the_debt_of_time

Suddenly, the noises he made stopped, save for the sound of heavy panting. The
movements he made stopped, save for the way his shoulders shook.
"Sirius?" she whispered, worried when she felt wetness against the skin of her
stomach. She brushed back the hair from his face and adjusted her body to sit up at an
angle where she could tilt his chin toward her.
When his eyes finally looked up into hers, their silvery grey depths were wet, and
she saw something she had never seen before: the exposed soul of Sirius Black.
The moment was fragile and fleeting, and she knew it, so before he had a chance to
build the walls back up around him, she leant forward and kissed him soundly. Lacking the
lust-fuelled intensity from moments earlier, Mia put every bit of sincerity and need into the
way she kissed him now. He did not move at first, and she opened her eyes to gaze up at
him, watching as he looked to be struggling with the decision to let her in or not.
She realised he was afraid.
"Am I safe with you?" she asked, knowing that he needed to feel like he was in
control. As if he—not she—was the protector.
Her words seemed to snap him out of his dark thoughts. As if he were seeing her
for the first time that night, he sighed and touched his forehead against hers before giving
her a slow, chaste kiss on the lips.
Pulling away, he cupped her cheek and sighed, his gaze wary but honest. "I don't
know."
She ran one hand through his hair while the other tenderly dragged over the skin at
the back of his neck. "Tell me."
"I was almost a... a Death Eater." Sirius swallowed after he let the words tumble
out, looking pained just by saying them. He shook his head, the tears beginning to return.
"They tried to mark me, Mia. Why would they even try if I wasn't already somehow—?"
"No," Mia interrupted, tears prickling at the corners of her own eyes. "You are good,
Sirius Black. You are good, and kind, and brave, and... Merlin, so brave. They didn't try
to take you because they thought you belonged; they tried to take you because you didn't. The
first Black to ever be a Gryffindor. You are all red and gold. You are rare and, therefore,
priceless."
A thought occurred to her, and she smiled, reaching one hand over to the other,
she unclasped the bracelet around her wrist—having long ago figured out how to undo the