The Wicked (The Proud).

Posted originally on the Archive of Our Own at http://archiveofourown.org/works/53954929.

Rating: Mature
Archive Warning: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Category: F/M
Fandom: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Relationship: James Potter/Lily Evans Potter
Characters: Lily Evans Potter, Sirius Black, James Potter, Peter Pettigrew, Bellatrix
Black Lestrange, Remus Lupin, Harry Potter
Additional Tags: Marauders Era (Harry Potter), Canon Compliant, Character Study,
Canon-Typical Violence, Sirius Black & Lily Evans Potter Friendship,
The Noble and Most Ancient House of Black, Morally Ambiguous
Character, Love, Dark
Language: English
Stats: Published: 2024-02-21 Words: 1,593 Chapters: 1/1
 The Wicked (The Proud).
by LizzieBowen18

Summary

A laugh, soft and hissed. She shakes her head, tosses blood red hair with the motion. A
drag of smoke, pulled down to nest within the dark hollow of her lungs. The gesture is
performative to its core, she stole that – the need to dance across life's stage – from the
man to whom she is wed.

The marauders: burning bright and fast.

Notes
See the end of the work for notes
 I

“Those will kill you someday.”

The familiar cadence of Sirius' upper-class drawl is like ice being gently pressed against a
burn blister. Her shoulders drop without her even giving them leave to. She has known him
too long. Her souls knows that safety can be found by his side. It is the consequence of over
half a life spent growing together. Twin vines twining around Gryffindor tower.

Held carelessly in her left hand: the cigarette his glib remark was about.

It is newly lit, waiting for her to indulge in.

Peter brought her back the pack that sits comfortably in her inner coat pocket. His lips had
been curled into a smirk, she had rolled her eyes when his amused expression pulled on the
split skin in the corner of his mouth. He bled, then, red seeping forth to wet his chin.

She found the gift waiting for her when she slipped out of the cottage an hour before this
moment – on the bridge – back when the sun had yet to rise above the tops of the trees that sit
as a thick wood around the village she calls home.

A laugh, soft and hissed. She shakes her head, tosses blood red hair with the motion. A drag
of smoke, pulled down to nest within the dark hollow of her lungs. The gesture is
performative to its core, she stole that – the need to dance across life's stage – from the man
to whom she is wed.

Sirius walks over, comes to rest by her side, leant against the bridge rail.

She holds out the cigarette to him; the offer is easily made, thoughtless.

“There are worse ways to go,” she says.

“True.”

They stand still on the cracked cobblestone bridge that is slowly falling into disrepair with
each day that passes by a twin to the last. This is a stolen moment of peace that the world will
forget about – the words exchanged meant for the two of them alone.

II

They are drinking coffee, passing back and forth a chipped thermos, sat side by side in a
church pew.
Lily chokes on her breath when she spots the dried blood that has begun to turn to rust under
his painted black nails. His head is tipped back, his eyes closed, she thinks he must be deep in
prayer. Even then, he finds the time to pat her on the back, in the space between her shoulder
blades. She quietens quickly, settles within her own skin before his eyes open and his head
tips back down to the earth once more.

“You,” she whispers, the word little more than a hiss, “you are not eating at my table before
you clean your hands.”

“But lils...”

She has to fight the urge to toss the last dregs of coffee in his face. It would not do for him to
end up with burns before a battle. He needs to be whole and hale, so he can stand shoulder to
shoulder with her husband – so he can come back to share coffee and cigarettes with her
those rare times she slips out of the cottage.

“You are not eating in front of my son with bits of the enemy stuck to your hands Padfoot.”
She pinches his thigh, glares, verdant gaze vivid as the killing curse he has always been adept
at casting.

“Boo,” he grumbles falsely, “you whore.”

“Fuck off,” she spits back, before sinking her teeth into her bottom lip to cut off the smile that
threatens to twist across her face. They have had to be more mindful of their words since
Harry was born. There is something thrilling about reverting to the old ways, to the spitfire
cruelty they traded back and forth without pause when they were both nesting safe within
Hogwarts's impenetrable walls.

“Nah,” he says slowly, almost contemplative.

A beat, a moment's peace. It does not linger.

