Even to those closest to her, Althea was as much a mystery then as she is now. As a girl, she was driven by her ambition and thirst for knowledge to a place very few could follow, and she didn't hesitate to leave them behind. But now, after living a...
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"I NEED TO TALK TO MY NEPHEW."
"Was?"
Althea was heartbroken by a single word, and though that word was spoken by someone she couldn't see, she couldn't tear her teary eyes away from Sirius. Tears clouded his own eyes as Sirius frantically looked around for his godson. "Accio cloak," he muttered, feeling the material sliding into his grip.
Startled, Althea looked over to the stairs, where three figures suddenly appeared. Her knees gave out as a strangled cry escaped her lips, and if it hadn't been for Sirius's quick reflexes, Althea would have been a sobbing heap on the ground, because there stood a boy who looked almost exactly like her brother, all except for his eyes - he had his mother's eyes, as she would soon find out.
"Harry - upstairs!" Sirius called shakily, doing his best to hold Althea, who had nearly gone limp, upright.
Harry Potter didn't move an inch, bravely standing his ground, despite Hermione pulling at his sleeve as she and Ron followed his godfather's demands. "Sirius, who is - "
"NOW!" Sirius barked in a voice that rivaled his mother's (who, speak of the devil, had awoken in her portrait and began wailing about Blood Traitors and Mudbloods disgracing and defiling her most ancient house of Black). Harry again didn't move until Remus, alerted by the noise, began to guide him up the stairs, forcing the curtains of Walburga Black's portrait shut along the way. Sirius helped Althea over to a couch, where he sat with her as she cried, being reminded of a dark time of their youth. "Thea, listen to me - "
"So that's it then. He's dead?" Althea interrupted, looking up at Sirius through her tears. Sirius didn't answer, but he didn't have to. Althea knew - she knew from the moment she didn't hear his boisterous voice calling across the table at his friends; from the moment she didn't see his warm hazel eyes beaming at her among the Order members; from the moment she saw her nephew she knew that her brother was dead. "How long?" she croaked.
Sirius paused, looking into her eyes, and for a moment, only seeing James's. "Fourteen years."
Althea felt as though a wave had washed over her, leaving her without feeling in any part of her body. Her vision tunneled suddenly, and though all she could see at the end of it was Sirius's worried face, she couldn't get the image of her brother out of her mind. He was happiest, the last time she saw him - only a month past eighteen, only seven since he finally got Lily Evans to go out with him - and she was there, in Althea's memory, her fingers interlocked with James's, the reason the smile that adorned his face was so bright. That was eighteen years ago. "And - " she choked - "his son?"
"Harry turned fifteen not long ago," Sirius explained with a hoarse voice, watching guiltily as another wave of sorrow hit Althea.
"He - he didn't - ?" she questioned, and with a shake of Sirius's head, she let out another strangled cry. "Has he been with his mother all this time?"
Another shadow passed over Sirius's face. "Lily died the same night James did," he whispered.
"Lily?" she echoed.
There was a silence that followed, and in the midst of it, Althea could hear her son laughing in the kitchen, as well as a muffled yelling coming from the floor above them. Moments later, a badly scarred Remus Lupin stumbled down the stairs, pausing as he was caught in Althea's gaze.
Sirius's voice was close when he spoke next. "Where have you been all this time, Thea?" he whispered to her.
Reality fell upon her quickly as she stood, wiping her face dry of tears. "I need to talk to my nephew," she demanded, looking between her brother's best friends. "Then I need to talk to the Order."
