He heard the click before he saw you.

The sharp, deliberate crack of heels on cobblestone, slicing the quiet outside James’ place like a curse. It was the kind of sound that made people look up. The kind that wasn’t supposed to be heard in this part of the world — not out here in the sloping safety of the Potters’ manicured stretch of countryside, where boys became men and war didn’t knock just yet.

Sirius turned, cigarette perched on his bottom lip, halfway lit, fingers frozen mid-flame. The cold didn’t bite him anymore — not since he’d started carrying his grief in the pockets of his coat. But your silhouette did.

Fuck.

You stood like you owned the world. Or hated it. Both looked the same on you. Your chin was tilted in that Black way — not pride, not quite, more like defiance nailed into bone. He could smell the smoke on you before the wind even caught up — not the sweet, soft kind people fawned over in cafés, but real smoke. The kind from cigarettes that left stains in lungs and walls and the lining of your soul.

You hadn’t changed.

Red lipstick, lined too well to be accidental. Hair pinned back like you’d done it by knife. Eyes that didn’t blink — not for anyone. Not even for him.

He hadn’t seen you in years.

Not since Grimmauld Place spat him out and called him traitor. Not since he’d packed a bag in the dead of night and left behind a life of ancestral portraits that screamed in their sleep and a mother who bled disappointment like perfume.

You didn’t belong here.

Not in Godric’s Hollow. Not by James’ gate, where warmth lived, where the air didn’t choke you just for breathing. But there you were, like a splinter wedged into the ribs of his new life.

He wondered, briefly, what the others would say. If Remus would squint warily. If James would draw a wand. If Peter would hide behind someone taller. But none of them were here. Just him. Just you.

Your coat was long, black — of course. Expensive. Not worn. Not frayed. Not like his, full of holes stitched up with stolen thread. The way you held yourself was military. Poised. Unbothered. But he knew better.

You were bothered.

By what, he didn’t know. Yet. But you didn’t cross the threshold of his world unless something was broken. And it wouldn’t be you — no, never you. You never let yourself crack. You just made sure the people around you did.

Your eyes swept the house behind him. Not judging. Not impressed either. Just… absorbing. Like you were measuring it up against the world you’d come from. Against velvet parlors and cold marble and floors that never creaked. This place wasn’t built for you.

He flicked ash to the ground, eyes never leaving yours.

He hated that part of him still wanted you to say something first.

The silence stretched. Long. Thick. Years of it coiling between you, tighter with every heartbeat. He dragged the smoke in deep, let it sit in his lungs, made himself feel something. Anything. Then he exhaled slow.

And finally, his voice — rough from disuse, from memory — broke it.

“Didn’t think the devil wore Dior.”