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The Raven's Song	By : Quills Category: HP Canon Characters paired with Original Characters > Het - Male/Female Views: 6265 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 1
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter, nor the characters from it. I do not make any money from the writing of this story.

Chapter List
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Lyra had never known before that it was possible to be this happy. Even the knowledge of everything that lurked in the world beyond could not trouble her, for none of it had the power to penetrate the bliss that enveloped Grimmauld Place since Leo’s arrival. He had proved to be a remarkably easygoing baby, simple to settle and happy to share his gummy smile with anyone who had the privilege of gazing upon him. He was the light of her life, more than worth everything she had sacrificed to bring him into the world, and she knew Sirius felt the same way. Gone were the black scowls he wore as a force of habit before, but despite their newfound happiness as a triumvirate, when he thought she wasn’t looking, she could swear she caught a glimpse of some deep trouble weighing him down.

The past year had taught her, though, that her husband did nothing unless he wanted to. Pressing him would do no use, and all she could do was hope he would confide in her when he was ready. With that thought to reassure her, she stretched out against him with a sated sigh as the soft sounds of Leo’s snores rippled through the air around them in the bedroom they all shared. “Can you believe it’s June already, Sirius?”

Sirius didn’t even hear her. He was staring listlessly out of the window, the bags under his grey eyes betraying how little he had slept of late. Growing more unnerved by the moment, Lyra twisted on the bed and rose up onto her knees to face him, resting her hands against his shoulders to force him to look into her eyes.

With a guilty start, he did just that. “Sorry, sweetheart. Were you speaking?”

“Yes,” she said tersely. “You clearly weren’t listening, though. Want to talk about it?”

She fully expected him to brush her off with another thinly-veiled excuse, but as their eyes locked something seemed to snap deep inside him. His jaw clenched, and with a deep breath he reached up to take her hands into his as he spoke. “Actually, I do. Can I confess something?”

Lyra’s heart skipped a beat, for Sirius was so pale now she was terrified of what was about to come. Some sixth sense told her they were balanced on a precipice, and one way or another everything was about to change. “Confess?” she said slowly, her mouth dry. “Do I want to know?”

Her feeble attempt at humour did nothing to defuse the new tension between them. “Probably not,” he said without as much as a trace of a smile on his face. “I don’t think I can keep it to myself any longer though, Lyra, and above all else you deserve the truth.”

“The truth?”

A tiny tear glistened in the corner of each dulled eye. “I should have told you months ago, but I was so afraid I’d lose you.”

“Told me what?”

Lyra was sick with anticipation, the fear she saw written so clearly on her husband’s face more than enough to convince her that whatever he had to say, it could not possibly be good. Just when she thought she could bear it no longer, he pulled her down to nestle against his chest, planted a gentle kiss on top of her head and held her tightly as he spoke again. “That day when you agreed to marry me, we said no more secrets.”

“Right...”

“Well, I’ve been keeping one.”

She whetted her lips. “Spill, then.”

“Okay.” He hesitated, then spoke so fast she could tell how long he had been wanting to say his next words. “I wanted you to get pregnant; Lyra, I planned it from the start.”

Sirius’s unexpected words were as powerful as a Stupefying hex. Stunned into silence, Lyra jerked away from him on the bed and buried her head in her hands as he groaned desperately, reaching out for her shoulder until she angrily shook him off. Only the fact Leo still slept mere feet away kept her fury from boiling over, but this felt like the very worst of betrayals. The very foundations of their relationship had been turned on their head, and she did not know if they could survive this. It all depended on how he answered the myriad of questions now whirling around her head.

“What do you mean you planned it?” she finally said under her breath.

His eyes shone with unshod tears, but it seemed he could hold back no longer. “I thought it was the only way I could keep hold of you, sweetheart. You’re amazing, so much more than I ever thought I could have after I escaped Azkaban. I thought my life was over, and then you came into my life and turned my world on its head in the most incredible of ways. The thought of losing that – of losing you – terrified me, and it seemed the only way to make sure you’d stay around would be if you got pregnant. I wanted it from the start, even though I knew you’d never go for it.”

Suddenly, her uncharacteristic absence of thought when it came to using any kind of contraception made terrible sense. “Did you hex me?!”

He swallowed hard. “I Confunded you once or twice, yes; just so you wouldn’t stop to think of trying to keep it from happening.”

“Shit, Sirius!”

Lyra rose from the bed and swore again, angrily shaking off his hand when he leapt up to follow her. Her head was spinning, her guts still reeling from the suckerpunch he had dealt her. Though he had used Imperius on her in the past, that had been with her permission; wizarding laws might view the Confundus charm as something far milder, but to her it was a hundred times worse.

Sirius cut across to stand between her and the door, the weight of everything he had endured weighing down upon him once more, but she could not bring herself to reach out and comfort him despite the way her instincts screamed out for her to do just that. This was too much to brush under the carpet. She needed time and space to come to terms with it, but it seemed that was something he had no intention of giving her.

