that-bwitch

[that-bwitch]

whenever I get an idea for a fic, it’s usually automatically ascribed to sirius in my mind. like I want to challenge myself and write for other characters, but I just know sirius so well that writing him is a walk in the park. and I think I kind of lost the grip with other guys I used to write for, I want to but I’d have to actually think and try…

#bwitch rambles #writing

[that-bwitch]

DORIAN GRAY 2009 | dir. Oliver Parker

#dorian gray #my guilty pleasure movie

[that-bwitch]

crash the party like a record scratch as I scream

#ts

[that-bwitch]

I think over the years I’ve lost the ability to write super short one shots, like less than 2k words I just can’t seem to do… idk if it’s a good thing or a bad thing, but it is what it is.

#bwitch rambles #writing

[that-bwitch]

but daddy, I love him

summary: your choice of a partner doesn't leave your parents satisfied, seeing as it's Sirius Black, an infamous "blood traitor". does anything have the power to convince them? are you even willing to try?

pairing: sirius black x reader

warning: wizarding bigotry, teenage angst, smoking

wc: 3.8k

a/n: the first of the many inspired by taytay's ttpd. "but daddy I love him" is so sirius coded, I had to.

You wanted to love your family so badly, you truly did. Throughout your whole life your parents had been giving you whatever you needed and wanted – they had the money and they had the power to make your life as simple as the Accio spell. But no one ever stopped to think what it really meant to belong to one of the most ancient pureblood families in the Wizarding World. Everybody always saw the benefits: the new shiny textbooks, the perfectly ironed uniform, owls bringing you the most delicious snacks and rare books relating to your latest interests every week, your bed frame in the dorm decorated to the brim. You appreciated being that privileged, you never failed to thank your parents for the way they brought you up. However, you were fiercely shielded from any outside troubles that could possibly hinder your education and your innocence, as they put it. Ultimately, fate decided to perform its finest display of ruthless irony on you, and your parents’ endless disquietude became the very thing that led to the demise of your relationship with them.

You never expected your dating life to be of such interest to your family, simply thanks to the fact that it was never a question. You hadn’t had any serious partners before, partly due to your tender age, partly due to your own indifference to finding a suitable match.

But then Sirius Black asked you out, and your whole world had stars aligned in front of you in heart-shaped constellations; and it came down in shambles at the same time.

“Love, you alright?”

His delicately worried voice pulled you out of the misery that your parents’ letter promptly put you in.

“Uh, yeah, I guess,” you answered, shaking your head to temporarily kick the haunting unpleasantries out of your mind. “It’s just… this.”

You showed Sirius a thick envelope with a gold-encrusted seal, your family crest shining proudly and glaringly in the rays of the first summer sun. He barely glanced at the paper and snatched it from you, carelessly throwing it into the fireplace. You watched the flames hungrily devouring the carefully folded letter but leaving the seal perfectly undamaged. It stared at you like a glowing all-seeing orb, burning through your skull and serving as a reminder that everything you had just read was real and imminent.

“The school’s gotta give you props for all this rubbish to keep the fireplaces running.”

You chuckled at Sirius’ vitriol but it hardly lightened the thunderclouds gathering right above your head.

“You know words don’t burn, right?”

“Seems to me like they just did.” Sirius pointed at the seal that finally started to melt, stuck between pieces of firewood and piles of ash.

You let out a heavy breath and turned away from the fireplace to face your boyfriend. He was lying on the couch, head resting on a soft velvety cushion, looking at you with quite a joyful expression on his face. In your mind, it didn’t fit the situation at all, but you had gotten used to his nonchalance about your parents’… dislike of him. Or, better put, their vicious hatred that they never even tried to hide.

“Do you really not care?” you wondered for the umpteenth time, knowing that a no was a sure follow-up to your question.

“Why would I?” Sirius grinned and his hand safely covered yours, resting on the arm of the sofa. “The best part of your fam loves me, and others are a bunch of wankers.”

“I’m the only part of my fam that loves you, babe,” you pointed out, rolling your eyes but giving him a little smile. He smiled back, but stayed silent, noticing that you weren’t finished yet. “I’m already seventeen but I still feel like I’m a wee baby when they talk to me, or send me letters, or even look at me!”

“I know, love, it sucks. But you remember the plan, right?”

You nodded, and the smile on your face had finally turned genuine.

“The one where we come to my graduation dinner together even though my parents explicitly stated many times that there’s not a single universe in which they allow you to step on the property, and if you do, it would be over their dead bodies?”

“Merlin, the way you describe it! Might just be the best prank I’ve ever pulled!”

Sirius burst out laughing and you couldn’t help but follow his lead, his contagious joy making you feel whole again. The two of you came up with this madness of a plan as soon as you heard about your mother talking about a graduation dinner in your honour. They would never allow Sirius to attend, not in a million years; hell, they refused to even look at him when they saw you off at Platform 9 ¾ at the beginning of your last year at Hogwarts. They ignored his existence whenever he came into their sight, like during the holidays, when you got off the train hand in hand with your boyfriend and your parents greeted you, hugged you, kissed you on the forehead, but Sirius was frozen out completely, as if his existence was but a figment of your imagination. He never cared though; he would snicker at their theatrics and kiss you right in front of them, throwing a challenge directly in their stuck-up faces of the Wizarding nobility. Your parents came to know that their never-ending nagging wouldn’t stop you from dating Sirius Black, but they did hold specks of hope that you would grow out of your “immature phase” and give them what they wanted – a perfect little husband from another holier-than-thou household.

Never in a thousand lifetimes would you agree.

The time had come. You had to admit that you were somewhat nervous - never before had you defied your parents’ rules so explicitly and so shamelessly. You Floo’d to the Diagon Alley under the guise of last-minute preparations for the big event. Sirius was waiting for you right there, fully prepared: he was sporting a leather jacket, torn up jeans and a nearly finished cigarette in his mouth. This lad certainly went all out to look as much as a rebellious kid cliché as it was humanly possible, and you absolutely adored it. You couldn’t wait to see the reactions; your whole family was to be present at the dinner, even the most distant relatives, who might not have heard about Sirius at all – your parents hid the fact you were dating him like a dirty secret never to be uncovered.

