Chapter 32 – A Garden That No Longer Blooms
The room was silent—still holding the tension of the intrusion, though Sirius had not yet noticed them.
He stood near a half-finished canvas, brush in hand, back slightly turned, sleeves rolled up to his forearms. In the dim glow of the enchanted lanterns scattered across the room, the wet paint shimmered faintly. He was adding the smallest touches to her hair—those soft silver strands that curled near her jaw. His strokes were slow. Careful. Reverent.
Then he spoke.
Not to himself. Not to the room.
But to her.
To the painting.
His voice, so often cold and precise in public, now carried something else entirely. Something warm. Human.
"You remember that day," he said softly, his tone dipped in affection, "in the old garden... the one where the blue lilies grew wild?"
His hand hovered over the canvas for a moment as if waiting for her answer. Then he smiled—just a little. Just enough to make the pain in his eyes even more visible.
"You kissed me that day. Right beneath the willow tree. I remember how the wind moved... like it didn't want to disturb us."
He stepped back, his eyes drinking in the painting with quiet hunger. "You were laughing... teasing me, saying I looked better angry than shy. You always said the cruelest things so sweetly."
A pause.
"I hated how much I loved you for it."
He reached out, fingertips grazing the edge of her painted cheek—never touching the center, never daring to mar her with his skin.
"I wonder if you still remember. Or if time has erased me already." He let out a breath. "You were always the stronger one."
His voice dropped lower, laced with a softness that made the silence around him ache.
"They say I don't feel. That I have no heart. That I'm too cold to love. And they're right... I am cold. To them. To everything."
He tilted his head, as if listening to something only he could hear.
"But not to you. Never to you."
His hand dropped to his side.
For a moment, the weight of everything—power, loneliness, centuries of loss—pressed against his shoulders. But when he looked at her again, that weight disappeared, drawn into the gravity of her memory.
The painting didn't speak back.
But Sirius didn't need it to.