The Raven's Song

Grimmauld Place was still and quiet. The children had all gone back to Hogwarts yesterday, and the other members of the Order were out and about on business. Lyra and Sirius were alone in the house for the first time since he had asked her to marry him. Though they had their nights together in which to carry on as before – for despite all that hovered between them unsaid, the fierce hunger they felt for each other in no way lessened – there had always been another member of the Order in the house to hold them back. No longer did she have that shield to hide behind, and her heart was already hammering against her chest even before Sirius banished their breakfast dishes with a flick of his wand and drew a deep breath.

“Lyra, I think we need to talk.”

Without warning tears rose to sting her eyes, and though she tried to stumble to her feet and retreat from the room, he wordlessly locked the door and moved across to block her path.

“Okay, let me change that – I need to talk, and you need to listen,” he said with a sad, half smile. “You can at least do that for me after all we’ve shared, right?”

Lyra didn’t trust herself to speak, terrified the weight of all her emotions would overwhelm her and she would find herself begging him for all he couldn’t give her. Instead she nodded stiffly, her entire body had tense when Sirius reached out for her right hand and squeezed it gently.

“I know I told you that you didn’t have to answer me straight away when I asked you that question, Lyra, but I thought by now you would have said something. I guess the fact you haven’t is an answer in itself, though.”

Their eyes briefly met and she could fight no more. Her emotions had been running at fever-pitch ever since she had fallen pregnant, and the sight of the pain in his eyes brought the dam crashing down. Violent waves of nausea crashed through her, and had she not already emptied her stomach half an hour earlier she would have been sick. She slumped into his arms with a loud sob and his face contorted, his arms tight around her as he kissed the top of her tousled hair with a desperate groan.

“Merlin’s beard, sweetheart, all I seem to do these days is make you cry!” Sirius said despairingly, every syllable he spoke drenched in pain. “Lyra, I never wanted to hurt you, not like this – and I know I’ve made it worse. I’m a bloody idiot and I don’t deserve another chance, but I’ve had a lot of time to think while I’ve been waiting on you. If I mean anything to you at all, then give this old fool one last chance to do this the right way.”

His desperate plea and the passion behind it awoke one last flicker of hope deep inside her. Clinging to it with all her might, Lyra forced her tears back and lifted her head towards him, allowing him to capture it between his leathered hands as her breath hitched. “Sirius -”

“Sssh, love,” he said gently. “Just listen for a while. Can you do that for me – for us?”

 Still she couldn’t answer with words, but she closed her eyes and stretched onto the tips of her toes. As always, Sirius understood precisely what she needed. As the pads of his thumbs slowly stroked her tears away, he covered her lips with his and kissed her deeply, allowing her to wordlessly say all she needed to before he broke away to gaze down at her once more. He swallowed hard, and then began to quietly speak once more.

“I’m shit at all this romance stuff, Lyra; always have been, and always will be. I know now I’ve gone about this in entirely the wrong way, and I’m a lucky bastard that you’re even stood before me now listening to what I’ve got to say.”

Despite her best efforts, Lyra could not suppress a soft snort of tearful laughter, and the sound of it brought a relieved smile back to Sirius’s face; a rare sight of late. He exhaled deeply and reached one hand down to rest against her stomach as he continued, his low voice utterly hypnotic.

“Look, I might have nearly twenty years on you, but I spent most of those in Azkaban. In many ways, I guess I’m stuck in my early twenties just like you.” His left hand still against her stomach, he slowly leaned in closer to deliver an achingly gentle kiss to her pale face. “Believe it or not you’re the first woman I ever really fell for, and make no mistake, sweetheart; I’ve fallen and fallen hard. Lyra, you and the baby we’ve made are my first thought in the morning and my last thought at night. It’s tearing me apart to think that we could be on the verge of throwing this away before we’ve even really begun.”

She blinked back a fresh torrent of tears, aware now she would do anything to salvage all that they’d begun to make. “But we don’t have to, Sirius -”

He pressed a finger against her lips. “Hey, I know that! I’m not done yet, love, there’s so much more I’ve been getting ready to finally say – too late, maybe, but I’m going to say it nonetheless.”

The flicker of hope burst forth and flared as she drew a deep breath. “Then there’s something I need to know. You want an answer, and you’ll get it here, I promise; but first I want something from you. All I want is the truth. I want to know exactly why you want to marry me, Sirius. Tell me the truth, and then I’ll tell you my answer.”

Sirius breathed in sharply. “Then it’s not a no?”

“Convince me,” Lyra said with a smile that had been all too rare of late. “You’ve always been able to talk me round before now, Sirius. Don’t let me down now.”

“Okay.” He shook his dark hair out of his face, then held her gaze as he softly spoke the words she had never thought to hear from him. “Lyra, you’re my world, everything I never thought I would have for my own. Finding you was like falling off my broom then landing on my feet with the Golden Snitch in my hands. I’m crazy about you, and I’ve known for a long time that this is far more than just lust. That’s why I want to marry you, and I was thinking about it even before we knew about the baby.

“I don’t want you to marry me because you’re carrying my child, Lyra, or because I want to own you. I want you to marry me because you are the one light in my life; the one with the power to make me smile even after all the horrors I have seen. I want you to marry me because no matter what’s coming for us, I know I can face it with you at my side – and I want you to marry me because I love you.”

The world stood still around them, nothing as important as the last three words he spoke. Lyra’s lips parted as she stared up at him, only the fearful anticipation she saw in his grey eyes convincing her she hadn’t misheard him. “You love me?” she echoed faintly.

“I think I have from the very start, Lyra, and I was a fool for not admitting to it earlier. I denied it even to myself, let alone you, because I was afraid – but these past few days I’ve come to see that nothing is as terrifying as the thought of losing you,” he said quietly.  “I want no more secrets between us, not when they’ve nearly forced us apart. In that spirit, before you finally give me your answer, tell me something I don’t know about you.”

Still dazed, she shrugged helplessly. “You first.”

Sirius brushed away a tear that still clung to her lashes, then unleashed that grim, crooked smile she’d come to love so well.  “How’s this, then? I’m an Animagus.”

“You what?”

His smile widened as he stepped back, withdrew his wand again and with one flick changed into a hulking, shaggy black dog that Lyra recognised in a heartbeat. “Merlin’s beard!” she said in open astonishment. “Sirius, you’re the spitting image of my Patronus!”

“Your Animagus looks like a Grim?” he said with a loud bark of laughter as he changed back. “Are you serious?”

“Yes...your Animagus is a Grim too?”

“Well, looks just like one anyway. Guess this just proves it, sweetheart. You and I, we were always meant to be. Your turn, then.”

“Okay.” Convinced now that nothing could be as right as this, Lyra slowly nodded and moved back into his arms. “Sirius, I love you too.”

He whitened as his wand fell to the floor with a loud clatter, a thousand expressions flitting across his taut face before he snatched hold of both her hands and held them against his chest. “Then it’s a yes?”

“Damn right it’s a yes!” All the tension she had carried for so long drained from her body, swept away on the tide of joy that consumed her with the sight of the stunned elation on Sirius’s face. “Let’s do it, Sirius. Let’s get married.”