SHE'S ALL THAT ➭ SIRIUS BLACK ❨2❩ ✔︎

ACT FOUR, SCENE FOUR

DREAMS/NIGHTMARES

When Sage's eyes opened, she found herself staring up at the vaulted ceiling of her living room, and there was a firm pressure on her legs, like someone was using her as a pillow.

She craned her neck down to see who it was, and a blonde teenage girl with bright blue eyes was staring back up at her.

The girl, while she looked familiar in an aching way, was not someone that Sage knew.

"Why're you looking at me like that, Aunt Sage?" The girl said, and her voice lilted through a British accent with a slight twinge of a southern cadence. "Seriously, Aunt Sage, are you alright? You look pale."

The familiarity of both the accent and the girl's appearance hit Sage like a truck, and she realized that she was looking at an older, more grown-up version of Madeleine.

Sage shook off the shock and nodded her head. "Yeah, fine. Where's your mum?"

If anyone knew what was happening, it would be Anna-Lee.

Madeleine's face puckered, as if she'd drank a shot of lemon juice. "That's not funny. Like, majorly not funny." She pulled back and moved to sit on the other end of the couch, clearly hurt. "Is that supposed to be a joke?"

"I—I'm sorry. I'm just a bit confused. I feel like the last time I saw you, you were, I dunno, two and a half." Sage said.

The blonde's eyebrows furrowed, and she gazed at her aunt for several moments, most likely trying to decipher if this was just some sick joke or if Sage was serious.

With a sigh, she replied, "I'm seventeen, you're thirty six. With me so far? My mum died when I was twelve—Voldemort killed her when he came back—and my dad died from a work accident when I was fifteen. You're my legal guardian. Have been for two years."

The dream warped, colors going grey, and Sage's vision blurred.

Eventually, it cleared, and she found herself in a cavernous room made of dark rock; a stone arch resided at the far side of the room, the dead space within it distorted by a ghostly haze.

In front of the arch was Sirius, laughing like she'd just said the funniest thing.

And then suddenly, he was gone, disappearing behind the white vapor in the arch.

She heard screaming, dull and far away, and she felt a pair of arms encircle her and hold her tightly to the body they belonged to.

Only when she heard herself shouting did she realize that she was the one screaming, wailing as if her heart had been ripped straight out of her chest.

To her, though, it felt like it had been.

"Let me go!" She heard herself howl, and she was taken aback by how utterly broken she sounded. "Regulus, let me go! I need to—"

Her voice was cut off by a beam of green magic that hit her torso, deadly green lightning that stopped both her screaming and her heart.

She was now looking down at herself, watching as Remus held Harry—who she hadn't even seen—back while Regulus slowly lowered her body to the ground.

No noise reached her ears.

Whatever grief-stricken cries were ripping out of her godson's mouth were silent, and her chest ached at the thought of him hurting so horribly and not being able to comfort him.

☾

Sage's eyes flew open, and she sat up straight in her bed, chest heaving with labored breaths.

"Hey! Hey, stop screaming, you're safe! You're fine, you're okay. Breathe." Anna-Lee's southern drawl was quiet, and her words paired with her hands grasping Sage's shoulders were soothing.

When Sage had finally calmed down, the American pulled her hands away. "You were having a nightmare." She said simply.

Sage nodded. "I know. It was bad—you and Noah had died, and I was in charge of raising Madeleine. And then I was watching Sirius die..." She trailed off, eyes trained on the fireplace across the room.

Anna-Lee's face softened. "Oh, darlin'. I'm sorry. If I could turn back time and bring him back... hell, if I could break that stupidly brave boy out of Azkaban, I would do it. For you."

Sage laughed mirthlessly. The idea had formed in her mind several weeks ago, to either steal a Time Turner or even to make the dumbest decision of her life and break him out of the super-max prison.

She'd almost immediately decided against it, of course, because she doubted she could raise a baby from a prison cell, and the Ministry would most definitely send Harry to live with Petunia Dursley. Sage could not ever do that to her godson, no matter how much she missed Sirius, Lily, and James.

Her heart might ache with the grief of her friends that were no longer with her, and every single breath she took might have made the loss feel worse, but Harry had to be her priority from now on. She didn't have any other choice.

Her life had been turned upside down in the span of a single day, and the dreams she had almost every night kept her from ever being able to forget the horror of her twenty second birthday.

But for the sake of Harry James Potter, she would have to be better.

lol