Dark Beauty /Sirius Black/ [2]

Dark Beauty - 32.

Chapter 32

Pain.

Everything happened so fast, she didn't see it coming and she almost lost herself - he almost lost her. She was screaming in frustration and pain and fury as she threw curses and curses at death eaters that surrounded her and her husband with his hand tightly clutching hers for some sort of comfort.

Rain.

Rain lashed in the Scottish countryside. A town much like Adria's old one and the memories engulfed her as she apparated there with Sirius beside her and the newly engaged couple just behind them. She saw the town square and quaint little shops and a park now abandoned. With muggles and wizards shutting blinds and locking doors but it hardly helped much.

They had gotten there just seconds too late and watched muggles drop to their knees and then fully to the ground as death welcomed them, and wizards joined too. Twenty of them dead just because Peter had to tie his lace and they needed to wait for all of them, for Alice and Frank Longbottom who had just recently wed.

They had left school in Adria's sixth year, getting married just after graduation and diving into order business and they were fearless and brave, and Adria looked up to them in more ways than they could possibly imagine.

Lily screamed the first curse on arrival, and death eaters spread out - ignorant to their first task of killing muggleborn's and instead focusing on a new enemy. Teenagers.

She didn't know how it ended, she could hardly remember it at all. Blood poured from wounds caused by curses, and hexes flew past her in barrels of force, but she missed as many as she could.

And now she was in bed, and she was kissing her husband passionately and just touching him - and holding him because it was too much to bear. She had been crying, she was crying, and she didn't know how to stop because it was so overwhelming, but she was alive.

She almost wasn't.

The killing curse had just missed her by an inch, and then what? She had thought that so many times - told Sirius so many times, asked him so many times but he could hardly answer.

"And then what?" her voice was hoarse and strained and her body fully shaking with the weight of the war pushing hard on her small body, "...dead? That's it, isn't it? a killing curse doesn't give exceptions, Sirius.

I'd be dead. I'd be gone and that'd be it. I nearly fucking died!"

He reached for her hand, squeezed it, and realised that she had fully seen it all. Because he had that same realisation for himself on a mission with just him and Lily, and she had gone to look through a dark abandoned house they thought was a hideout - and he had gone upstairs to check for any noises when he turned on instinct and only had a second to duck as that same curse barrelled past him.

It was a realisation that he wasn't invincible, that his wand would only get him so far and then he'd be done for. If he didn't have his wand he could hardly do much damage with the skilled wizards who had a deep love for dark magic.

He had barely gotten out and Adria noticed that day that he was quieter than usual, and she had woken to him crying, and her hand squeezed his and he told her everything that happened and until the sun was high in the sky, she held him so close to him - and let his tears soak her shirt.

So, he would do the same, but she had other methods of coping in mind.

He had pulled her into him, but her crying wasn't sobs that wracked her body like they both expected - because she was emotional in all cases and he was prepared to hold her as she shook and sobbed, but they had gone.