Frigus . Sirius Black (Mortem BOOK 2)

chapter fifty-six

February 25th, 1981 - Auror Office

Nephera's twentieth birthday had come and gone, the celebration had been small, intimate, only their closest group of friends had gathered that night for a few drinks and food prepared by Kreacher. None of them had much energy to do anything else, all of them working around the clock as the wizarding world plunged further into chaos and darkness every day.

All efforts to flush her father out had been completely futile, he was well hidden and probably instructed by Riddle not to respond to any of her quite public taunts towards him. She didn't like that, she didn't like he was still out there, lurking and scheming how to take her down. It used to be that only Bellatrix could get her to freeze in her tracks with fear, the torture inflicted on her back in seventh year hadn't been forgotten, nor would it ever be. With her father back in the game, though? Well, facing Bellatrix seemed like child's play.

Somehow, her nightmares hadn't returned, though. Or, well, they had, but they didn't last long before they were replaced by nicer dreams. She could tell she was sleeping restlessly, though, if anything by the way Sirius seemed constantly tired and as though he wasn't getting any sleep whatsoever.

He was out on patrols right now, although he should be back soon, to train the newest recruits. The training season had gotten shorter, as well, they needed as many Aurors as they could get. Back when she and her friends joined, it lasted a full six months of intense training every single day, now, it had been reduced to two, and only every other day.

She rubbed her hand over her face, closing the mission report in front of her. It was the seventh one of it's kind that month already, a half-blood family of six, murdered, in their homes. Their name didn't ring any bells to Nephera, although she doubted it would. The brunette witch was very well aware of what these killings were, and they had nothing to do with who they were killing. No, these were initiations, new followers of Riddle proving their loyalty to him. After all, once you've killed someone in the name of the Dark Lord, you're officially wanted by the Ministry, so even if you do regret it later on, well, you didn't have a choice but to stick through with it, lest you wanted to end up in Azkaban.

The amount of people he had been recruiting lately was worrying. Sure, there were the occasional raids and attacks on Diagon Alley, but both sides seemed to be at a standstill, waiting for the other to act first so they could counter it, "I brought food," exclaimed James, walking into her office

Nephera scanned her eyes over him, something had been off with the boy the past week. He seemed exhausted, yet happier, yet more stressed all at the same time. He was worrying more frequently, fussing over the smallest things, and zoning out often, "I'm not hungry, Jay, but thanks," she said, "What're you up to?" she asked, trying to figure out what was wrong with him

He bit into the pastry he had brought in, "I don't care if you think you're not hungry, eat, they taste heavenly," he instructed, "And not much, just got back from patrol at Hogsmeade, Pads should be back any minute too,"

"All good there?" she asked

He nodded his head, once again pushing the bag of pastries towards her, "Yeah, nothing happened. I don't know if I love or hate that to be honest, the silence from the other side is driving me mad,"

She nodded her head, her eyes squinting ever so slightly to see if there was any hidden meaning in his words. Something was wrong with James, she was sure of it, but she couldn't figure out what. The wizard in question shuffled awkwardly in the spot. He and Lily had decided to keep the baby, although held on telling the news to everyone else until the first trimester was complete. Part of it was to ensure that the pregnancy was stable, they didn't want to have to announce to everyone that they were pregnant, only to have to announce a miscarriage later on. Another part of it though was, frankly, they were scared of how their friends would react. They wanted this baby, they were both excited about it, and they knew that their friends would always be supportive of them, but they were both terrified. What if they weren't making the right decision? What if their friends told them just that? No, they simply wanted to live in bliss for a few more weeks, before risking it all coming down crashing.