“Love, you ready?”

Sirius took your hand in his, clearly feeling your accelerated pulse against his own steady heartbeat.

“I was less scared of our Transfiguration N.E.W.T., if I’m honest,” you admitted, hearing your voice tremble ever so slightly. “But then again, McGonagall isn’t a sanctimonious bitch.”

Sirius let out a short laugh, but his eyes were the most earnest when he gave you one last look before turning towards the fireplace, with a handful of Floo powder ready to go.

“Let’s show them, baby. You and I, against the world.”

With his encouraging words swirling in your mind, you let yourself get sucked into the labyrinths of the Floo Network, headstrong into what could turn out as the worst and the best moment of your whole life.

Your clumsy roll out into the main living room of the family manor was a perfect start for a spectacle that was inevitably about to unfold. As soon as you stood up, Sirius flew out right behind you, almost knocking you down to the floor again.

“Daughter? What is going on?!”

Your father’s voice sounded like a church bell above you. At last, you looked up at a crowd of people, all dressed up to bits, staring at you agape, their jaws on a synchronous road to meet the bristly carpet of the living room. The silence was so loud one could hear grains of sand pouring into the bottom half of an ancient hourglass adorning the mantelpiece.

“Mom, Dad,” you started, dusting off your ivory white Sunday best, “and you, Aunt Sarah, and you, Aunt Hannah, and, of course, you, Uncle Marcus! I’m terribly sorry if I’m forgetting some of you, it’s not often that you grace us with your presence!”

Sarcasm was spilling out of your pretentious speech, as you finally had the audacity to say what you had been wanting to express for the past year. Sirius’ presence gave you some much needed courage not to stumble on your words as you tore your heart out of your chest and pinned it shut on your sleeve.

“Merlin, you lot aren’t that suave for a bunch of sirs and madams!”

Speaking of the devil.

Sirius whistled, reaching your side and putting his arm around your bare shoulders. You had picked a dress like that specifically to piss your parents off a little more. They had always told you that any skin visible to the eye below the neck and above the knees was awfully indecent, very unladylike – so you just had to stick it to them.

“Daughter, what is he doing here?!” your mother tried to whisper, but in the deafening silence her voice could be heard as clearly as if she used the Sonorus spell. “Didn’t we tell you…”

“That you’d rather die than accept your dear daughter dating someone you deem undesirable?”

Your mother tried shushing you, giving desperate faux smiles to the guests around.

“What, you didn’t tell anyone?” you continued with a sneer. “Aunts, Uncles, cousins, meet Sirius Black! We’re in love!”

An array of ahs and ohs rang out in the air, and you could see Aunt Hannah clutching her chunky pearl necklace like it was her favourite childhood plushie. Sirius gave the crowd a way overly-exaggerated curtsy.

“Sirius Black, at your service,” he announced, taking out a cigarette out of the pack and popping it between his teeth, ready to light it. Before he had time to do it, the lighter was knocked out of his hands, hitting the wall on the other side of the room with a loud thump. You noticed your father’s moving hand hiding his wand back into the inner pocket of his jacket.

“Don’t you dare smoke inside this house!” the man shouted, wishing to incinerate Sirius right where he stood with his scathing glare.

Sirius barked out a laugh and another lighter appeared in his hand. He didn’t go for a cigarette this time, merely playing with the thing in-between his fingers.

“Rule number one when at a pureblood’s den,” he mockingly drawled the words, turning the lighter on and off, “always have a spare lighter.”

You couldn’t hold in a chuckle when you saw your parents ominously fuming at every syllable escaping your boyfriend’s mouth. Your father sighed so loudly, one would think he was on his death bed.

“Let us take this outside, shall we?” He motioned towards the field serving as the manor’s backyard. You looked at the innocent flowers quivering in the wind and thought that they didn’t deserve whatever mess was about to happen within family bounds on this beautiful summer evening.

“Don’t you think it’s unfair, Dad, to deprive our lovely audience?”

You gave the people around you the fakest brightest smile you could muster. No one returned it.

“Daughter, do not taunt me,” your father warned you. “We can use the dining room, if you so desire, but nothing happens here.”

You glanced at Sirius and caught his nod of approval. The dining room was close enough so that your parents couldn’t possibly hurt Sirius, or even you – you were quite sure they wouldn’t touch you with a tip of a finger, but a bit of discretion didn’t seem too excessive. Plus, and it was the only reason you agreed – you didn’t have to suffocate under the heavy stares of your kin.

The dining room wasn’t too different from the living room, the only obvious distinction being a long hardwood table stretching almost wall to wall. It wasn’t yet set – the meal itself was to start at a later hour. Your mother was the last to enter, struggling to dismiss a choir of what-a-messes from your pathetic aunts with desperate promises to deal with the whole situation as soon as they could. She cast a charm to silence you to the rest of the world and turned, at last, to face you. Your father slipped into one of the dining chairs, but you and Sirius remained standing, given some sense of dominance due to the now apparent height difference.

“I will not dance around the subject, daughter, we are terribly disappointed in you.”

Father’s words didn’t sting as much as you thought, and you almost let out a loud sigh of relief as this realization dawned on you. They almost had a tinge of freedom in them, a bittersweet taste of long-awaited liberty. All expectations burdening your fragile shoulders suddenly vanished and you could straighten your back and run, conquering hill after hill, mountain after mountain. They were disappointed. You had nothing to uphold anymore.

“Oh, I heard this one before.” Behind you Sirius laughed, almost grunting, which made you chuckle as well. “Trust me, babe, it only gets better from here.”

Mother shot a highly disapproving look at Sirius, but stayed silent. You always hated it; “A good wife lets her husband talk,” she once said in response to your childish question, and you never asked again.