He caught hold of her arm and pulled her near, and in an instant the soul-deep hunger she felt for her husband flared back into life. She could do nothing to hide it and it must have showed in her eyes, for he exhaled deeply and reached up to touch her face with an aching tenderness as he spoke her name. “Lyra...”

The weight of emotion in his voice threatened to tear Lyra to pieces. She didn’t think she could stand this for even a moment longer, but when she fought to break away from Sirius’s hold he shook his head roughly, pushing her up against the wall with one hand and with the other placing one finger against her lips.

“Don’t, Lyra. Please, sweetheart, if you love me even a little as much as I love you just hear me out!”

From the very start she had been powerless to say no to him. That was what had brought them here in the first place. Though her rage over all he had done still simmered deep down inside her, she slowly nodded and let the hunger she felt for him rise to the fore. He exhaled deeply and caressed her face as he began to speak, his voice low and soothing despite the tension he wore so clearly still.

“I screwed up, love. I know I did, and the reason I’m telling you now is because I hated keeping it secret from you. And Lyra, I know given the choice you would never have chosen to have Leo when you did, but now he’s here neither of us would be without him. It’s all worked out for the best, can’t you see that? You willingly gave up the life you had before Leo to in order to keep him safe, and he’s worth it, isn’t he?”

She whitened. “Of course he is, but that’s not the point!”

“Then what is the point, Lyra?! Forgive me, but I can’t see why you’re getting so irate over this now I’ve owned up to the truth. What’s done is done, after all, and though I fully admit I was in the wrong and I am sorry, truly I am, it’s not like we’re miserable together. We’re married, we love each other, and we have the most incredible son – so I can’t see why you’ve taken this so badly.”

“Then try to see it from my point of view, Sirius! It’s not that I don’t love you or Leo, for you know I do, but it’s all so fast. I’m only a few years out of Hogwarts, thrown into the midst of the wizarding war that the Ministry won’t even believe we’re fighting, and amongst all that madness you think it’s a great time for me to become a mother! An accident was one thing, and I came to terms with that, but to realise now you wanted this to happen...”

“Because I love you, Lyra!”

“Love isn’t selfish, Sirius – and what you did to me was the most selfish thing I’ve ever known you do. Instead of letting me have the freedom to make my own choices, you did all you could to entrap me despite the way you feel stuck here in Grimmauld Place. All you want is to be allowed to fight, and yet you deliberately deprived me of that precise privilege.”

“I...I guess I didn’t think of it like that.”

“You didn’t think of anything beyond what you wanted, Sirius.”

“Fair shot, sweetheart.”

Sirius offered up a faint smile, but Lyra couldn’t bring herself to return it. She closed her eyes and rested her head on his shoulder, finally allowing him to hold her close and stroke her hair back from her face, but as his fingers drifted across to touch her cheek with an intimacy that made her heart ache, their bedroom door opened from the outside.

Kreacher bowed low, the tip of his nose sweeping the faded carpet as Sirius pulled away from her and scowled furiously. “Damn it, Kreacher! What the hell do you want?”

“Master’s pet is hurt,” the house elf said as he straightened up.

“Buckbeak?”

A faint note of disdain flitted across Kreacher’s lined face. “Yes. Master should hurry.”

Sirius closed his eyes briefly, his conflict clear on his face as he glanced back across at Lyra. “I’d better go and see what’s up, sweetheart.”

“Sure.”

Her voice was dulled, and she ran one hand through her sleep-tousled hair as her husband’s face contorted. “Stay here with Leo and try and get some more sleep. I won’t be long,” he said.

Lyra couldn’t let him walk away from her, not like this. Though all she wanted to do was curl into a tight ball on their bed and charm herself to forget everything that had been said, she followed him across the room as Kreacher toddled off down the hall muttering under his breath. “Sirius?” she said.

He pulled back with his hand already on the handle, tears still shining in his eyes. “What is it?”

“I...I do love you. You know that, right?”

She buried her face in his shoulder, and her own tears finally fell forth and soaked into his shirt as he groaned again. “Of course! And I love you too, Lyra. Always, I swear! I’m a daft bastard, but above all else I love you and Leo. Remember that, promise me?”

Lyra nodded wordlessly, too overcome now to put voice to any of the conflicted emotions that ruled her. Sirius held her so tightly now she could barely breathe, but she couldn’t bear to pull away from him, too afraid that if she let go he would never hold her like this again.

He shook his head, though, and gently disentangled their bodies as he stepped back. “Get yourself to bed, Lyra. Soon as Buckbeak’s sorted I’ll come straight back and we’ll make everything right again, I swear. It’s all my fault and I’ll do anything I have to, okay?”

