits in a dim corner, sipping a tumbler of Ogden's--number four? five? dare he say, six?--and wishes the night would swallow him whole.

But a cry--something halfway between a howl and a snarl--breaks the clammy, dark silence and brings all the men to their feet.

And they visibly relax at the sound of another cry, the self-declaration of a newborn child.

"Daddy Prongs," says the tallest, darkest one, who sets down his goblet and thumps his friend on the back. "Are you ready to meet James Jr.?"

James looks stunned, but accepts hearty handshakes and friendly punches from the other two men.

Meanwhile, the tall one downs a long draught of whiskey and shuts his eyes briefly, savoring the liquid as it sears down his throat.

*

The healer summons James, puts the pale, wide-eyed child in his arms, and says, "Your son. Harry James."

And James thinks he might faint.

"Lil... we're parents."

"Glad you noticed," she replies weakly.

"He's amazing. You're amazing." And he kisses her forehead, grinning like--like Sirius on one too many Butterbeers.

Yes, Lily thinks, years ago, the five of them at The Three Broomsticks--James never could be separated from them, no matter how hard Lily tried--and Sirius could always toss back more alcohol than the other three boys combined. He used to say, with a mixture of humor and distaste, that it was a Black thing. He'd say, it was liquor that once got him through the hols, and family dinners, weddings, funerals... He'd say, if you couldn't hold your liquor, you were a weakling, and in the Noble and Most Ancient House of Black, weaklings don't survive.

But Sirius was never weak.

*

"What about a godparent, Lil?"

James rocks Harry and coos; in response, Harry squirms and maybe, sort of smiles.

"Well, we have three choices, right?"

"Remus," James replies without delay.

She cocks her head, gazing at her husband in honest surprise. "Really? Not Sirius?"

"Sirius!" He snorts. "Sirius will get Harry killed before his first birthday."

"He'd never let anything happen to Harry," she says emphatically, almost glaring at James.

"Lily, this is a baby we're talking about. Sirius has no--and I mean absolutely none, nada, zero, zilch--experience with children. He--he'll--he'll teach Harry to swear!"

Lily can't help but laugh at the comically horrified expression on his face. "James, there are worse things than swearing."

"Like what?"

"Like not loving Harry enough. It's got to be someone who will love Harry more than anything else--more than you or me or even himself. And I know that person is Sirius."

James' mouth twists in displeasure. "You know I'd trust Sirius with my life. But Harry's... That's a different matter."

"I trust him completely."

"Are you sure?"

"Yes. He's the strongest person I know. Now will you please go get him? If I know him, he's probably dying to see Harry."

*

James may think she's nutters, but she knows in her heart that she's right.

Because, James does not understand Sirius, just as he does not understand Lily. Oh, he loves Sirius--loves him like more than a brother, loves him like he loves himself--but then, James loves like he lives: happily, one day at a time. There's nothing wrong with that (as Lily has reminded herself a thousand times).

Only, Sirius too loves like he lives: all at once. Not like James' steady candle, but a wild inferno over a dry plain. He wants everything, all that he can have, and he's hungry, starving, to love and be loved, to pour himself out to people around him.

James told Lily once that the only reason he became popular--before he was Quidditch captain, a Marauder, or Head Boy--was because of Sirius. Because, Sirius decided--just decided, out of the blue--to be his friend, and once Sirius decides you're his, then you are his, and there's nothing else to it.

Lily sometimes wonders why Sirius never chose her.

*

Sirius and James crouch beside the bed, and Lily takes a moment to examine them: best mates, blood brothers, but no two friends could be more different. She loves them both differently, just as they are different, but she wishes things could be simpler.

Though she loves Harry, she wishes he were not born so soon, because she's very young--she won't deny it, she's not ready for a child--and outside this quiet house, a war rages on and, quite frankly, she's afraid.

And though she loves Sirius, she wishes he were not here--that he was never here--because he makes her loving James so very difficult.

"Here," she says, and nestles Harry in Sirius' arms. His eyes widen and his mouth falls open as he (somewhat awkwardly) cradles Harry. Speechless--Sirius is speechless. With a snicker, Lily adds, "I thought I'd never see the day."

"Huh?"

"Nothing."

"He's... brilliant."

