The Return of Lady Godiva.

I tiptoed back into the warm lamplight of the room. Like the rest of the house it carried a musty, disused smell, but two of the windows on the far side were cracked open, allowing a small flow of air and the slight patter of rain on the sill.

Sirius sat perched on the end of the bed, eyes fixed on his own reflection in the large floor-length mirror in front of him. He wore only his black bathrobe tied at the waste and as I climbed on to the bed behind him I stared into his eyes reflected in the mirror, deep-set and shadowed by the overhanging arch of his eyebrows.

I tucked my knees up under me on the bed and draped my arms around his shoulders, hands splayed on his emancipated chest. My eyes met his in the mirror and he stroked my hand absentmindedly.

"Look at us," I said, "still the same after all these years."

A thin smile gripped him, and in it I saw traces of the young, robust wizard I had known since I was a young girl.

"Then I must have a horrible memory, because I swear I used to look handsome," he said.

"What do you mean 'used to?'" I whispered, leaning back and slowly slipped the top of his robe off, tracing the many white lines of scar tissue that marred his back. Some were old, barely there and others were new, deep rivulets in his skin. I ran my fingers over the largest one, stretching from the back of his right shoulder blade down to his mid-back, then curving sharply up again until it ended, fading into the skin under his left arm.

He suddenly grabbed my hand as it rested there and pulled it around him, hugging my arms under his. His skin was sallow and taunt, but that did nothing to make him any less handsome in my eyes. I traced the scars across his chest, the tattoos, some old, others new. I never thought to ask about them, I just wanted to know his form again. It had been a long time since I'd had the chance to trace the outline of his features or feel the warmth of his skin. We sat there for what felt like hours just touching, skin to skin, my head looking over his shoulder at the man in the mirror. The man I knew so well, but who fate had stolen from me.

He moved slowly, as if something deep inside pained him, and turned to look me in the eye, still holding my hands in his. He paid no mind to his bare chest as he moved the hair out of my face. Everything seemed to glow for one shimmering moment as he touched my skin.

"Sirius..." I murmured, pressing my cheek into his hand.

"Shhh." He lifted me back onto the bed and I recalled the memory of our first night alone in his old room over the Leaky Cauldron, the light mimicking the same shadows and the quiet murmur of late-night business downstairs.

He brushed my hair back and simply stared at me for long, passing moments, as if memorizing my face in the same way I examined his scars. The color rose in my cheeks and I caught my breath as his hand moved ever downward, dancing lightly over my skin.

No, it was not like that first, awkward night, our fingers fumbling, tearing buttons from out robes in an attempt to find skin, and skin.

In fourteen long years it seemed he had not forgotten the spots discovered in long gone nights. His lips traced my jaw and neck and I gasped, falling to the same comfortable pattern of love-making I had missed all these years.

Gently we pushed ourselves together, meeting in the fading lamplight, faces flushed, soft sheets under our bare skin. I bit my lip and gripped his hair, tracing my fingers over his back, both our robes gone, and I realized what a miracle it was that I loved him still, that he loved me, that we had never stopped, and I felt hot tears on my cheeks as he curled me in his arms.

His thumb graced my cheek and he shifted slightly, "Godiva, what's wrong?"

I paused to answer, afraid my voice would stick. I suppressed a lump in my throat and whispered, "Nothing, nothing. I'm happy, Sirius, I'm happy."

He leaned over and kissed my neck and ear and cheek, held me a little tighter, and I thought I felt hot drops on my skin where his lips had been.

"I'm happy too."

It was the last thing he whispered as we fell asleep together, wrapped in our own warm skin and memories. Love not even war could take away.