She nodded tearfully, and with a low groan he left the room and shut the door behind him as she retreated to the bed where the scent of him still lingered. She always hated sleeping without his arms around her, but the sheer height of her exhaustion was so much now that within moments of closing her eyes she fell asleep on top of the covers.

Lyra knew nothing more until she felt a hand on her shoulder rouse her from the blissful oblivion, and the sound of her name being called in such a way that her eyes instantly flew open. Something was wrong – something more than everything that had happened already.

Sirius pulled her up to sit and held her wide-eyed gaze, his lips pressed together and a thin sheen of sweat gleaming on his brow. “Lyra, there’s trouble,” he said, the quiet tone of his voice in no lessening the urgency with which he spoke. “It’s Harry. Seems like he’s left Hogwarts.”

“Merlin’s beard!”

“I know. Love, I have to go and find him – I know Dumbledore told me to stay put, but it’s Harry. He’s my boy as much as Leo is, and I can’t sit here and wait while everyone else goes to his rescue!”

She nodded, even though her stomach lurched at the merest thought of Sirius venturing away from the only place where he was safe. “Course you have,” she said instantly, already reaching out for her wand. “I’ll come too -”

He shook his head as a brief flash of pain flitted across his face. “Nobody I’d rather have at my side than you, Lyra, but you can’t. There’s nobody else here but us, and Leo needs someone with him.”

“But you can’t go alone!”

“I won’t be – I’ve sent out a message, anyone who can will meet me at the Ministry. Lyra, sweetheart, I’ve got to go. There’s no time to waste.”

He moved away from the bed and leaned over the cradle where Leo still slept, resting his hand against their son’s shock of black, messy curls with a low sigh before he delivered the gentlest of kisses to his flushed cheek. It never failed to make Lyra’s heart miss a beat when she saw how tender Sirius was with their son, all the horrors he had endured and been accused of nothing more than a memory whenever they were together. The sight of it was all she needed to convince her that whatever mistakes they’d make in the past, the future they had together was still worth fighting for. She loved him, and that would be enough to get them through anything – if only they got through today.

Watching him now, her heart beat at such a frenzied pace she could barely even catch her breath. Every instinct of her body screamed out not to let him go, and all else forgotten she launched herself across the room to catch hold of him before he could leave. “Sirius, wait!”

His face contorted. “Sweetheart, I have to go -”

Lyra shook her head, unable to lose the sensation that it was imperative she told him this now. “Not until I tell you I love you one more time.”

“I know you love me, Lyra, and I love you just as much. You and me...we’ll get through this, okay?”

“You swear?”

She clung to him with all she was, consumed by the urge to never let go despite the desperate urgency that surrounded them. “All I know is I love you too much to give up on this, no matter what’s in the past. We’ve both screwed up, Sirius, but we’ll get through it. We always do.”

Sirius’s wand fell to the floor as he took her head in his hands, gazing into her eyes for a wordless moment before he lowered his head and laid claim to her lips. Lyra instantly surrendered everything she was to him, arching into his body and allowing him to lead her through the most bittersweet kiss they had shared, laden with a desperate longing and all of the fears that wore them down. It was intrinsically them, in every way, and she was more in love with him than she ever had been despite all that had happened. He and Leo were her world, and she could never bear the idea of giving this up.

Even as that painful realisation settled over her, though, he broke away and pushed his hair out of his face as fresh tears quivered in the corners of his eyes. “I really have to go now. Stay safe, sweetheart.”

“You too. Sirius, I love you.”

Sirius shivered, but he pulled away from her and hurtled down the staircase, and all too soon the sound of the front door slamming told her he had gone. This was madness. Though she knew all the reasons why she should stay in Grimmauld Place, Lyra knew she wouldn’t be able to. Sirius was reckless, impulsive, hot-headed – and she loved him with all she was. There was no way in hell she could meekly stay at home with their baby not knowing if her husband was going to return, not when she could help.

She could not take Leo with her, though, and there was no way she was going to leave him with only Kreacher to look after him. She had never trusted the ancient house elf, not after seeing the way he idolised the family’s Pureblood ideals. Scooping her son up from the cradle and quelling his mumbled protests with a swift kiss, she held him close against her chest as she pocketed her watch then hastened down every narrow staircase, not stopping until she reached the entrance hall where she began to pace back and forth in spiralling agitation. The house was still and silent behind her, offering no solution to her terrible dilemma until a sharp knock came on the front door.

Lyra’s heart leapt as she instantly wrenched the door open to let Molly Weasley in, the older woman’s bloodless face telling her she had already heard the news. Without even waiting for her to speak, Lyra held Leo out and thrust him into the other witch’s arms.

“Molly, look after Leo – Harry – Sirius...”

A tear rolled down Molly’s face as Lyra doubled over, unable to speak any longer. “I’ll take care of him, Lyra. Go, go to them – bring them all back safely.”

Lyra had every intention of doing just that.
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The Raven's Song