Oh yes, Sirius is the right choice.

"And, well, if he's got to be an exact replica of James, at least he's got your eyes, Lily. There is some hope for the poor little bugger."

"Oy!"

"Don't call him that," Lily says, but is unable to restrain a laugh.

James points a finger at Sirius. "See, Lil. I told you so."

"Don't be so anal, Jamesy."

"I hate it when you call me that."

"Oh, you poor little bugger," she retorts.

"Prongs, you're not gonna let your bird talk to you like that, are you?"

"As if I had any say in it."

"If she were my woman," Sirius says, regarding the pretty redhead buried in the mound blankets, "I'd never let her get away with such cheek. A cute mouth can be put to so many better uses."

Already pink and peaked from hours of labor, Lily flushes an even richer shade of fuchsia, and Sirius, realizing what he just said, swallows deeply, silently wishing for another bottle of Ogden's.

But James--forever the oblivious one, Lily thinks--only grunts, "Padfoot, you're delusional."

"Is it just me, or is it hot in here?" Lily pushes away some blankets and gathers her hair at the nape of her neck. "So Sirius, Harry seems to like you."

"Of course he likes me. Hello, Pronglet," he says. Lily rolls her eyes; James beams. "I'm your Uncle Sirius. I just want you to know that whenever your parents are being stupid, you can always come to me. We'll do all sorts of cool stuff together. I'll teach you to play Quidditch. I'll buy you your first bottle of Ogden's. I'll teach you ride a motorbike, how to chat up a girl, how to swear in six different languages. I'll even teach you some nasty hexes before you start Hogwarts. You know, just in case someone gives you trouble. Oh yeah, I'm going to be your favorite uncle. Uncle Remus is pretty cool. You'll like him. Uncle Peter, too. But I'll definitely be your favorite..."

Lily gives James a pointed look.

*

"James," she says, "can you give us a minute?" And James slips from the room, glancing once over his shoulder to watch his best mate cradling his son and his wife, looking on with an unreadable expression.

Odd. They looked so very... at home.

He shakes the thought from his head, dismissing it just as it appears.

"...and when you're on your house Quidditch team--you'll be in Gryffindor, no doubt about it--I'll come and watch every game. Yeah, you'll be a Gryffindor. You'll be brave and talented like your dad, and smart and kind like your mum."

The door clicks shut. James is gone.

"And you'll be fierce," Lily breathes, "just like your Uncle Sirius."

Sirius' head snaps, his eyes fastening on Lily's. Confusion washes over his face, but slowly, his features unravel and he begins to understand.

"What are you playing at, Lily?"

"I'm not playing at anything."

The silence that stretches between them is so loud that Sirius thinks his eardrums might burst. This is the first time since the wedding that they've been alone together. Sirius has purposefully avoided Lily--avoided her eyes and her smile and her warmth--for this very reason.

Because being near her is like holding a hot poker to his heart, and quite frankly, it hurts like hell.

"Sirius, I want you to be Harry's godfather."

He looks stunned, and Lily gives a small, weak smile at his shock. That's twice in one night Sirius Black has been struck wordless. Some kind of miracle, she muses. Pure magic.

"I'm not sure that's... wise," he finally says. Glancing down at Harry, he presses his lips to the tiny one's forehead.

"Since when did you care about what's wise?"

"Since I'm alone with my best friend's wife."

"Sirius--"

"I know, I know," he interrupts. "You're not trying to--to do anything stupid, but that doesn't mean..."

A beat.

"Bloody hell, Lily, I can't turn off my heart! I can't just--stop feeling now that you're married! What do you expect me to do? What else can I do?"

"You could stop acting like you hate me."

"I don't hate you. I just can't... can't act like I love you, either."

She turns her face away, unable to look at him any longer.

"Love, just because I don't say it, doesn't mean I feel it."

A small sob escapes her mouth, but she stifles it with one hand. With unearthly control, she swallows and composes herself.

"I know, darling."

*

She doesn't know, he thinks bitterly. She hasn't got a bloody clue. The past year has been the closest thing to hell he's ever known. Forget the fact that people are dying. Forget the fact that he lives everyday with the knowledge that this day may be his last. Forget the dreams of screaming and fire, explosions of green light. Forget that he's done things that horrify him, things he cannot even speak of. Forget the fear that sometimes wraps itself around his throat like a powerful boa constrictor, squeezing the life out of him even as he welcomes it. Forget that James is the happiest he's ever been, with his cozy home and adorable son and promising Auror career and pretty, sweet, pleasant wife. Forget all those things.

