The night at 12 Grimmauld Place, the Black ancestral home, was suffocatingly quiet.

Sirius Black stood leaning against the bedroom doorframe, staring into the room for a long time.

There was someone on the bed. Sleeping peacefully, as if nothing had ever happened.

He muttered under his breath. His voice was raspy, almost inaudible.

It had been twelve years.

The world had changed, people had died, and he had rotted away in prison. Yet this person, and this house, seemed frozen in time since that day.

Sirius took a step inside, then stopped. He couldn't tell if he should approach or stay right where he was.

It wasn't resentment. It was the opposite.

Why were they still here? Why did it look like they had been waiting for him—

That was what he couldn't bear.

He reached out his hand, but ultimately lowered it without making contact.