the_debt_of_time

"You've never met her because she went missing in September of 1979," Sirius
explained. "She was a part of the Order like the rest of us, and one day she vanished.
Dumbledore and Moody told us all that she had been on some sort of secret assignment
and had been killed."
Harry frowned. "Oh," he said looking down. "So, how come her death date isn't
listed? Or her birth date?"
"I asked those same questions when she went missing. Mia—She... I.. ." Sirius's
shaking hand reached again for the firewhisky.
"You loved her," Harry finished for him.
Sirius nodded. "I still love her."
"Tell me about her," Harry insisted, and Sirius could tell that the boy was doing it
more for him than himself. He had not looked at a mirror since earlier that morning, and
Sirius wondered just how haggard he looked right then.
"She's the reason I met your father. We met in Diagon Alley when my mother took
me to get all my supplies. She was introducing Regulus to some Wizengamot ponce," Sirius
said, rolling his eyes, "so I sneaked off. I'd wanted to go look at the brooms, but when I
was passing Flourish and Blotts, I saw some tosser knock over a little girl. Being the polite
and chivalrous young man that I was," he said with a devilish smirk, "I went to rescue the
fair maiden."
Harry chuckled at the story.
"She made a few jokes about my name and then introduced me to her brother,
who'd run off screaming at the kid that pushed her," Sirius recalled. "Who happened to
be... Snape."
Harry's smile faltered. "Snape? Snape pushed my aunt?"
"We were eleven." Sirius shrugged, knowing that after Harry had seen Snape's
memories in Dumbledore's Pensieve, the boy had taken to getting riled up and offended
on the Slytherin's behalf, especially since the man was no longer around to defend himself.
"Remember how I told you before that we didn't get along with Snape from the beginning?
I'm sure this was the trigger incident, even if it may have been an accident. But he was a
prat about it, and your dad... No one hurt Mia. James loved his sister almost as much as
he loved you and Lily."