Because he loves Lily, and it's burning him up inside.

He watches her struggle to restrain the tears. She looks exhausted. Her cheeks are white and smooth, and deep, purplish shadows ring her eyes; her voice is low, ragged from screaming; her lips are bright, raw, red. But even unkempt, with no makeup and her hair a mass of damp, tangled curls, he thinks she looks like a goddess. Full, hot, soft flesh, feminine power all wrapped up in lush curves and eyes as mystifying as the dark, verdant forest circling Hogwarts, stretching for miles and going deeper, deeper, always deeper.

No, she doesn't know.

He's standing just beyond the gates of Eden--listening to the whisper of the trees, smelling the saccharine scent of ripe, pungent fruits, following the tendril of laughter that drift over the wall from the center of the garden--but those impervious gates are shut to him. He does not have the key. He thinks, it could've been his--she could have been his--but he gave it away.

He gave her away, and he loves her, and she doesn't know that it's burning him up inside.

*

James clomps back into the bedroom, carrying twin glasses of Firewhiskey.

"Bless you, Jamie." Sirius downs both of them.

"Hey! I needed that more than you."

"I highly doubt that."

The day will come when James notices these comments--these slight, oh-so-inconspicuous remarks that make Sirius want to curse and Lily want to cry. She is, in fact, perilously close to tears at this very moment, and James can hardly miss the flicker of pain in his wife's eyes or the shadow that crosses his best friend's face.

"Something wrong?"

But today is not that day.

"Nothing, mate. We were just quarreling. Lil asked me to be Harry's godfather, and I said that it wasn't a good idea."

"That's what I said."

"I say you're both idiots."

"Big surprise there," Sirius says and rises. He walks briskly to the door, opens it, and calls over his shoulder, "I'll be back later."

James looks at Lily, trying to read the expression of buried emotion, but as always, her face is a barred and bolted fortress--and he too does not have the key.

*

The last few glasses of Firewhiskey were not enough--is it ever enough?--because Sirius returns several hours later reeking of alcohol. The scent permeates his breath and his clothes and even his hair, and there's a slightly wild look in his eyes. Sirius is dangerous when he's drunk--just as dangerous as when he's sober, if in a different way. In either state he's completely unpredictable, and perhaps that's what scares Lily the most.

With no preamble, he bursts into her bedroom and declares, "I'll do it. I'll be his godfather."

Lily's suddenly glad that James has already passed out on the couch, succumbing to stress and fatigue.

"Good," she says.

"But tell me one thing."

"Okay."

"Why?"

Oh, how to answer?

"Why, love, why, why, why? You refuse to let go, yet you hold back at the same time, and goddamnit, it's killing me--killing me, Lily, I'm going absolutely mad and I don't know what the hell I'm doing anymore."

"Siri--"

"You cruel woman,"--he gestures violently, voice rising in pitch and volume--"you horrible, selfish, bloodthirsty vixen! You like to see me bleed, don't you? Is this fun for you? It's killing me, and I don't know whether it's love or hate that's doing it, or if there's even a difference any more, but whatever it is, it's eating me up, it's burning me up. Gods, Lily, it should be my son."

His voice breaks off in a low cry. She clutches at his hand, and he sinks down beside her bed, pressing his forehead to her blanketed thigh. Lacing her fingers through his thick, longish hair, she admires the way the candlelight spills down the midnight tresses. Next to the white sheet, his head is a polished black stone. Unbreakable onyx. Precious black sapphire. Inky, rough coal.

"It should be my son. You should be my wife. And I should not lie awake at night, dreaming of his hands on you, thinking your body and soul should be mine." His head snaps up, his face and body taut, hard.

"Well, what was I supposed to do, Sirius?! Marry you? Ha!" Her hands fist in the blankets to stop their furious quivering. "At least James is here. You--you--you're gone all the time, and you philander, you flirt with other women, and you--you're impulsive and you take every risk you can. So, tell me, what am I supposed to do?"

"You could've waited."

