Rating for Sirius' potty mouth and for scenes later on, none of which are too graphic or in detail. Written for femme fetal's Seven Kisses challenge on HPFC; told in seven scenes. Enjoy :-)

i.

Walburga didn't believe in coddling. She made sure that her sons grew up knowing what was necessary and what was in excess. Hugs and kisses and family meals were excess, and so Regulus and Sirius made up their own.

That's why Sirius hated the parties he and Reg would sometimes be dragged to; be paraded around for a half hour and then sent to the kitchen with Cissy, and Bella and Drommie when they were younger. Walburga would show her boys to all the doting aunties and influential families, holding onto their sticky hands with a vise grip.

Sirius jerked at her, already asking to get away, and she pulled him to her, whispering in his ear, "Be a good little boy now," waves of irony dripping off her words.

She covered by planting a whiskery kiss on his cheek; by cuddling him to her and laughing in her hoarse, snorty way when he smacked his hands against her to get away. Those kisses were just lips on cheek. No love.

Those were the kisses he wanted to forget, so those were the kisses he couldn't.

ii.

It was only three days after Nymphadora's birth that Sirius made it down to Andromeda's to see her—the Hogsmeade weekend had fallen luckily, and he managed to convince James, Remus, and Peter to cover for him for an hour or so while he visited his cousin.

"Drommie?" he asked, suddenly shy as he poked his head into her room. For a thirteen year old boy, babies were about as mysterious as girls. "How are you?"

Andromeda glanced up, captured in morning light from the window that framed her face and streamed though her hair, hanging wild as ever around her shoulders. "Sirius!" she exclaimed, looking for a moment like the teenaged cousin he remembered best. "You didn't tell me you were coming!"

He grinned sheepishly and came towards her bed, sidling warily around the bassinet like it could combust at any moment. "Surprise?" he suggested.

"Works for me," Andromeda replied, leaning over to hug him and to give him a kiss on the cheek.

"Must be a new mum thing," Sirius muttered, scrubbing at his face, but giving Andromeda a quick hug back. "Mums like you, anyway."

Both became sober then, for their mothers had been nothing like Andromeda. Sirius knew it, and Drommie knew it, and their whole clan knew it.

Then again, maybe they were the only Blacks who knew—ecause they were the only ones who changed.

iii.

Lily should never have happened. She was fire-red hair and blazing anger at James, and he was newly out of a break-up, ready for something loose.

Even then he'd known she was James' girl, and maybe that's why he went so hard for her: because if he couldn't have a family like James, couldn't be athletic like James, couldn't even be respected like James—well, James, for all his trying, couldn't get Lily like him.

On most days, Sirius was second only to James as far as Lily's affections were concerned. But because Prongs had made an arse of himself again, Lily had forgotten to hate Sirius by the time they were alone in the common room. It started out joking; "Ha, how funny, Black, you're arm's around me." "Ha, Evans, you're not pushing me away."

Then Black and Evans became Sirius and Lily, and as the clock ticked towards dawn, the space on the couch between them decreased—and decreased—and then they were together, her slipped under his arm with hair splaying every which way across his shoulder.

Curious how the closer they got, the more inverted they became. Soon the joking turned awkward, Sirius pulled his arm away from her, and Lily moved away to the other end of the couch, feet curled under her. Like magnets, moving apart only tugged them together again, and that was the kiss that should never have happened, a kiss that felt so right it just had to be wrong.

Lily was fire-red cheeks and blazing shame, and Sirius regretted the whole night as they pulled apart tentatively, avoiding gazes and words as she retreated to her common room and he, too low to go where his best friend was sleeping—his best friend who loved this girl!—wandered the castle all night, replaying moments in his head that had to be gone by the next morning, because how else could he call himself Padfoot, Marauder?

iv.

The thunder boomed outside the common room windows, sending most Gryffindors up to their rooms to chatter about the storm and hide their heads under pillows. Not Dorcas Meadowes. And not Sirius Black.

