Weep With Those Who Weep

Fingers first. Twitching towards the black-haired boy before him. He's felt it before, the sudden desire to love - and it was sucked out by the dementors that drifted past his cage. His cage? His cell. He is a man, now, but the dog is within him, the filthy beast not fitting to touch the legacy of James. With a spasm, he clenches his hand shut.

He looks up at his godfather, afraid to move. Afraid that if he does he'll spoil this miracle, this man who was closer to his parents than he'll ever get. Words try to form in his throat, try to struggle past his clamped lips, then give up altogether and fall back to form a lump in his stomach.

He looks like James. That is enough to make him sweep Harry up and hug him - after thirteen years long absence, any awkwardness of affection would be gone. They'd embrace tightly, pounding each other on the back, and he'd whisper in his ear, 'Welcome home, Sirius.' But this is not James, this is not: after so much time hoping and wishing and wanting, after so much pain when the thought of this meeting was the only thing to get him through - a hand to grip, a bone to gnaw, a charm to whisper again and again... it is not him.

Ten years in a cupboard make you very observant when you do have light. He shifts his head, catches Sirius' eye, takes in his expression. Anguish. Disappointment. Guilt. It is worse than any curse, any reprimand. He is not who his godfather wants him to be. He feels his eyes start to well with tears. He blinks them away.

He wants to fade, like he did before, when the air was stale and smelling of death. When the bars of his cage were too slick to gnaw on. When the walls were as black as his name. But standing before him is no half-crazed death eater, no spiteful jailer, no dementor. It's the face of a little boy.

It is no use to cry. Long nights in the cupboard taught him that. When he sees the way his godfather flinches from him, he resigns himself again to a world where loving arms put other boys to bed. Yet some part of him cries out irrationally, this is the long-lost relative come to save you, come to take you away, come to love you at last...

And oh, the pain, the the incredible pain that James, thank god, had never had to bear. He's far too late to protect James' son from it. He's useless, he's worthless, he should never have come. He gives Harry a last look, and sees the same words in his eyes.

'Please...' It is all he can manage, like a trembling hand feeling for the cupboard doorknob, like a grown man reaching for his best friend's son.

'You know what it's like, to beat on a door you can't open...'

He nods.

'You know what it is, to be chained and innocent, to spend a decade waiting to be saved...'

He nods, and the tears threaten again.

'You know what it means, to stand in front of your - your last link to the past, and be so afraid - so afraid to lose it...'

'I know,' he says, and is not sure who moves first, only knows that they come together as one. He can hear the other's heart beating through thick, mangled robes, and he cherishes the sound. No man but his father ever held him this close.

There is the feel of the Quidditch pitch in his arms, and the scent of Gryffindor Tower in his hair... but it is not a younger version of James he embraces. It is himself.