the_debt_of_time

"Good luck to them, then," he said bitterly.
She pointed at the cigarette. "That's a disgusting habit."
He grinned at her. "You might not always think that. It's helpful when you're
stressed."
Pursing her lips in disapproval, she opened her mouth again to say something when
a loud crash echoed from upstairs, followed by Ron shouting down, "We're fine!
Everything's fine!"
Hermione sighed and shook her head, crossed her arms, and stepped closer to
Sirius. "Tell me about your brother."
Sirius groaned as he blew his smoke out the side of his mouth away from her face.
Why couldn't she ever just let things be? "Maybe another time, love," he demurred. The
last time he opened up and talked about his brother had been a long time ago, a memory
he was not ready to revisit.
She tried to reason with him. "If this is true, that means he didn't die for nothing."
"Still dead, though."
"Was there a funeral?"
Sirius sighed, giving up and flicking the cigarette through the opening of the door,
closing it behind him quickly to avoid the cold. "I imagine so. I wasn't invited. I got a lovely
letter from my mother telling me that my father and brother were both dead."
"That's awful."
"That was typical."
"So you didn't even get to say goodbye?"
"Not in the way you're thinking." He moved and sat down in the armchair, putting
the pack of cigarettes back in the pocket of his jacket. "I said goodbye to them all the
moment they blasted me off that tree in the other room. When Reg died, though.. ." He
paused as he considered whether or not he should say anything more. "I said goodbye by
drinking my way through a bottle of firewhisky with a girlfriend."
"At least you weren't alone," Hermione noted, but there was a hint of bitterness in
her tone.
Sirius grinned at the way she answered him, wondering if that was jealousy he was
picking up. "No, not that time," he continued on, not wanting to point out the brief look
of anger on her face. "We got drunk, and she made up stories about my family. Said that