Lightning flickered over her face and made its normal pointed features even sharper, more stunning. That was what drew Sirius to her; what had made him pause on the dormitory stairs and call to Moony, "Hey, I guess I'm not coming up just yet."

He knew it was inevitable. She was pretty and scared of the dark and solemn and somehow more feminine than anyone he knew—a perfect foil to Sirius' own underlying wildness, and maybe that was why he wanted this kiss so much.

Dorcas was standing by the window when he made it to her, one hand tracing the rivulets of water coursing down the pane. But when he appeared beside her she turned and leaned ever so slightly closer, just near enough that their arms brushed and he could smell her perfume—a mix of flowers and spices that he didn't understand and didn't care to, because it was just so damned intoxicating.

One of them must have made the first move, but in the moment when their lips crushed together, it seemed like they'd moved in complete harmony. Rain lashed against the window and thunder boomed outside and Sirius Black kissed Dorcas Meadowes. Nothing more and nothing less.

Except there was more. Lily was dead against anything with her best friend, and James was in the glow of getting his girl, so agreed with everything she said. Peter had always had a bit of a thing for Dorcas, and Sirius certainly had no clue what was going through Remus' head these days. So because all that added on—things ended right there.

Sirius Black kissed Dorcas Meadowes, or maybe she kissed him—and that was all. No relationship, no love, no aftershock. Because after the heat of a thunderstorm, things don't always come out real.

v.

Moony was moody in the months leading up to graduation, and Sirius understood him less and less as seventh year dragged on. Theirs was a kiss born of frustration and anger; a kiss that was over as soon as it began, because Moony's mouth was too narrow and Sirius' too sloppy; because Moony was uptight and Sirius all too willing to let go; because who wanted to kiss their brother anyway?

It was when James was holding Quidditch practice; when Peter, as manager, was at the pitch as well, and Sirius and Remus were alone. Not such an incredible occurrence, but that day—it was.

Because Moony was moody and Sirius wanted to find out why. Joking prying led to worried probing led to angry shouting about snoopy friends and someone's time of the month.

Angry shouting led to Sirius shoving Moony, who landed smack on the bed and grabbed his friend by the collar, pulled him right down with him. Suddenly the movement became sexually charged, and the bit of space between them diminished as they leaned forward experimentally, all awkward fumbling and bumped noses.

The kiss lasted a split second, and moved right into vows of, "I like girls," and "Let's not tell Wormy and Prongs about this, yeah?" So James and Peter came back, and Sirius was still angry, and Moony was still moody, and Sirius never did figure him out for the rest of the year.

vi.

Marlene was Sirius' unattainable. She was older and wiser, laughed louder and harder, and was a damn good Auror. At first, she was his mentor.

That didn't last long. It lasted two days, in fact. Two days of Sirius flirting between spells and two days of Marlene alternating between laughter, coldness, and flirting right back.

The latter won out. They stumbled back to Marlene's flat at the end of the second day, Sirius hanging onto her because Auror training was bloody exhausting and she was just bloody beautiful. She turned the key in the door and he kissed her; right then and there, while her hands were busy and she was so taken off guard that there was nothing for her to do but kiss him back.

Finally, Marlene mumbled into his mouth, "Black, turn the damn key." Because she was pressed against him so tightly, and his hands were looped behind her back, grinding against the door as they moved closer and closer. He laughed and fumbled for a moment, the door finally swinging open and sending Marlene and Sirius tripping inside, tangled in their robes and parcels and each other.

In her house, she was somehow softer than as an Auror. In her house, once again she had the upper hand—an entirely new feeling for Sirius—but all the horrors she'd seen left her. She let down her guard, and Sirius was enchanted.

They snogged and shagged, always rough and a little bit wild, because however soft she might be or however swept away he got, she was still Marlene McKinnon and he was still Sirius Black, and they were rough and a little bit wild.

