Eunoia | Sirius Black

114

It's after midnight when I stand in Moody's office, all broody and sullen.

"No," He says again. 

"She's pregnant!"

"No,"

I grit my teeth so hard that I'm surprised when they don't fall off. "Either you let me go home back to my wife or I will quit this godforsaken job."

"To do what? Shag?" Moody glowers.

"I'm worried for her safety, Alastor! There was a fucking intruder in our house last night and I'm out of my mind with panic- just fucking let me go, Merlin's sake."

He sighs, "There's no need to cuss so much, boy."

"I want to go home to my wife."

He stands up, prosthetic leg banging against the wooden floor like gunshots as he finally relents. "Come back tomorrow morning as soon as you can."

I nod, "Not before eleven."

"Black - "

A Patronus barges so violently into the office that the doors rattle. I take it as my cue to leave when it starts speaking - something so unexpected that I lose my balance and fall towards the wall.

Attack at the Longbottom's. Alice and Frank barely alive, the boy is alright. There's traces of someone else here but no sign of the woman. There's a dark mark over the house. 

I can barely hear anything over the blood pulsing in my ears when Moody shakes me. 

"It's been three minutes, boy. Have you lost your mind? I said we need to leave."

"I left Elena at the Longbottom's," I whisper. 

Moody stares at me for a beat too long before colourful profanities fly out of his mouth. 

"Walk. NOW."

He doesn't need to tell me twice. My feet are running towards the lift before I can grapple with what's going on. A dark mark indicates death. No sign of another woman. FUCK. 

I don't stop till I've apparated in front of the house. There are Aurors here, too many of them and it's suffocating me - my wife. I need to see my Elena. Please - she has to be alive. She has to be there. My daughter -  my heart nearly stops. My wife and my daughter. 

I run inside the house, my feet tirelessly rushing everywhere and nowhere all at once when I notice it. Shoes. Her favourite sandals she never lets me put inside the shoe rack. 

Fuck, fuck, fuck, Fuck. 

She's nowhere to be found. Neville's cries reverberate throughout the house but no one is there.

"....weird."

"Wards around the crib. Doesn't look like the work of his parents. It was an ambush."

I'm too flabbergasted by that news that when the patronus comes flying at me, I nearly scream. I'm certainly not prepared for the broken words it carries. 

I love you so maddeningly, so deeply that I don't think I've ever been more selfish than I am now. Forgive me, Sirius. My only love, my only home. 

It's all the sign I need. I apparate to Godric's Hollow. 

***

Panic lodges in my throat, and grips my heart so tight I cannot breathe. 

A Dark Mark. 

I stand outside the house for a beat too long as it starts to rain. A thunderstorm. 

With wet footsteps making a horrid sound, I pad up the stairs. Knowing what I'll find, fearing it. 

He's gone.

My brother, the only family I'd known when younger. His wand is on the sofa and at once I know what has happened. His specs are lopsided and his hair pushed back for the first time in his life. And I know my Ellie's been here. 

She saw this, she saw this and she - she's not here. 

I don't hear anything in this eerily silent house, not even Harry. Oh, Harry. If Neville was alive then it means the prophecy was for Harry. 

I run up the stairs, tears streaming down my face without a stop. Harry is on the floor, crawling here and there, unaware of what has transpired. I pick him up and he squeals, "Pafoo!"

A sob breaks through my throat then and I don't know what I'll do. I don't know how I'll survive this. 

When I see Lily's dead body, all the fight leaves me. I drop to my knees and Harry squirms in my grip. That is until I see her. Her.

Wand in hand, pointed at her chest as she stares up at the ceiling. I can't help it then, I scream. 

So guttural, so wretched. I cry - the sound so painful I can't begin to calm myself down. "Elena," I cry. "Elena, please," 

"I love you," the words are merged with cries that they become wholly incoherent. "I love you, please, please."

There is blood on her dress, snaking down her leg and I know what it means and I can't bear it anymore- I can't - 

I take her in my arms, her blood enveloping me like a hug. I don't know how I manage to walk down the stairs but I do. I don't stop calling her name as I lay her down on the couch, on my knees beside her still eyes. I don't have it in me to close them. To accept she's no more. 

"ELENA - Elena, it's me. It's Sirius. You're safe, you're safe now. I beg you, I beg you please don't do this to me. Don't do this to me. I don't deserve this pain, I don't want this pain. I can't live without you  - please, please come back - COME BACK - "

All at once, it hits me. Peter Pettigrew. 

I changed the secret keepers. I took him with me when Dumbledore showed me the house of the Longbottoms. 

Rage unlike I've ever known takes over me. And I lose all sense of moral and rightfulness. 

Leaving the hand of my wife's still warm corpse, I pick my wand up and apparate to my doom.