“What about, Dad? Does my happiness look disappointing to you?” Your question sounded naive, but you knew you hit the exact spot. Your parents had been telling you since your earliest years that all they wanted for you was happiness. Apparently, they forgot to add “happiness that we approve of and scrupulously choose for you” at the end.

“Your happiness? What happiness, daughter? Him? He’s the happiness?”

Your father spat out each word as if it was poison he had accidentally drunk, as if it was a travesty to mention Sirius Black and happiness in the same sentence.

“You do not know what happiness looks like, daughter. You’re only seventeen. You do not know any better.”  

“And what do you know about happiness, Dad?!”

Your voice cracked as you felt it growing louder. At this point, the conversation couldn’t avoid turning into a full-blown fight, but it was destined to be exactly that from the beginning. You came prepared.

“Is this perfectly sleek suit of yours happiness? Are my Outstanding N.E.W.Ts happiness? Is having your whole life laid out in front of you from the day you were born happiness, Dad?!”

“You do not know what you are talking about!” Father shouted, his fist rapidly meeting the surface of the table. You flinched and Sirius was quick to jump in front of you, his wand squeezed tightly in his hand.

“Sir, just so you know, this wand has been used on authority figures before.” Sirius waved it in front of him, as if it was but another gauntlet thrown into your father’s face. The sarcasm in his “Sir” was flaming hot. “And for all I care, you’re no authority.”

Father took out his own wand from the same inner pocket and pointed it at Sirius.

“Boy, I will not bat an eye if you turn to dust right here and now,” he stated, his nose wrinkled in disgust, but his eyes slowly turning a shade of bloody red. It was your turn to step in between them, shielding your bold but reckless boyfriend from your father’s simmering rage.

“Dad, stop, I love him!”

It wasn’t the first case of you telling your parents that you loved Sirius, but as these words made an escape from you this time, they had almost acquired a new meaning. They felt more real, more pointed and firmer. Your father didn’t think so. He merely sneered at your proud declaration and rolled his exasperated eyes.

“Love, happiness… All this pointless charade just to prove that you are still a petulant child.” Father turned his head to look at his wife, who nodded in unconditional agreement.

“We did not raise you like that, daughter,” she finally spoke, her tone the same as your father’s.

“Your mother is right. You had everything, daughter, everything you did and did not need. And what do you do in return? Mess around with this blood traitor?!” Father spat out the last word with utmost repugnance.

Honestly speaking, the phrase had a way worse effect on you than on Sirius. He had time to grow some thick skin, dealing with bullshit bigotry from blood-purity lunatics for a while, but it was a first for you – hearing such venom from your parent, whom you still hoped to respect and to love.

“If you, sir, are dumb enough to think this was an insult – try the fuck again.”

Mother gasped and shouted “Language!”, but Sirius’ only response came in the form of a sly grin. As soon as he did it, Father jumped up from his seat and pointed his wand at Sirius with such force that it almost slid out of his hand. Sirius mirrored his actions in a relaxed, almost lethargic manner, as if he was calling Father’s bluff.

“STOP. RIGHT. NOW!”

You couldn’t hold it in anymore. With every single passing second, your boundaries were being stomped on by your parents, and even though you had the most pleasure doing it back, you wished for the mess to end. The two men lowered their wands and stared at you simultaneously – Sirius with pride, and Father – with fury.

“Dad, Mom, do you not understand?! You never saw me as a person, just a damn doll to dress up!” You completely ignored your parents’ shock at your straightforward use of a very simple curse word, because it was just a beginning. “You gave me everything, and for what? For me to follow your every fucking order to a T?! For you to bitch and moan about every single decision I make using my pretty damn sound mind?!”

“What has this blood traitor done to you, daughter?” your mother sighed, looking at you with forced sympathy. “You are swearing at your own loving parents who just want to save you…”

“If there’s something to save me from, it’s you!”

You didn’t buy Mother’s crocodile tears that were about to stream down her cheeks. Always the same shit, always her clutching her heart, or her head, or both at the same time. She wasn’t about to coax you again.

“Listen to your mother! You are carrying our noble family name, tracing back centuries. You cannot disgrace it with your outrageous behaviour!”

“Not for long!”

Sirius’ voice was a breath of fresh air in a viscous swamp of your parents’ soliloquies, but for the first time today you didn’t know where he was going. The only thing he gave you was a reassuring smile, which was nice but not helpful at all.

The next minute unraveled in front of you second by second, and you felt each one pass by like the Unforgivables barely missing you and whizzing through the room. Sirius hid his wand and instead took something out of his pocket – you couldn’t discern the thing, but it looked suspiciously similar to a tiny box, – simultaneously getting down on one knee. Three pairs of eyes widened at the same time, but with different emotions concealed in their depths: Father was enveloped with pure wrath and despair; Mother was simply shocked, covering her mouth with a trembling hand; you felt nearly hysterical, your brain vacant from any foreign thoughts except for the man kneeling in front of you with what you could already see was a ring peeking from the wooden box.

“My love,” Sirius began, fully content with every reaction he received so far, “my baby, my little nugget of joy…”

You didn’t want to interrupt him but couldn’t help laughing at the pet name.

“I’d be a bit wordier if it wasn’t, y’know…” His head tilted towards your parents, who still hadn’t evaporated the two of you for some reason. “But I hope to have a lifetime for that. Now, just one question, love.”

You were ready to nod your head away until it would fall off and roll into the corner, but you wanted to hear Sirius say the sacred four words. Most importantly, you wanted your parents to hear them, and maybe pass out at your enthusiastic agreement.

“Will you marry me?”

Your yelled out “YES!” could very likely pierce through whatever silencing charms your mother had put on the dining room. A second later the ring was already on your finger, and you were in your fiancé’s arms, spinning around in endless circles of sheer love and uninterrupted bliss. Your lips quickly found his. Your parents were furious. You didn’t care.