Those were the kisses he didn't let himself forget. Not when the war got bleaker and the Order got grimmer and finally, when Marlene was just gone. Even in Azkaban, those were the moments Sirius held onto.

He had to. Everything else had deserted him, that night in Godric's Hollow.

Everything else had been a lie.

vii.

Sirius knew that this would be his last kiss. He knew when the air in Flitwick's classroom grew cold; when rattling breath echoed, closer and closer, down the hallway; when finally, the shadow of robes drifted in and all the happiness was sucked away.

("Fuck this family!" he shouts, ignoring Walburga's mutter at the Muggle insult, ignoring his father's ever reddening face, ignoring that all hell was about to break loose. "If you can even call it that. I'm out."

He storms out the door, tugging trunk and owl behind him. Fifteen, alone in London, and no where to go. Fuck this life.)

There was the click of a lock, and the Dementor was shut in the room with him. Sirius fumbled for his wand—stupid, stupid, they had taken it, of course—and scrambled over desks, pressing himself against the blackboard at the front of the room.

("You're sure about this, Sirius?" Lily asks, pulling him aside where she knows her husband won't hear. "Sure that this switch is the right thing? You know James trusts you more than anyone else, Rem and Pete included."

Sirius puts his hand on her arm. "Lily, I promise. I know what I'm doing. This way, no one will ever know that Pete's your Keeper. If they come after someone, it'll be me anyway. It's the safest way."

She bites her lip, eyes shiny with tears, but finally nods. Walks away, trusting in him that he's made the best decision for her and James and the baby. Back then, he trusted too.)

The Dementor seemed to be able to sense him and glided towards him, one hand outstretched to Sirius, the other rising to the catch of its cloak. And Sirius stopped searching for a way out; just planted his feet and told himself he would lose himself with more dignity than he ever had, before Azkaban.

("You betrayed them. You betrayed us all." Remus' cold words, thrown at him from behind heavily warded glass, hurt more than anything in these past months. "I thought you were one of us, but I was wrong—you're Black as your blood."

Sirius crumples in his cell, because Remus is right—but for all the wrong reasons.)

Its fingers closed around Sirius' wrist, and it took all he had to stand rigid; to hold onto scraps of Andromeda and Marlene and baby Harry and the Marauders before they became a lie. All the bits of soul he was about to lose.

The Dementor pulled away its hood and revealed its face: gray, scarred, and thousands of grotesque words that Sirius didn't have, because he never planned on any of this. This isn't how things were supposed to end.

(He's worried, that night on guard for the Order. On edge, and not sure why.

"We'll fight this war through," Marlene tells him, squeezing his hand. "All of us, for everyone else."

And then comes the curse jetting through the trees, cutting into Marlene and making a mockery of her words of a second ago. She's thrown backwards, illuminated eerily in green light as Sirius replays her last sentences in his head, disbelieving that fate could be this cruel.)

The voices in his head took over everything, drowning out Flitwick's classroom and his conscious thought of staying upright—Sirius wavered on his feet, and the Dementor drew him closer.

("Prongs, take Wormtail, not me. Please. You'll be safer.")

Already feeling pieces of his soul unwinding from his body, Sirius closed his eyes and waded through the bitter memories on the surface, searching for something good, even as the last fragments of himself were torn away.

"Lily and James, Sirius?" he heard in his last second. "How could you?"

Peter danced before his eyes, exploded into a puff of nothing—and then, nothing was all Sirius was.

Lucky for us Hermione that Hermione had her Time Turner, or that last kiss might actually be real! I'd always love feedback, whether praise or concrit. Which scene did you like best, and which did you think needed improvement? (because there's a few I'm definitely less sure of!) Also, if you enjoyed this, the Sirius/Lily scene is explored from her side in another of my fics, Roses Are Red, Roses Are Blue, and if you're into the First Order, more about Marlene and Dorcas in Constellations. Thanks for reading :)