Frigus . Sirius Black (Mortem BOOK 2)

chapter ninety

a/n 6k words and (kind of) dark!sirius as a treat for this taking a month 

June 23 1981 - Grimmauld Place 

Nephera was on the brink of doing something she had never done before - give up. 

Completely, and utterly, give up and give in to the forces of fate, or luck, or God, or destiny or whatever the hell people call it these days. She was ready to let them take the reigns.

For the past year, everything she had tried to uncover, every thread she had tried to pull on, she had been met with a brick wall. Dumbledore and the Invisibility cloak, Dumbledore and why he killed her mother, Riddle and his Horcruxes...

Nothing. She was getting nothing from nowhere. 

She felt as though she had died, she felt as though she had died a long time ago and while her soul had departed, someone forgot to tell her body. And her body had been walking around ever since, rotting away at itself, at the people around her, at the books in front of her... 

Every time she spoke to James, he sounded older, and more tired, Remus still could not find a job and was still refusing any help from her or Sirius, Peter was barely ever around, the Order was at a standstill, and Sirius- 

Sirius was hiding something. She did not know what, but he was hiding something, and Remus knew about it. Typically, she would've figured it out by now, no one could ever hide anything from her, Sirius most of all, but she was exhausted and burned out, and her head constantly felt as though it was covered in fog. 

She slammed the book in front of her shut, getting up and heading to the drinks cabinet in the living room, groaning when she realised the firewhiskey bottle was almost empty. Filling her glass with whatever was left, she did not get a chance to take a sip before it was pulled out of her grasp, "It's noon," said Sirius, placing it down on the table 

"You're lecturing me on drinking?" 

He shot her a look, and she sat back down in front of the endless sea of books on the living room table. Sirius wasn't an idiot, and he certainly wasn't an idiot when it came to Nephera and what she was feeling, he knew she had reached the end of her line, and it only served to confirm that he should not tell her about the conversation he had with Dumbledore, it would only send her into a further spiral. 

He walked up to her, placing a hand under her chin and forcing her to look up, "I know it's been tough, these past few months," he sighed 

"Tough? We're losing, Sirius, actively losing," 

"For now. You know how these things go, the pendulum always swings from one side to another, we'll get a big break, I know we will," 

"I've been looking for that big break for months, I can't find it," 

"Well then something will drop from the sky onto our laps, don't discount the power of luck here," 

"When has it ever been on our side?" 

It was impossible to get Nephera out of these moods, she would, and could, argue for hours about how they were losing, they were not good enough - or rather how she was losing, she was not good enough, especially considering the constant hits her confidence had been taking lately. 

"I've been doing nothing, these past few months, Sirius, nothing! I can't even go to work, I can't go into the Auror office because the entire world thinks I'm a fucking Death Eater, the only thing I can do is sit here all day-" she shook her head, "I'm locked in this fucking house and I feel completely useless-" 

Sirius simply let her speak, get it all out of her system, "I'm staring at these books all day, to no avail, and I can't even focus properly because you're out there all day, and the only thing I can think of is if something happens to you, I won't be able to do anything- I won't be able to come get you because-"