Only Rain

Only Rain

One of the things he had forgotten in prison was the sound of rain on a roof, the incessant drumming of so many drops of water all magnified to sound like falling stones. In Azkaban the ceilings were foot-thick, soundproof stone, and later, on the run, he had lived under trees or in caves or nowhere at all.

He heard rain again, at last, at Moony's - when the storm started in the middle of the night, and Sirius heard the clamour of water on the roof, he leapt out of bed, heart racing, wondering what new line of attack Voldemort's followers had thought up.

It took him ten minutes to realise that it was only rain, in which time he had woken a bleary-eyed werewolf, who was understandably not best pleased at being turfed out of bed by a paranoid ex-convict, and knocked over a large Victorian lampshade (a 'gift' from Remus' mother, who hated the thing, and not particularly missed by Remus, who hated it too), which clattered to the ground and shattered into a million glittering pieces.

But it was only rain.

Only rain. Only rain. Sirius had always hated rain, hated it with a passion, because it always rained when a piece of his life was being ripped away from him.

-

It rained the evening before the night that James and Lily died, rained great fat drops like tears, like the sky was bleeding, bleeding water instead of blood, poured a torrent to wash Remus away and sweep Sirius into Azkaban and leave James and Lily there to drown.

It rained again the next day, when he was being taken to the prison, rained great lashing swathes of water that stung his face, rained in the brief moment that he looked out of the flying carriage before being hauled rudely back inside.

(When he was inside, though, his face was still wet. At least it could hide the tears.)

-

It rained when he was sixteen and in a moment of idiocy told a rival exactly where he could expect to find a fully-grown werewolf (prod the knot with a stick, then down the tunnel and to your left and I hope he eats you, you greasy twit).

As he looked out of the common-room window, ignoring the red-gold glints and the general air of cheer, and hated the rain for going on merrily even though Sirius Black was waiting for the end of his life, he wished bitterly that he had told him where to find a cliff to jump off of, instead.

-

It rained the day that the tension in his house snapped to a breaking point, and his mother, dark eyes flashing, blasted his name forever out of her life.

He told himself that he would not miss her, or his dark, drawling, ice-cold father, or the brother who hid in the corner, attempting glances of meek reassurance when their parents looked elsewhere, and flinched at every ugly word. They hated him. He hated them. They would not miss him. He would not miss them.

(He lied, a little. He would, a little. Just a little.)

He walked through the freezing rain, dragging an enormous trunk behind him, and appearing to the tourists seated warmly in their cafes every inch the epitome of the Mad Londoner, and told himself that he only felt cold inside because he was cold outside, and that it was only rain dripping down his face.

James greeted him at the door of his house, with a grin and a wry quirk of the eyebrows and the information that Mister Prongs would like to say that Mister Padfoot could not look much more like a drowned rat.

Mister Padfoot replied that it was certainly possible to be more rat-like than he, since he, after all, was not Mister Wormtail, and a little warmth crept back into him.

Mister Prongs guessed that it was not just rain on his friend's cheeks. He said nothing.

-

It did not rain the day he died.

It did not rain, and he laughed on the way down, because it always rained when something terrible was about to happen, and therefore logically he could not die (QED, Padfoot).

He laughed as he fell, laughed because this was not, would not, could not possibly be happening, laughed because he always laughed (and he always hated rain), and he laughed and he fell to his death, but at least it did not rain while he died.

end