“You going out tonight?” She asks, even though she has already talked about it with James
over breakfast. Sometimes she needs to hear the state of things from other souls than the one
to whom she is wed.

“Yeah.”

“Bring him back.” It is an order, a plea, a prayer. It is the closest she will ever get to
admitting how much she misses the action: the bloody, brutal, thrill of making prey of
predators.

He nods, once, firm.

“Always do.”

III
They were vicious as children: fey creatures, powerful, brilliant, half-mad with promise.

James was always the best of them. The worst. All things and none at all. He sat at the heart
of their year, and much revolved around his whims and wishes. Lily loves him, even as she
once burned over full with disdain. Cradling their son close, she looks down at the boy's face,
sees the man she married in the slope of his nose and the tufts of black hair that already grow
wild from his skull.

“You will be great,” she whispers, as so many mothers do to their sleeping children. The
words sit like ash upon her tongue – like a prophecy she wishes she could tear to pieces,
which has become a swaddling blanket for the babe.

She is alone, with her fears, and her sleeping child. It is nearer then end than she knows.

IV

There is blood; always, crimson that falls from cursed wounds to wet London's streets.

Sirius is caught in a duel with his cousin, trading blows that have grown so dark the air itself
seems weighed down by it – bent out of shape, and cracking. His is the best fighter of the
younger set: his inheritance thing made of bone dust, and blood money, and secrets sealed
with oaths made under a fat full moon.

Bellatrix might have learnt at her lord's side - bold and brilliant and teetering on the edge of
utter insanity at any given moment – but he was raised on tales of long forbidden practices;
his days were once spent locked away in a library that seethes from the putrid wealth of
knowledge that his line has collected across the span of centuries.

She sends a killing curse his way, caught up in the black fury.

He is still the family's heir. They both come to a stop, panting.

The street is silent around them, the other duels halted in the face of this: the slamming of
two unstoppable forces against one another. Bellatrix looks almost taken aback at her own
daring, Sirius' countenance is a carefully blank mask. Only in his stormy gaze can a hint of
the betrayal that curls like a serpent of sulphur within his breast be glimpsed.

This is the icy second that marks the true death of their bond.

They were once the closest of their generation of Blacks; back during those hazy days before
school sortings and politics rent a permanent chasm in their love. It feels like a night terror
wrapped in a daydream, then, stood on opposite ends of a battlefield.
Sirius breaks first. He lashes out, casts a whip of fire that shoots out viper quick from his rune
carved wand. It wraps around her left arm, and she barely manages to counter it before it eats
through all of the limb.

One last glare his way, before she apparates back to her master's side. His follow up curse
makes the death eater who had been stood behind her explodes, like a water balloon popped
by a sharpened pin.

Sirius comes in through the front door, James at his side, with one arm slung over his leather
clad shoulder.

They are both blood stained, brutal, boys. Riding the high of victory. Their laughter is
raucous. She is drawn like a moth to flame, like a bird of prey to carrion. There is stew
waiting for them in the big yellow pot in the kitchen, she has kept it on a low heat, the coffee
has only just begun to cool, placed as it was – an hour back – under a charm.

She comes upon them in the hallway. Sirius is washing his hands in the sink of the little toilet
that sits under the stairs. He has taken her warning to heart.

James it leant against the doorway, waiting his turn, patient.

“Went well I take it?” Her voice is quiet; it cuts all the same.

A hum of agreement from her husband, a sickle is carved into the flesh of his cheek as he
turns his head to look her way. There is a familiar hunger in his dark eyes, it is one she feels
every time she reads the paper and sees another name she knows listed in the death pages.

He reaches for her, and pulls her close. He smells of blood, of ash, of that spiced aftershave
she bought him for Christmas. His hands are warm against the curve of her hip, she delights
in nipping against his bottom lip.

“Remus is in the guest bed,” she mutters against his ear, “keep it down, he looked worse than
he has done in a long while.”

He nods once, jaw taut, eyes turning flat at her words.

She catches Sirius' eye in the mirror, offers him a crooked grin. It is thanks and apology in
equal measure. He nods once, and it is enough. He will not be staying the night. Remus will
be gone come mid-day tomorrow. All Hallow's Eve is a day reserved from her, for James, for
Harry.

She will see them both when November 1st rolls around.
End Notes

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