FicWad

Blank grey sky. A soft rose of dawn was just peeking beyond the edge of the horizon but it did little to lighten the sky. Even with the touch of color everything was bleak and full of ashes. The air seemed black and everything was dark, as if the lights had been dimmed.
Sirius Black was standing slack jawed in the charred front yard. His heart wasn't beating and there was nothing in his mind. It was as blank as the heavy sky that hung above him, ominous and threatening. He blinked once and the world moved slowly. He could feel the beams of the house smolder and the clouds shift over head. He could see with minute detail the still bright sparks that lay scattered among the once flowering geraniums in the garden bed that stretched along the front of the house. But he still wasn't breathing. His ears were full of cotton, as was his mouth, drying his throat and making him feel as if he were underwater. Everything was muted.
He took his first step in at least five minutes and his leg was heavy. He could barely lift his feet off the ruined grass. With his heart and breath still frozen he climbed the blackened brick steps to the vacant doorway. The door was no where to be seen. He set his hand on the railing as he climbed and it was a few moments before he realized it was intensely hot and pulled his hand away. He paused and stared at the angry red stripe across his palm. It would probably scar.
He reached the doorway; open like a gaping wound into a house that had been meant to be safe. Sirius realized that he hadn't needed to go this way. The walls of the house were mostly gone; crumbling slowly or just blown away, like the heavy wooden frames had been particles of dust on a bare bookshelf that needed cleaning. He stepped slowly into the house. His vision was obscured by nothing. The interior had been hollowed out neatly, walls and ceilings gone. Whatever furniture remained lay in ruins here and there, the leg of an arm chair, the top of a table, the brief white flash of still bright porcelain that had once been a sink or a tub. Maybe it had been the toilet. Sirius couldn't be sure.
His eyes moved over the wreckage slowly and he wavered on his feet a little as he spotted two still forms on either side of the house. Sirius stepped closer to the first. A flash of red hair was spread out in shocking contrast to the devastated rug. Pale skin was in even sharper contrast to the red and Lily's green eyes were open and wide. Sirius stared down at her for a long moment, her face perfect and untouched. She looked as though she were asleep but had only forgotten to shut her eyes. She was flat on her back, free of any fire damage or shock. He knelt next to her and, heart still not beating, lungs still not bringing air to his suffocating body, touched his finger tips to her cheek.
She was cold.
The world smashed into Sirius like a ton of cement, throwing him to the ground next to her with a deafening roar. What had once been a soft breeze whipped around his form like an angry gale and he could hear a loud crack as another beam broke and smashed to the ground. The wood underneath his hands was splintery and sharp. His breath and heart went double time as if they both knew they had some catching up to do. With that gasp of air Sirius came back to himself. Every muscle seemed to tighten at once and his stomach churned with horrible violence. His once gaping mouth took form and Sirius let his suddenly anguished cry rip into the air like tearing cloth.
Sobs wracked the man's already thinning figure as he hauled himself to his hands and knees, fingers grasping at Lily's dark green blouse. He shook her roughly, screams climbing from his throat like living things. Because with his breath had come his mind. Lily was dead. And Sirius knew that the horribly still form on the other side of the room was James. They were gone. His friend's names spilled into the air as his wails took shape.
Sirius dragged himself away from Lily and towards his best friend. James lay on his side, as perfect and untouched as Lily had been except for a smudge of ash smeared across one pale cheek. The wind ruffled his untamable hair and Sirius noticed that his glasses were gone. He searched with bleary eyes and groping hands around the body and found them, the lenses smashed beyond recognition. But he slid them back over the bridge of James' nose after closing the terrifyingly wide green eyes.
Sirius' tears were silent now as he bent over the body, back still heaving. The wind died down and except for the occasional creak of fire damaged wood it was silent. It seemed ages Sirius knelt there, mind blank but for the blinding pain of grief and loss. And it was ages more before he noticed a soft rustling noise. His head jerked up and he stared wildly around the ruined house, searching out the source of the noise. It was coming from under an upturned side table in what had been the corner of the living room and Sirius slowly struggled to his feet, drawing his wand. Along with the pain now was an almost primal desire for revenge, something to take his anger out on but not before he was two steps from the table it shifted and a small hand stuck out from between the legs and waved around, searching for something to grab on to.
Sirius choked and dropped his wand in surprise. He sank to his knees and lifted the table gently aside to reveal a small boy on his hands and knees, attempting to crawl out from underneath the obstruction. He could have been more than a year and when he looked up in startled surprise Sirius knew instantly it was Harry. That hair and those green eyes couldn't have belonged to anyone but Lily and James' son. He lifted the boy with shaking hands as infinite relief flooded his misery worn body. He was able to briefly forget the loss of his friends as he quieted the boy's frightened mewlings and brushed light fingers over the strange scar that marred Harry's forehead.
He stood slowly and backed up from the corner, holding Harry close so as to shield his eyes from his parent's bodies, not that he would remember much of the whole ordeal anyway. Sirius pressed soft lips to the boy's temple as he stumbled back down the front stairs and into the yard.
"Shhh Harry," he said, voice hoarse with crying, "its all right baby. You aren't alone."