Thicker than Water (Marauders Era) PART II

18 June, 1996 - Veil

*

There was silence. Nothing else. There was empty and hollow and silence. And that veil, fluttering as though in a phantom breeze. Mocking her with its innocence.

For a moment, Lavinia could have sworn that the world simply suspended itself. Time stopped. The world stopped. She stopped. She wasn't breathing. She wasn't thinking. She didn't exist.

And in those first few moments of silence, in those infinitesimal beats before Lavinia's brain had the chance to start denying, she understood what had just happened. She understood what this meant with an awful sort of clarity. She understood that it was over. Everything was somehow... over. But then her head caught up to her heart and she refused. She refused to believe this. She refused to accept this. She simply... refused. It was not true. It could not be true.

But even in her denial, even as her head went to war with her heart, all she could see, all she could focus on, all there was in that moment, was that veil that had just swallowed him whole. That veil that was somehow a door to... to where? To what? Because Sirius hadn't fallen through to the other side. And he wasn't coming back out from where he'd fallen even as the moments ticked by and she waited. For the second time in her life, she just stood there and waited. Waited for him to come back. Waited for a miracle that wasn't going to happen because...

Well she didn't actually know the because part. She didn't know what the hell was happening. Or maybe she just didn't want to know, but either way, Lavinia couldn't - wouldn't - believe the first explanation that had jumped to her head. It simply couldn't be true. It wasn't true. If it were, other people would have been reacting. The other Order members would have been crying. Grieving. Feeling. But they weren't. There was just... silence.

And yet, as soon as Lavinia thought that, she realized that it wasn't quite true. Because the silence... that was just in her head. In the real world, there was noise. There were flashing lights and sounds and it was like the thought triggered something, opened some gate in her head, some door that had been locked. Reality returned, trickling back in with painful slowness. And Lavinia became aware of someone laughing.

Laughing? Then she must be wrong. No one would be laughing if he was -

But he wasn't. And someone was laughing. Because they had won, she reminded herself. They had won and someone was laughing. That was all. That was all. Even if some small part of her whispered that she knew that laugh. And it never meant anything good.

And right now... well right now that laugh didn't seem good either. Because as her senses came back to her, dragging her back to the real world as though from the bottom of a near endless well, more noises came to her. And though there was laughter ringing in the hall, there was also screaming. And Lavinia might have thought it was herself but there was no air in her lungs. No breath in her throat and no thoughts in her head. But if it wasn't her...

Lavinia's eyes drifted from the veil slowly, searching for the source of those screams that made her chest tear. Screams that spoke of an awful, awful pain. And grief.

No.

Not grief.

Because there was no reason to grieve. They had won. And that stupid, ridiculous explanation that had popped into her head was mere paranoia. Nothing more. She had been too stressed lately anyway. She was jumping to conclusions. Thinking of ridiculous things and Sirius would laugh at her for it later when she told him. When they went home. She would tell him over dinner and he would chuckle and tease her and give her that grin that made her core go all warm and giddy. And then he would go soft and remind her that he understood. That he knew these were tough times but they would make it through. That they were in this together and always would be. And he would kiss her soft and gentle and for that brief moment when their lips met Lavinia would believe him. She would believe that they could win. That things would be okay. That they could make it through. Together.