The grand, grim halls of 12 Grimmauld Place had seen their fair share of conflict. Tonight, however, the war-torn walls bore witness to a different kind of tension—one less about battlefields and bloodshed, and more about the ghosts of the past refusing to stay buried.

You weren’t sure why you had come. Maybe it was the thinly veiled guilt-tripping from Remus, or perhaps the suffocating sense of obligation that came with surviving a war where so many hadn’t. Regardless, you were here, surrounded by old friends and familiar faces, most of whom had managed to move on.

Most.

And then there was Sirius.

He was impossible to ignore, even when you tried. Tall, broad-shouldered, draped in black like some wayward rockstar who had lost his band but kept the attitude. His silver eyes were sharp, but the shadows beneath them hinted at restless nights and unresolved ghosts. The smirk on his lips—infuriatingly self-assured, as always—told you he hadn’t changed a bit.

“Didn’t expect to see you here,” Sirius drawled, appearing at your side as if summoned by sheer misfortune. His voice was smooth, the kind of rich, dark tone that could talk its way out of anything.

“Didn’t expect to be here,” you countered, matching his tone with one of your own—calm, indifferent. A lie, but a well-practiced one.

Sirius leaned against the mantle, drink in hand, his fingers adorned with silver rings that reflected the low candlelight. He studied you, and you hated that he looked at you like that—like he could still read you after all this time, after everything.

“Still running away from things, then?” he mused, swirling the amber liquid in his glass.

You stiffened. “You would know, wouldn’t you?”

That smirk twitched, the sharp edge of amusement meeting something more volatile. “Touché.”

The party continued around you—laughter, clinking glasses, old friends reconnecting—but here, in this moment, it was just the two of you, trapped in a space too small to hold the weight of everything unsaid.