“Daughter?!”

Your father’s voice wasn’t a church bell anymore. It resembled a first-year getting caught up in the Whomping Willow for the first time – abnormally high, breaking and unequivocally frightened.

“Dad?” you mimicked his tone and were pretty damn good at it, if Sirius had a say. “You know what, Dad? If this is the blood running through my veins, I’m more than willing to betray it.”

Mother’s cheeks were wet from tears at last; the flood wasn’t sorrowful, not at all – it was filled with spite. Father clutched his wand, but something stopped him – maybe he was ultimately conscious of the fact that from that moment on he had no power over you. You thanked Merlin for his obsolete mentality that told him wives were their husbands’ properties – well, not yet husband’s in your case, but the premise remained. Oh, the irony! The thing that made him have a measly shred of respect for Sirius was the fact that he was about to marry you – not that he had been your choice of a partner for at least a year.

“Now, if you don’t mind, I’m taking my future Mrs. Black the fuck away from here.”

Sirius was a gentleman. He offered you his arm, chivalrously opened the door for you and proudly displayed your hand with a shiny stone on your ring finger to each and every nosy aunt willing – no, desperate to take a look. You parents had already left the dining room, but shifted along the wall to avoid the ever-inquisitive relatives. You swiftly reached the fireplace and grabbed a handful of powder each. You were so ready to finally leave the manor behind that your whole body moved by itself, without any input from your consciousness.

“And she’s having my baby!” you heard Sirius shouting just before you disappeared into the green fire of the Floo Network.

Both of you rolled out of the fireplace somewhere in the Diagon Alley, one after the other. You could finally let your guard down and burst into genuine, merry laughter; Sirius did the same, standing up and pulling you into his loving embrace.

“Love, you should’ve seen their faces!” he claimed, excitement washing over him and capturing you by association. “Bet they won’t forget us until the day they die.”

You secretly hoped they wouldn’t.

#sirius black x reader #sirius black x fem!reader #sirius black x y/n #sirius black fanfiction #sirius black imagine #the marauders #the marauders era #the marauders imagine #the marauders fanfiction

[that-bwitch]

promise to be dazzling.

#ts

[that-bwitch]

ahhh I’m screaming and kicking my feet in the air, thank you sm!! I’m so happy you caught the references, one thing I like to do when writing songfics is to sneak them in as seamlessly as I can but still keep to the spirit of the song <3

london boy

am I in my lover era? probably, but am I ashamed? no, not really. but just a warning, I won't even try to commit to posting this often. literally just a burst of inspiration (and taylor swift).

london boy by taylor swift as inspiration sirius x muggle!reader warning: prolly nothing, it's just fluff wc: 2,2k

From your very childhood up to your late teens your parents really liked bringing you to London with them from time to time. It was a truly beautiful city to be a tourist in. You’d been there so often that you felt like some sort of an expert. You could recite the history of any major landmark, just point at, say, the Tower, and one could hear a whole lecture from you about the fortress, the prison, the ravens, all the good stuff. You got cocky at times, thinking you could easily become a tour guide. Your friends back in your hometown rolled their eyes every time you even mentioned London, and the level of your excitement grew every single day throughout the month before you finally moved there.

Turned out, London wasn’t so great to live in. At least that’s what you thought on your first day, when you paid thrice the price you expected to pay for the cab taking you from the airport to the hotel. Then, the hunt for a rental began. The hotel started to get expensive day by day and soon enough you really lost your spirits. You didn’t have enough money to pay for a room and a real estate agent, so you resorted to looking through tons and tons of newspapers, hoping that an advertisement of a one-bedroom would at some point catch your eye. It wasn’t working as well as you expected, so one gloomy rainy afternoon you found yourself just walking through a random neighbourhood looking at houses and thinking that cooking some hot soup on your own stove sounded really nice at the moment. You realized that your exterior was pretty miserable for someone who couldn’t hold in an excited shriek right after buying a ticket to London last month. As if to confirm your assumptions, a sudden laughter disrupted the cacophony of raindrops hitting the ground and wind howling between the branches of nearby trees.

Oh, god.

“You aren’t from ‘round here, right?”

A motorcycle rolled from behind you along the roadway. You continued on your way, thinking it was just some creep who noticed your vulnerable state and decided to, well, be a creep.

“Hey, hey, ma’am, you don’t have an umbrella and I do. Pretty sure I win.”

“Ma’am? Really?”

You stopped at last to see who had the audacity to just ride up to you like you were their longtime friend.

“Bet that’s what you think us Brits talk like, foreign girl.”

The rider took off his helmet and you saw what was probably the best sight you had a pleasure to witness in the entirety of London. The young man was truly divine: his dark hair barely reached his shoulders and was a bit messy from the helmet; he had a stubble that was too short to be called a beard yet, but it was getting there; when he smiled, you could see small dimples forming on his cheeks. You felt stupid staring at him like that but couldn’t help it at all. With his stunning looks, the obvious accent you immediately took notice of sounded even more charming.

“Alright, not a talker, I see.”

The man stood up from his vehicle, pulled out a kickstand so that it wouldn’t just roll down the street and walked up to you, pulling up the collar of his leather jacket to shield his face from the rain.

“You said you had an umbrella.”

Kind of stupid of you to say, but you couldn’t really make up anything else that wouldn’t give out your infatuation.

“Just like that, huh? Could at least ask my name, you know.”

He didn’t wait for your response, holding his hand out to you.

“Sirius.”

You shook his hand, although yours was already pretty numb from the cold, and introduced yourself as well. You had to say something at that point because you started to look weirder and weirder by the second.

“That’s… an interesting name.”

Oh, come on. This is all you have?

“Bit rude, darling. What did you think it was?”

“Like… Matthew?”

The man laughed, just like you heard him laughing minutes ago. He wasn’t taunting you, no, on the contrary – he was rather amused by your mild naivety.

