When you have it all

Chapter 34...

The night had flown by at what seemed like light speed for the group of friends, who had been busy celebrating Alex's miraculous return, Sirius' birthday and their reunion. It wasn't the same as before—how could it have been? Alex still felt and looked a little weak, and though she denied it, they all noticed her go into silent relapses, thoughts flashing back to the months spent as prisoner or to the orb. Sirius didn't leave her side, and though he was slowing returning back to his old merry self, the past months spent in torment had taken their toll on him. And at times, Lily, James and Remus just simply didn't know how to act, because as much as they wanted to believe things had returned to normal, they simply had not. Not yet, at least, but they all believed it would get better; all five of them were determined to forget what had happened, and go on as if it never had.

Sooner than they would have liked, day arrived, and the group had to split up. They had all fallen asleep sometime midmorning, and were woken up by the sound of food appearing on the table. Lily and the marauders had to go to class, and Alex had to go talk with Dumbledore. It took a while for Sirius to finally leave, and as he did the look on his face was one of disbelief, of apprehension—as if he still couldn't believe this was all real, that he was leaving and he would wake up any second.

As fast as the night seemed to go by, so the day seemed to drag on forever, as Sirius attended all his classes so as not to arouse any unnecessary suspicion. Or rather, any additional suspicion, because it was inevitable that at least some of the Hogwarts students would notice his (and three other Gryffindors) sudden change in countenance.

As soon as he could, he rushed down to the room of requirement, where he found Alex sleeping. He walked over towards her, and just gazed at her. Tears welled up in his eyes as he looked at her sleeping figure, finally safe in front of him, a light smile gracing her still pale face. Making as little noise as possible, he crept over to the other side of the bed, and lied down next to her. I must be the luckiest man alive.

"Sirius?" he heard her mumble.

"Yeah, love, it's me," he whispered back, leaning over and giving her a kiss on the forehead. Alex reached out and took his arm, holding it tightly across her body, and he snuck in a little closer, wrapping his other arm around her too.

Later that evening, Sirius and Alex were left alone in the room of requirement once more, sitting together on the couch in front of the fireplace.

"Alex?"

"Yeah?" was the barely audible reply.

"I hate to bring this up…but…did you…you know…get rid of it?"

"No," she whispered. "Unless it just left on all its own while I was sleeping…urgh, that sounds so demented it's not even funny."

Sirius laughed weakly. "Did you get any closer to figuring out how to get rid of it?"

"Yeah, I think I came really close…"

Sirius drew a breath. "Do you want to get rid of it?"

She looked at him, confused and a little intrigued.

"I think I've got it figured out," Sirius said, but when her look still demanded a further explanation, he continued, "See, when I thought you were…And then your body went missing, I couldn't take it anymore…Just sitting around waiting for something to happen, waiting to hear worse news…"

Alex held back the tears that were threatening to spill as she heard the story recounted from Sirius himself. It was worse than hearing it from Lily and all of them—she was not only hearing it, she was seeing the pain etched onto his face as he spoke.

"…Well, I decided to do something about it. And the only thing I could do was research; try to find a way to destroy that blasted thing that got you into this whole mess anyways…"