Frigus . Sirius Black (Mortem BOOK 2)

chapter ninety-one

a/n: dark!Sirius, Nephera x Castiel verbal showdown and angst angst angst as a treat for this taking a month

June 23 1981 - Grimmauld Place

Something had happened.

Nephera could feel it in her bones, in the hollows of her chest where fear liked to curl and settle. She could not name it, could not explain it, but it was there all the same, gnawing at the edges of her mind like some half-remembered nightmare.

It was the same feeling she had known in her seventh year, when Riddle had dragged her into the shadows and the world she knew had started to crumble. The day after Ellie and Tony had died, before anyone had told her, before the news had found its way to her ears, she had felt it.
That was how grief worked sometimes. It arrived before the words ever did.

The memory lived inside her still, stitched into her ribs like old shrapnel. The taste of dread at the back of her throat. The way her hands would not stop shaking. The sense that the universe had tilted, just slightly, but enough to send her stumbling.

Now, the feeling was back.

And she was older, stronger, battle-hardened by a thousand skirmishes no one ever spoke about. But not immune. Not after everything. Not after the losses that had carved deep trenches through her heart.

Sitting alone in the kitchen of Grimmauld Place, the air thick and heavy around her, Nephera felt it bubbling up again, that awful, choking terror. It crawled up her throat like smoke, seizing her lungs, coiling around them, squeezing until every breath was a shallow gasp. Her hands gripped the edge of the table until her knuckles turned white, but the pressure did nothing to steady her. The panic slipped under her skin anyway, fast and sharp, a cruel and familiar invader.

And she had not felt it again, not since that day, that day she was told Ellie and Tony had died. Not until now.

Now, with Sirius out there, unreachable, lost somewhere in the chaos of the war. With Remus and Peter exposed, patrolling dangerous ground for the Order, their faces already added to Riddle's growing list. With James and Lily sealed away in hiding, secret and silent, as if the very act of existing had become a death sentence.

Salazar, if something had happened to them...

The thought struck like a physical blow. Her stomach heaved, and for a moment she thought she might be sick right there on the floor.

She should do something. She should be moving, planning, acting, anything but sitting here letting the fear tear her apart. She should contact them, summon a Patronus, send a message to Moody, to anyone who could verify they were alive, breathing, safe. She should fight back.

But she couldn't.

The fear had wrapped itself around her, cold and merciless. It pinned her to her chair, an invisible hand at her throat, pressing harder every second she failed to move. Her magic, usually so sharp and ready at her fingertips, flickered uselessly inside her, as if even it had turned traitor.

The kitchen blurred around her. The table under her hands felt miles away. All she could hear was the blood roaring in her ears, drowning out everything else, louder and louder, until it was all she knew.

She was Nephera, strategist, fighter, leader, the woman who had survived Riddle's grasp and made him fear her name.

And yet, in this moment, she was nothing but terrified.

Because if she was feeling this again, if she was right, then someone she loved might already be lost.

The blood was still roaring in her ears when the fireplace flared green.