Frigus . Sirius Black (Mortem BOOK 2)

chapter eighty-five

note: (chill, no one's dying here) just a warning (not that kind, get your head out of the gutter) that I'm too lazy to spellcheck (blame law school and banking law), so just ignore any of the mistakes you see 

February 7th, 1981 - Grimmauld Place 

Losing a parent is hard, that's what everyone says, or at least that's what the books Nephera had read on the topic said. Because yes, that's how far the girl had fallen, reading books on how to handle her "grief", here's the thing though, while those books were not technically wrong in what they said, it is true that one should feel their feelings (Nephera had just about thrown up upon reading that). You should always try to remember their best qualities and keep the people you lost in your thoughts, and all that melodramatic bullcrap. Still, none of the books had anything that could help with Nephera's particular situation, namely: 

'How to deal with losing your abusive mother while you and your best friends and their child are actively being hunted in a war, and when you are sure that your mother was killed purposefully by your old Headmaster only to a) spite you and b) to not uncover a secret plot which you are pretty sure has to do with the aforementioned hunting of you and your friends' 

Or alternatively 

'How to deal with your mother being killed by your ex-Headmaster for reasons which are still unclear, and how to refrain from killing said ex-Headmaster because he killed her a) before you could torture her to figure out what she was planning in a war that you are actively hunted in alongside your best friends, and b) take your revenge against said aforementioned mother, who spent her entire life abusing you'  

Yeah, needless to say, her particular set of circumstances wouldn't be found in any book. Nor could the answers of why Dumbledore had killed her. The lie he had tried to feed her, that there was no time, that she was far too dangerous to even attempt to capture alive, she didn't believe that for a second. Dumbledore never did anything without an ulterior motive, without having something to gain from it. 

He knew that her mother held critical pieces of information in this war, he knew that Nephera would've probably been able to break her, one way or another, and he knew that getting Emmeline Winchester to break could've very well been the one thing that would give them a leg up on this thing, so why kill her? 

"Nephera," Sirius called out, coming downstairs, "Merlin, what time did you wake up?" 

She looked at him sheepishly, or as sheepishly as Nephera Winchester could get, and he glared back, "You didn't sleep, did you?" 

"I did, for like an hour, my mind wouldn't quiet down," 

He sighed, filling up a cup of coffee, "Why didn't you wake me up? And don't say work," 

"Work, Sirius. Plus, you wouldn't have been able to be any help, I don't even know what the hell I'm looking for here," she handed him her cup and he filled it up as well, "Besides, you can't be patrolling while sleep deprived, I don't know what the hell he's planning right now," 

Sirius always hated when Nephera got into those moods, the ones where she'd almost lose her mind looking for answers that were impossible to find. He knew how it tortured her, when she knew something was wrong, she knew something was going on but she couldn't find out what exactly it was. He hated even more that there was very little he could do to help, "You're thinking of Dumbledore again-" 

Nephera, who was agitated to begin with and who had heard one too many times from Peter that Dumbledore was not hiding anything, snapped at him, "I know he's planning something, Sirius! I'm not insane-" she took in a deep breath, "Sorry, just- Peter's been on my case since the beginning about this, and I can tell Remus doesn't believe me as much as he says he does, I just- I'm not paranoid here, I know something's going on!"