The air in Grimmauld Place was thick with dust and ghosts of the past. Shadows flickered against the walls, elongated by the dim candlelight, whispering remnants of a time long gone. You had been here before, in another life, when laughter still rang through these halls, when the world had yet to crumble beneath the weight of war and betrayal.

The chair beneath you groaned as you settled, cradling a steaming cup of tea between your hands. Remus sat across from you, looking tired but still wearing that familiar, quiet patience. You had come for the Order meeting, expecting to discuss strategies, intelligence, plans for the inevitable battles ahead. You had expected new faces, old allies, the ever-present tension that had settled over the world like an unshakable fog. But you had not expected him.

The door creaked open, and for a moment, you didn’t look up. The sound of footsteps on the wooden floor was unremarkable—until it wasn’t. Something in the air changed, something you couldn’t quite place. A weight, a shift, a pulse of something long buried.

And then a voice—low, roughened with age and disuse, but unmistakable.

“Well, well. Look who finally decided to visit.”

You froze. The cup in your hands suddenly felt too hot, too fragile. Slowly, cautiously, you lifted your gaze.

Sirius stood before you.

It was impossible.

For years, you had mourned him as you had mourned James and Lily, as you had cursed Peter and the injustice of it all. You had resigned yourself to the idea that Sirius, your Sirius, was gone. And yet here he was, leaning against the doorframe with the same lazy arrogance that had once made him the most infuriatingly charming boy at Hogwarts. But he was not that boy anymore.

His hair was longer, streaked with silver now, falling in careless waves past his shoulders. His face bore the marks of time and hardship, faint scars and lines carved by years of imprisonment and loss. And his eyes—those storm-grey eyes that once held nothing but mischief—were darker now,