“Oh shit, do I look like a Matthew? I’m gutted, I have to say.”

You couldn’t help chuckling at his words. The rain didn’t feel so bad anymore, now that you had someone to share it with.

“Hop on. I have to get you to a pub, or else you’ll turn into a bloody icicle.”

He helped you get on his bike and soon you were riding straight through the streets of London with your hands wrapped around Sirius’ body. You felt it was a wee bit inappropriate for someone you met, like, five minutes ago, but you couldn’t say you didn’t like it. What is more, you expected raindrops to become some small annoying mosquitoes who would relentlessly bite your face during the ride but surprisingly, it didn’t happen. It almost felt like you actually had an invisible umbrella above you, because you glanced at a sleeve of your coat and it had become much drier than it was before.

The pub Sirius took you to looked like one of those places you saw on TV when the setting was supposed to be the UK. Lots of wooden furniture around, lightbulbs hanging from the ceiling and emitting warm and rather dim light. In the corner you saw an old record player with a small TV on top of it. You saw it as a symbol of modernity overtaking the old school, which epitomized London itself, but decided not to voice your thoughts in order not to appear as a nerd.

“Fancy a beer?” Sirius asked, leading you to a large counter.

In your mind you would much prefer some tea to warm yourself up, but the stranger was already too kind for you to make any extra demands of him. So, you just nodded and let him have free reign over the type of beer for you.

“We come here with my mates sometimes,” Sirius explained, having made an order while you made yourself comfortable on a bar stool.

“That’s nice.” You felt a bit awkward and out of place, but Sirius didn’t seem like the shady type, so you felt more comfortable with him than you would have likely felt with anyone else. “Do you watch rugby here?” You gestured towards the TV.

 “I mean, if it’s on…” Sirius tried but failed to hide a chuckle. “That’s what the rest of the world thinks of us English lads, huh? That we hang at pubs and watch rugby all day?”

“To be fair, you took me to a pub.” You felt slightly embarrassed but attempted not to show it.

“That much’s true.”

You took a small sip out of a glass mug of beer placed in front of you. It wasn’t that bad, to be honest – a bit too bitter for your personal taste, but you could see yourself finishing the whole thing.

“Is this a British thing, beer in the afternoon?” you asked, looking at a huge grandfather clock behind the bar and remembering that it was, in fact, only midday.

“I guess, but I’ve always thought of it as a me thing.”

You held your mug in front of your face so that Sirius wouldn’t notice a huge smile forming on your face. You found everything about him irresistibly attractive – his voice, his mannerisms, his whole presence was alluring in a very authentic kind of way. It was obvious that in front of you he wasn’t pretending, he was just being himself.

“How did you know I wasn’t from here?” You finally had the courage to ask the question that had been pestering you for a while.

“Oh, it’s obvious,” Sirius replied, taking a swig of his beer. “You can always tell, it’s just how us Londoners are wired.”

You couldn’t really retort.

“Are you on holiday, or…?” Sirius went silent, letting you fill in the gap.

“I moved here a week ago,” you explained, feeling a very annoyed expression taking over your face. “Been trying to find an apartment but no luck so far.”

Sirius frowned a bit, thinking about something.

“I reckon I could help you, darling,” he finally told you with a playful smirk on his face. “I’d have to ask you for something in return though.”

“Oh, sure, I’ll pay!”

And you were ready to, because you had heard from someone that word of mouth was actually the best way to find an apartment on a budget these days. It’s just that you didn’t have this mouth before.

Sirius just grinned in response.

“Hey, that’s on me.”

He stopped your hand as it was reaching into your purse to take out your wallet and pay for your beer.

“Really?”

“Well, I dragged you here, so it’s only fair.”

Afterwards you stepped out of the pub to see daylight again. Fortunately, you discovered that it stopped raining and the sky was of a much lighter gray than before. Sirius caught up to you and stretched out his arm, wrapping it around your shoulder. You didn’t mind at all but were still quite stunned because, well, a teenager in you woke up and started internally screaming from this handsome stranger’s closeness.

“A nice weather we have here, darling. Which is super convenient as I don’t prefer driving drunk.”

Sirius looked like someone who would gladly drive drunk, you thought, but instead simply asked about the bike.

“A friend will take it,” he gave you a rather nonchalant reply, already headed somewhere to your left, with your hand now in his. “Come on, London doesn’t wait.”

“What if I have plans?” you tried to retort but your feet still carried you after Sirius and you weren’t going to stop them.

“Really? You just moved here, can’t find an apartment and you have plans? Don’t believe it.” Sirius didn’t leave any room for objections as he was absolutely right. “Come o-o-on, darling, I know you want it.”

And for god’s sake, you did.

—

“So… Is this the part of the day when we say goodbye?”

All of a sudden you felt a wave of sadness coming over you. This day turned out to be truly magical and the last thing you wished for was for it to end. Sirius showed you everything, and you meant everything. He had his ways around the city that you would never even think to take, but they worked wonders, almost like some kind of portals transporting you from one place to another (but of course, it was just Sirius). Soon you could take pride in having explored pretty much all the central boroughs from inside and out. You, once again, had a very tourist-y experience of eating fish and chips in Hyde Park, and Sirius showed you an amazing little Chinese place where you promptly had dinner. You couldn’t have been thankful enough when he told you he would take it upon himself to look for an apartment – sorry, a flat – for you, but when you tried to give him some cash, he adamantly refused, so you were left wondering what he meant when he said he would ask for something in return. But most of all, you couldn’t really understand why he would do anything for you at all.

“I guess it is…” you mumbled, wishing with your whole heart you were wrong. But it was late, the sun hid behind the horizon hours ago and your eyes became increasingly more and more itchy.

“Well, we’re meeting tomorrow, so… Not so bad, huh?”

Sirius didn’t seem tired in the slightest, so you decided to just fire away and ask the question that had been swirling in your mind for the whole day.

“Why are you doing all this?”

