Mischief Managed

49: Magic Sings

Sirius gazed out the window of Dumbledore's office. His mind was so overrun with events that he struggled to organize his thoughts. He'd been told to wait here, that Dumbledore had bought him some time before he had to return to his cell where Fudge was waiting with the dementors.

Steps echoed up the staircase until a disheveled middle aged man strode towards Sirius. His expression was unmistakably grief-stricken.

Sirius turned towards his old friend, and they surveyed each other in silence until Sirius spoke.

"Why isn't Bree here?"

Remus's eyes filled with tears.

Sirius felt his body stiffen. Her face flashed in his mind. His insides constricted.

No, no. I have to- I will see you again.

He threw his hand on Dumbledore's desk to steady himself. "No."

Remus just shook his head.

Sirius fought the urge to shatter the ivy vase on the desk that was only inches from his hand.

"S-She was cornered by a Death Eater, a stray who went unnoticed by the Ministry, and no one was with her-" Remus's voice constricted, and he sucked in air, his chest heaving. "No one could have saved her. She died...nearly a decade ago."

Sirius's whole body began to shake, and his face twisted with an awful, dangerous rage.

"You're telling me she's d-dead? You're telling me- Bree- Bree d-died?"

Remus nodded. Then his gaze dropped as if after all these years of carrying this burden, this awful, awful memory, his body felt heavy recalling it all.

Sirius howled with pain, clenching his fists and baring his teeth as Remus desperately tried to calm him down.

"Sirius," he urged, "You have to stay quiet or someone's going to notice you're up here-"

"Don't tell me to stay quiet," hissed Sirius. He couldn't see he couldn't feel he couldn't breath- he'd promised her. He was going to make it back. He'd sworn it for thousands of days, so many years. It wasn't- it wasn't possible that all that time...all that time, he was making promises to a grave.

"BREE IS DEAD!" he hollered. "I FAILED HER! I FAILED HER AND I'M NEVER-"

He raised his hands to his face in attempt to shield his eyes from seeing- from facing the emptiness, the proof that Remus was telling the truth. "I'm never going to see her again."

The moment he spoke the words, the last bit of hope in his heart snuffed out. The flame that had been nurtured through years of love, then a decade of torture, of loneliness, of regret, died.

Surely it had died years ago. When she had.

Sirius struggled to breath. He'd begged her to wait for him.

Just wait for me.

And now he was too late.

❋ ❋ ❋ ❋

One year later, he stood above her grave. He covered his hand over his mouth to muffle his shocked breath. She was here- she was so close to him...

Somehow he'd thought her grave would have been grander or brighter or just different from the rest, but instead, hers was hardly distinguishable from the others in its row.

Brianna Convelo

1959-1984

"Into a daybreak that's wondrously clear/I rise"

He closed his eyes.

Convelo, not Black.

He knelt down, his knees hovering a few inches from her tombstone.

"I'm sorry," he murmured. "Things shouldn't have turned out this way, if only I hadn't been stupid enough to trust that rat. I was so focused on protecting you, protecting James and Lily and Harry from Death Eaters that I hadn't seen... I hadn't seen what Peter really was."

He shook his head then dropped his gaze to his feet.

In a softer tone he whispered, "I got your letters. Remus found them and he kept them...all these years."

A lump grew in his throat and he put his hand on the grave's cold stone, running his fingers gently down its side.

"I'm so sorry. What you went through, who you lost, it's all my fault, and I didn't even get the chance to apologize because I was locked up in prison while you fought to get me out."

He let out a deep breath, and he shuddered as the air left his body.

"You asked me why you couldn't let me go and stop loving me. I don't have the answer. I don't how you expected me to when I loved just as much. I never stopped loving you, Bree, not for one second. When I heard you were...what happened to you, I...it was like I'd just come back from hell only to lose everything again."

He tucked his long, haggard hair behind his ears, then continued, his voice hopeful.

"So, if you can hear me, just know I still love you. I'm going to take care of Harry, and Remus, too. I wish I didn't have to do this alone, although I don't suppose that's fair since I did the same to you. And..." he paused, pulling his hand from behind his back to reveal a bouquet of roses. Their white petals looked as if they had once been pristine and spotless, but now some were spread with light streaks of dirt, a few wrinkled, and one near the bottom was even beginning to shrivel.

"I brought you these," he whispered.

He laid them gentle atop her grave. His hand lingered on the grass for a moment. A single tear dripped from his face and slid across one of the rose petals before falling onto the grave.

He stayed a moment longer then rose to his feet. Before he left, he looked back at all the graves. Hers stuck out now- the white roses at the gravestone's base marked it different from the rest; and though the petals weren't clean, they were irrefutably beautiful, and Sirius allowed himself a small smile.

When he spoke, his words were soft, sailing from his lips as gently as an orchestra's final chord.

"Goodbye, Bree."

❋ ❋ ❋ ❋

A/N: ONE MORE CHAPTER YOU GUYS