"For what?" she spits at him.

"For me! For the war to end!"

"As if you'll survive the war!"

As soon as the words leave her mouth, they both freeze in horror. Neither has really considered, nor wants to consider at the present moment, the possibility of death. But, in truth, any day could be their last--James, Sirius, Lily, even tiny Harry would each be a grand prize for the Dark Lord. And Sirius has been especially reckless in the past year--since the Potters' wedding, incidentally. James never tells Lily exactly what it is that Sirius does, but she does know that he takes the most dangerous, covert missions from Dumbledore. More than once he has had to be treated for deep wounds and powerful curses. James comes home on those nights shaking and pale, sometimes vomiting--sick from the stench of burnt flesh or the like.

Lily never sleeps on those nights.

"I'm--I'm sorry. That was a--a horrible thing to say."

"But true."

"Sometimes I hate you for it," she whispers. "You don't know what it's like, lying in bed at night and thinking I might never see you again."

"As for me, anything's better than thinking of you, love," he replies. His mercurial eyes, which were turbulent and burning from unchecked temper, are now fierce and flat, like the cool, shining plane of a silver blade.

She flinches from the look in his eyes, from ease of his barb and his deadpan tone of voice, but she presses on anyway, determined to break through his barriers. "You wanted to know why. Do you still want to know?"

"Yes."

She looks away and swallows, her eyes fixed on the windowsill opposite the bed. When she finally speaks, her voice is charged with bitterness.

"Because you would've waited, even if I could not."

*

It isn't the shouting that rouses James, but the hissing, like two vicious snakes darting for each other's throats.

"Something wrong?" he asks, sticking his head in the bedroom door. "I thought I heard something."

"Oh! No, everything's fine, James."

He studies his wife for a moment. She has naturally pink cheeks--a complexion as delicate as an English rose, Sirius half-kiddingly says--but now she looks exceptionally flushed.

"Are you all right, Lil? Are you feeling okay? Do I need to call the Healer?"

"No, really, I'm fine."

"Do you want me to sit with you tonight? Or, I can go back to the couch, if you like--if my snoring would disturb you."

She tries to smile, but somehow it doesn't quite fill her eyes. "Just go back to sleep. I'm tired myself. I'll probably drift off in a few moments."

"If you say so."

He trudges back to the sofa and flops down. Sleep takes over in a minute or two, but not before one fleeting thought crosses his mind:

The hissing--did he only imagine it?

*

"You had better go. I don't want to explain your hiding under the bed, and I don't want to break up a fist fight between two grown men."

"You're probably right."

"So you'll... you'll do it, then? Be Harry's godfather, I mean?"

"Sure. For Harry's sake."

"Yes. Yes, exactly."

He's all but sober now. Something about the sweltering night air wafting in the window and the taste of their fast, brutal dialogue has drained the whiskey from his system.

"Are you all right to Apparate?"

"Yeah."

"Ah... Right then. I'll floo you about the christening ceremony."

"Yeah."

"Sirius--"

"Save it, Lily. I don't--"

"Be careful."

Sirius gives a wry smile.

"Seriously."

He opens his mouth to reiterate the time-honored joke--my middle name's not Lee, or the like--but he finds he just doesn't have it in him.

"I won't see you much in the next few weeks, love. I'll be--gone. For Dumbledore."

"Oh. Of course."

"James will keep you updated."

"He always does."

Sirius glances at the door, then at Lily, who's sitting upright in bed, her pale face illuminated by a slant of velvet moonlight. Her cheeks gleam like twin opals, and he knows they are as smooth to the touch as they appear.

But he shouldn't know that, and that is why he must leave.

"Good night, Mrs. Potter."

And with a muted pop, he's gone.

*

Fierce, hungry, starving--some kinds of loves burn too bright, too high, too hot to last in the ephemeral confines of human flesh. Even the sun has to set sometime, Lily thinks, gazing at the kitchen window as she rocks Harry to and fro, watching as an explosion of gold dwindles on the far horizon. Her son wriggles, one tiny hand arising to clench a lock of ginger-red. Unexpectedly, he yanks, then smiles and squeaks.

And Lily too smiles--actually smiles.

"Oh yes," she says, "you're a fierce little thing, aren't you?"

*

Finis