“What do you mean?” Sirius raised his eyebrow and, judging by the look on his face, thought you were making a joke.

“I mean, you saw me on the street and just… took me under your wing, I guess. I wouldn’t have all this experience without you, London boy. And this apartment thing… It’s too generous. You don’t have to.”

“I know I don’t have to.” Sirius had the widest smile on his face. It was captivating and you didn’t even notice how you started smiling yourself. “But I want to, that’s it, darling. I really, really want to.”

His hands kept yours warm while he spoke. You had a sudden urge to do something you might or might not have regretted in the future. You stepped closer to Sirius, getting up on your toes and pecking his cheek ever so slightly, as if you were afraid to scare him away. Then you leaned away, staring at his face with worry in your eyes. Sirius slowly ran his fingers along his skin, where your lips just were, like he couldn’t believe what happened. Then, much to your surprise, he got closer and before you could realize it, your lips met his. They were a bit chapped, but the pleasure they brought you couldn’t have possibly belonged on planet Earth.

“I fancy you, foreign girl.”

Sirius pulled back and looked deep into your eyes. His gaze was so tender that you understood that from now on, London wouldn’t be such a bad place to live.

#rb feedback

[that-bwitch]

I took my last exam ever yesterday and now everything that’s left is defending my thesis in June, and I’ll be finished with uni. can’t believe time flew by so fast, but also happy I won’t have to study anymore. can be cool but also rather draining.

#personal

[that-bwitch]

t.s - the prophecy 🌙🖤

#ts

[that-bwitch]

"Can't wait to see where you take this story" well I can't wait to see where this story takes me either

#real

[that-bwitch]

my boy only breaks his favourite toys - taylor swift

#ts

[that-bwitch]

pov: you’re harry being born to a bunch of 21 year olds

their thoughts and doodles below the cut <3

#hp

[that-bwitch]

Viggo Mortensen as Aragorn The Lord of the Rings: Two Towers 2002, dir. Peter Jackson

#lotr

[that-bwitch]

for a fortnight, there we were 🤍

#ts

[that-bwitch]

so high school - taylor swift

#ts #this song will be the death of me #this is poetry right here

[that-bwitch]

I just woke up and I’m still blissfully unaware of a masterpiece that is ttpd. about to put it on in like a minute. I want to remember myself this way.

#taylor swift #ttpd #I feel like my life is about to change drastically

[that-bwitch]

(five) stages of grief (love)

stage one: denial

so, this is going to be a series with five parts, obviously. heavily inspired by the band voilà and some of their songs. each song has an assigned part and will be revealed at the beginning. you don't have to, but I'd strongly recommend checking them out, as they're not only good songs, but will also elevate your reading experience.

also, since it's a series, I will be doing a taglist, so if you'd like to be added, let me know <3

falling asleep at the wheel by voilà sirius black x reader warning: toxic relationship, gaslighting, emotional abuse, swearing, drinking, mentions of underage drinking. read at your own risk. wc: 3.2k

The two of you were just a couple of young kids suddenly thrust into adulthood.

During the last few months at Hogwarts the thoughts about the future couldn’t escape your mind. It felt strange in a sense, because you remembered planning out your life after school down to the smallest details. You had your mind set on becoming a healer for a long, long while. You studied pretty much every single day, dusk till dawn, dawn till dusk – you had to ace the N.E.W.Ts or else your childhood dream would be crushed by the ruthless claws of the education system. Sirius never got that. He sounded rather nonchalant every time you tried to have a talk about the future, even when it came to the future of you as a couple. He didn’t have any plans, at least as far as you were aware. He brushed off your worries like they were specks of dust on one of his immaculate white shirts (two buttons at the top always undone, three – on special occasions). At some point, you had to give up trying to hammer at least some sense of responsibility into his head (not literally, but sometimes you really wanted to). But you stupidly didn’t, so you had to deal with an actual toddler of a boyfriend on top of your daily stress of the ever-accumulating homework and extra credit tasks you never failed to take.

Sirius was annoyed by your never-ending passion to study as much and as often as you could. He always joked about the fact that he had never spent this much time in the library as he started to when you got together. That much was true: in order to catch mere minutes with you he had to visit the quietest place in Hogwarts rather often – way more often than he would prefer. He wasn’t really joking when he said it though, and you started to catch irritated glances from him from time to time as your relationship progressed. At first, he used to compliment your longing for knowledge, he used to say you looked cute cuddled up with a book on a couch in the common room; as time went by, the number and the poetic value of his compliments had majorly decreased.

Sirius couldn’t help thinking that he didn’t sign up for this, but he didn’t have enough nerve to voice these thoughts. Still, you started having more and more fights. In your mind, you shouldn’t have had any during the so-called “honeymoon phase” of your relationship, but you chucked it all up to simple teenage drama. You thought it was brilliantly self-aware of you, but obviously it didn’t seem like it to Sirius. He hated the fact that he had to scramble for crumbs of your attention and lost the battle against your textbooks more than half the time. He wasn’t used to being sidelined, more so when his opponent was an ancient Herbology volume that looked like it was about to disintegrate in your hands as soon as you breathed on it.

You still had love for each other. It wasn’t puppy love, oh no – your eyes would shoot daggers at anyone who even dared to suggest it. Sirius was also of an incredibly high opinion of that thing between the two of you, calling you “star-crossed lovers” and “the modern version of Romeo and Juliet”. He started using the latter as soon as you made him acquainted with this terribly upsetting love story written by a muggle literary genius, and wouldn’t let it go even after learning that these kids did, in fact, die. He always assured you that you wouldn’t end up like them, that even death couldn’t do you part, and you just knew he was right. You just knew.

“So, what’s next?”

You were standing on the platform, waiting for Hogwarts Express to pick you up and take you away into the likely gray and rainy but still welcoming embrace of London. Your eyes were still glistening in the sun from all the tears you shed during the graduation ceremony. You kept sobbing as you left the school grounds on the same boats that took you there when you were just a small child with a dream. To be honest, you still felt like a child with a dream; suddenly, you weren’t fully ready to take the next step that could take your life in various directions even you, a goody-two-shoes with spreadsheets tracking her exam scores, didn’t have the ability to predict.

