𝑻𝒉𝒆 𝑹𝒊𝒔𝒆 𝑶𝒇 𝑳𝒂𝒅𝒚 𝑩𝒍𝒂𝒄𝒌 ~ 𝑊𝑎𝑙𝑏𝑢𝑟𝑔𝑎 𝐵𝑙𝑎𝑐𝑘

chapter seventeen

Present day,

Children's laughter, it is this magnificent sound that pushes Walburga to open her eyes. She remains for a moment frowning as she stares at the sun that dazzles her and she listens.

The air is filled with a sweet scent of flowers and again, the laughter resonates, closer. She finally gets up and she looks around her. A magnificent field, colored by all the colors surrounds her. It is so beautiful that she opens her lips, surprised then she sees two young children running while laughing. One with curly hair, the other with long hair.

"Are you coming mom?" says the one with curly hair.

The one with long hair approaches and he grabs Walburga's hand, dragging her along with him while the other boy takes her other hand. She laughs with them as she feels the warm wind brush her face. Then she stops, shaking her head.

"What the..., I don't understand," she whispers.

"Regulus, look, a butterfly!" says one of the boys.

"Nonsense, Sirius," the other one snorts, "it's not a butterfly."

They start to argue while laughing and Walburga watches them, how is this possible? Walburga remains motionless, trying to understand what is happening. She let herself fall off the cliff, is she in a coma? Everything is confusing.

"Walburga."

A gasp of surprise leaves her mouth as she shakes her head. That voice. It's impossible. She turns around and feels her whole body tremble. A smiling face faces her and she feels tears running down her cheeks. She manages to run and she jumps into Sirius' arms.

He catches her and hugs her against him, looking for her face and he kisses her like crazy. Finally, he finds her, he waited for her for many years, but she is finally here. Walburga feels him wipe away her tears as she kisses him back.

"How... How...," she sobs. "I’m so sorry, for you, I beg your pardon."

"Hey, easy," he breathes. "Come here."

He takes her hand and leads her to the edge of a small lake while Sirius and Regulus are already there, swimming and splashing each other. Sirius turns his head towards Walburga, he hasn’t changed. He’s exactly as she last saw him.

"I don’t understand," she says. "I jumped.. I.. I should be.."

"Dead," Sirius finishes. "You are. You are on the other side. And no, I know what you are thinking, you do not deserve your place in Hell. All you have done all these years has been to survive.

"I did things..., I... I was not a good mother and I... I did not know how to stay in the light," Walburga says. "And our baby..."

"I know, I know all my love, but it does not change what I feel for you. If you knew how much it hurt me to see you create this... this double of me who told you these horrible things," Sirius says.

He faces her and he places his palms on her cheeks, caressing her skin with his thumbs and she looks at him, finding those beautiful eyes, those lips, that face.

"It's me, it's my curse, if I hadn't known you, you would still be alive," she cries.

"No," he says softly, "nothing is your fault, I would still be dead. But it's a new beginning, a new life. Here, it's a new beginning. You didn't manage to be in the light, but here, here everything is light. Our life goes on with children."

"But I... how? I don't understand, how are Sirius and Regulus here?"

"They're not really," Sirius explains. "But they mean more to you than anything else so that's why the first thing you saw when you woke up was them. It's you that I saw when I woke up here."

Walburga looks at her children, she approaches and has a movement of recoil at the sight of her reflection. She is again that reckless teenager and the laughter dies down as the children disappear. She feels arms that surround her and she smiles softly.

"It's all right now," Sirius says. "I've come back to you, as promised."

A few days later

Sirius walks behind Steviah and he slips his hand in hers. He stares at this grave in honor of Regulus and he feels his heart pinch as he hears the sobs of his girlfriend. He has a hard time accepting what happened, that she gave herself to Regulus when she refused to let him touch her after the cave.

"It's over," he breathes softly. "My parents are dead."

"W-What?"

"We are free," Sirius says. "We are free, Viah. It's all over."

He feels her muscles relax and he catches her in his arms, holding her close. He doesn't feel anything, he knows it's for the best, the Blacks are gone forever and he's the last one left. And one day, he'll have his own Black family but this time, they won't have any darkness around them.

"I feel like my mother's death brought back memories," he suddenly says.

Steviah looks at him and blames herself. She didn't even take the time to find out how he's doing because she's locked in her own grief. She puts her hand on his cheek and caresses it gently.

"What do you mean?" she asks.

"I don't really know, actually, maybe it was just a dream, but I woke up with the feeling that it was a memory. I was a child and my mother was healing me after I hurt myself. She told me about a guy who had my first name, a guy whose first name I inherited in fact," Sirius explains.

"It’s not a common name," Steviah says. "Other than a cousin of my mother’s who had that name, I’ve never heard anyone called that, so it shouldn’t be hard to find something."

"I’m sorry," he said, "about what happened to your family."

"I never knew him," Steviah replies. "My mother told me about it because she wanted me to remember that he helped the Muggles, that he was disowned by his family, because I inherited his heart. My mother never forgave the Freylior for what they did to Sirius, but I guess he’s at peace now."

Sirius thinks, the dream seemed so real. He placesba kiss on Steviah's forehead and looks at the horizon. The world is small, it went round in circles, repeating the same things over and over again, but in a different way. Maybe Sirius and Walburga didn't get their happy ending, but maybe the light they had is reunited right now, in Sirius. In Steviah. And maybe this time, the light will shine bright enough for Sirius and Steviah to live happily ever after.

THE END

Hello, here it is, the story is finished. I hope you liked it. Thank you for reading me. For information, this story is part of my Harry Potter saga and here are the books that are linked together:

— The rise of Lady Black
— The wolf who cries
— Flesh and Bones

The story of Steviah and Sirius has not yet been written but is planned. ♡