Infinity (in seven mistakes and one more) by ficexchange

Merry Christmas, Sharon (Merle)!

Infinity (in seven mistakes and one more)

The North Star. The Dog Star. The brightest star. Sirius.

The first mistake was the universe, birthing me into the wrong family, the wrong House, the wrong Noble and Most Ancient world. The first mistake was naming me Sirius, the brightest star and the most independent. The first mistake was the universe.

The second mistake was that night, that first night, when I crept into Regulus’ bedroom and plucked him, still sleeping, from his cradle. I held him under the arms. He was awkward, heavier than he looked, and he squirmed in his sleep, his tiny mouth opening and his fists clenching. His arms reached out towards me, as if grasping for something.

He’s beautiful, she’d said earlier in the day. Beautiful.

Far prettier than Sirius, my father had said, and she’d giggled and hit his arm and told him not to say such things.

(The second-and-a-half mistake was not telling them that I could hear them. The second-and-three-quarters mistake was waiting another twelve years to leave.)

I placed a hand around his neck and began to squeeze, at first gently, and he shrugged his shoulders up as if I were tickling him. And then harder. And harder. Until my fingers met at the back of his neck. Until I could feel him squirming, more and more, until his tiny eyes opened and they were grey, grey like storm clouds…

…grey like mine.

And I uncurled my fingers and placed him back in the crib. That was the second mistake.

The third mistake was letting Peter Pettigrew sit in our carriage; the fourth was letting him stay. (And the thousand other mistakes were pushing him away because really, whatever I want to think, wanted to think, it was my fault that he wasn’t there, and his fault that everything ended, everyone died.)

(And the thousand other mistakes were pretending I didn’t see what was happening.)

The fifth mistake was telling Severus Snape what I told him.

The sixth mistake was throwing away Regulus’ last owl without opening it.

The seventh mistake was telling James and Lily that I’d love to be Harry’s godfather. I hadn’t held a baby since my brother was born. Harry was such a different quantity. Clear green eyes and that godawful messy black hair. I remember Prongs trying to teach him how to muss it up, like he did, when the child was only two weeks old.

Harry was like Regulus is no way at all. His eyes were wide and staring, he seemed to want to see everything at once, drink in the world around him. When I told Lily that she snarled and remarked that a world at war is no world for a child to be watching. Hormones, I grinned to James, who merely shook his head and went to lie down.

But I held onto him, that tiny child with eyes so green. And in him I saw infinity.

An infinity I wasn’t there for. That was the seventh mistake.

The last mistake was human stupidity, my own stupidity, telling myself that I was doing the right thing by betraying my friend. The last mistake was convincing myself that because my eyes were open, I knew what I was doing. The last mistake was looking, with wide-open eyes, in all the wrong places.

The first mistake was the universe. The last mistake was human stupidity.

All the other mistakes were infinity.

The North Star. The Dog Star. The brightest star. Sirius.

The universe, humanity, infinity, and all of the stars.