“I don’t know, baby. We’ll figure it out.”

Sirius was as laconic as he usually was when it came to these kinds of talks. His hands were wrapped around your waist, bringing you some sense of comfort in front of this huge uncharted wasteland that was the future. You looked up at him, exploring every single feature of his carefree face, completely unbothered by any mighty thinking. You wanted to remember him like that.

“Oh, the lovebirds are at it again, look at them!” James yelled, running up to you hand in hand with Lily. You let out a little laugh, because he seemed to be blissfully unaware of him being a member of the “lovebirds club” as well.

“You ready?” he asked, hugging Lily from behind as they stopped next to you.

“Born ready.”

It was such a Sirius line. You remembered getting annoyed at how he inevitably used it every time you questioned his lack of concern about tomorrow. He was born ready to face anything – McGonagall’s justified wrath when he failed (or, more precisely, didn’t even start) to complete the simplest Transfiguration homework known to man; raging Slytherins after a particularly nasty Quidditch loss; a hangover after getting wasted on very illegal firewhiskey that the guys managed to get at the Hog’s Head and sneak into school. You weren’t born ready, so you felt his words were rather offensive towards your anxious state.

“Where’s Moony? He’s always wandering somewhere; I’m shocked he hadn’t missed a train once!”

Just as Sirius’ words escaped his mouth, someone’s hand landed on his shoulder. Remus was all smiles, running his other hand through his hair to move some stray strands from his face.

“Here, Pads, don’t you worry. Wonder where this little rat is, though. Peter!!!” Remus screamed at the top of his lungs to cover as much ground as possible.

“Coming!” Peter approached your group, slightly out of breath.

You felt like you were in a dream – you know, one of those you wake up from and have to take an extra minute to yourself to come back to Earth; you can’t believe it didn’t happen in real life. That moment at the platform awoke the same exact emotions in you. You had all your friends around you, you should have been over the moon and looking forward to what life had to offer – and somewhere deep inside your mind and soul you were. But you felt your stomach turn all the same, looking back at the glorious castle that towered over the crowd of new graduates even in the distance. For the first time in years, you knew for sure that you wouldn’t be returning there on the 1st of September. But it would be the last time you would cram yourself into the carriage with your closest ones, the last time you would laugh your asses off for the whole Express to hear, the last time you would say your goodbyes on the Platform 9 ¾ and not know when would be the next time you see each other.

“Hey, baby?” Sirius gently nudged your shoulder, drawing your wandering attention. “You seem lost.”

“Can’t believe we’re leaving, is all.”

Your voice was hoarse and quiet, like it didn’t belong to you at all. Sirius pressed his lips against your temple, leaving a trace of lingering warmth. At the moment, he made sure you knew that you were his world and he was yours. The voices of your friends around you were muffled by the soft and fresh cotton blanket of his love.

“We’ll be fine, baby. I promise, we’ll be fine.”

And you wanted to believe him.

The couch in your tiny rented flat was all beaten up and shabby, but as long as it was Sirius whose breath your felt on your skin while you lay on it, it didn’t matter. The whole flat had most definitely seen better days, but it was your home, your first home together, so it already had sentimental value assigned to it. Were you too young at this tender age to live together? Too young to shoulder the responsibilities that the very unforgiving Big World had yet to put on your shoulders? Your parents would enthusiastically agree, but you and Sirius would just roll your eyes in sync and you would add that you weren’t their little baby girl anymore. Then you would soften, because you loved your parents a lot, even when they were insufferable! – and assure them that they could calm down, that you had everything figured out, that you would send them owls at least every three days and visit at least once every two weeks. Your mom would laugh and say that promises were nice, but if you were to succeed in becoming a Healer like you wanted, you would never have time for all that. And you would leave, realizing with stifling regret that she was right.

“Baby, I’m sorry, I have to go,” you whispered into Sirius’ ear. He seemed to have fallen asleep, but as soon as you moved your body to lift yourself up from the couch, his eyes snapped open and he strengthened the hold he had on you. You sighed and pushed yourself against his chest, trying to unglue his tightly locked arms.

“No, Sirius, really, let me go.”

“Why would I?” he wondered, determined, of course, not to let you leave him on the couch all alone. “You’re warm, you’re soft, tonight I slept for two hours… See?”

You closed your eyes for a brief moment, clearing your head without any pressure that Sirius liked inflicting on you with his puppy eyes. Lately you had to deal with them and his pleading far too often. It had only been two weeks since you moved in together, but tension hadn’t left the air since day one, when you couldn’t agree on the chore chart you suggested – as in, Sirius didn’t want to have one at all. He thought it was perfectly fine to leave dirty dishes in the sink, to leave dust to accumulate in layers on every surface imaginable – he was a wizard, after all! He could do it whenever, so why would he spend his precious time that you can’t get back on some measly chores? His attitude drove you insane, but each time you had a fight about it, you had to let it go until another little thing would make you lose your temper. He just. Wasn’t. Cooperating. In anything.

“Sirius, love, my apprenticeship. Why do you always forget?”

“Oh yeah. Sure. Your apprenticeship.”

Sirius loosened his grip and you were able to slip away to finally start getting dressed. His bitter verbal quotation marks were a given whenever he mentioned your new job. As soon as you heard the tone of his voice, you slapped your palms against your face so hard that you could hear the sound faintly ringing in the air, and let out a whistling breath into the gaps between your fingers.

“Again?”

“What? I just said “sure”, is that not allowed anymore?”

Sirius was getting angry. You could tell by way his chest heaved harder than usual and his hands, albeit still resting on his stomach, were clenched together, knuckles so white they could blind the sun itself.

“You know what you said, Sirius. I’m not stupid.”

You didn’t have time to deal with all this nonsense, you would hate to be late to St Mungo’s again. Besides, throughout the whole fortnight you had been living together so far, you started to grow increasingly more anxious and irater whenever you had to mention your newfound venture even in a brief recollection of you day. Sirius would never leave it be, he would always, always do something or say something that hurt you. He didn’t do it maliciously, he told you anytime you took notice of that, he was just reacting, you knew how he felt about you always being away, and blah-blah-blah, and so on… You believed him, you tried really hard to believe him and spent hours on hours on hours persuading yourself that he didn’t mean it, that he loved you and was happy for you.

“Whatever. You can leave. It’s not like I’m locking the door.”

He knew you hated it. He knew how much you despised getting out of the house with a fight between the two of you still looming like the sword of Damocles above your head during the day. He also knew that you would likely forget about the whole deal by the end of it, or at least would try smoothing things over. You hated fighting. But this time he was mistaken – rage you had accrued by that point was burning you up from the inside and you were tired of the endless piles of shit he kept throwing your way.

“You know what, Sirius? You’re a real fucking asshole!”

That was a pretty pathetic insult, you thought, but turned out, it was just enough to get Sirius all riled up. He jumped up from the couch and in seconds he was standing right in front of you, spitting words straight into your face.

“A real fucking asshole?! Come on, baby, who taught you to swear? A fucking child?”

“Yes, it was you, so yes, a fucking child!”

Sirius stepped back, raising his eyebrows sarcastically and bursting out laughing. He was hysterical, by the sounds of it.

“I’m a child? I am a child?! And who are you then, my poor, poor soul? Because throwing me crumbs when your fucking hospital gets the whole three-course meal is real mature!”

And there he was again, shitting all over you like it was small talk.

“Could you ever respect my job?! Is this too much that I’m asking?!”

Your arms hurt from waving them around so much. You wished you could stay calm, as always, you wished you had just left, then came back at the end of the day and everything was alright. But deep down you knew this whole delusional bubble would burst at some point. Sooner was better than later.

“Come on, what job? What job?! 2 galleons a day is a-fucking-lot, isn’t it, love?”

A wave of pure shock nearly knocked you down. Your nose started tingling, signaling the imminent arrival of those pesky motherfuckers called tears. Sirius never talked about money to you, on the contrary, it was always your initiative to go over your budget for the week. He never agreed, because he felt it was too burdensome, and now he was throwing it straight back into your desperate face.

“At least I don’t sit on my ass all day! Your part-time at Fortescue’s is so much better, right?! Why don’t you try the Hog’s Head next?”

You knew you struck a nerve. You couldn’t even deny doing it deliberately, just to show him that it hurt. Sirius never explained his choice of career to you, but he seemed happy enough, so you never let it bother you. But his unwillingness to actually properly discuss it made you think he wasn’t that satisfied. You saw it on his face right after you blurted out your little speech.

“Oh yeah, I do sit on my ass all day, and you know what? Even I earn more than you!”

Sirius wasn’t that easy to break, you knew it, but you hoped that you could maybe just this one time… And you also knew that you brought this storm upon yourself, because when Sirius was angry, he could say anything, literally anything without a care in the world, something he would probably regret later. You could never guess if he actually did, but your heart was desperate to believe so. It didn’t happen often, but whenever it did, it stung like a thousand wasps landed on you at the same time and plunged their stingers deep inside your skin at the same exact spot.

“So, it is about the money?”

You weren’t shouting anymore. Any leftover strength fled your body, so you had to sit back down on the couch, staring at Sirius as he was going blurry in front of you, as if he was already drowning in the upcoming stream of your tears.

“No? If that’s what you’re getting… well, good fucking luck.”

Sirius threw his hands up, as if he was giving up. He leaned on the wall and crossed his arms on his still heavily heaving chest, looking somewhere through the leaking ceiling.

“What is it then?” you asked, almost in a whisper, because you truly did not have it in you to even raise your voice, let alone have a screaming match.

“Really? I fucking love you, that’s what!”

Sirius did have it in him. He tried really hard to ignore your fallen spirit; he felt the need to dump the entirety of his emotional outburst on you, because when else would he do it? Things were already perfectly awful, so nothing had the capacity to make the situation worse.

You wished you had some magical noise-cancelling earmuffs that would drown out his voice. After everything he said (and had been saying before) he had the audacity to tell you that he loved you? Indeed, he did. It was no surprise, unfortunately. All your fights ended up like that – he told you that he loved you, that he was just afraid of losing you, that you were his everything; he begged you to say that you loved him too. He needed to hear it, he cried. And you would always crumble right there with him. You forgave him every. Single. Time. And then he went back to his usual careless self.

“I want to be with you in every possible way, do you understand that? Emotionally, spiritually, or whatever the fuck you call it, and physically.” Sirius took your silence as a go-ahead for him to continue, his voice still raised. “And right now, I can’t have that. And I don’t like it at all, I hate it with a burning passion. Why can’t you see it?” he finished much softer.

You finally let a violent shower of tears leave your eyes. You couldn’t stand crying in front of Sirius – it was a sign he won. But he never let it show. He could finally play the part he knew and loved the most: a wonderful apologetic boyfriend who pulled you into his arms, cradled you like a baby and gave your head thousands of little kisses while you wept into his shoulder. He apologized over and over and you felt guilty for making him do it. Ultimately, he was right. Maybe you were selfish, maybe you didn’t have your priorities straight, maybe you wronged him each and every time you took an extra shift at St Mungo’s to prove yourself as a reliable Trainee Healer. Maybe he did love you more than life itself. Maybe he was your fate, your forever and ever, and you were his.

“We’ll be fine, baby. I promise, we’ll be fine.”

You had already heard these words before. You believed them.

#sirius black x reader #sirius black x fem!reader #sirius black x y/n #sirius black fanfiction #sirius black imagine #sirius black series #the marauders #the marauders era #the marauders fanfiction