A Broken Inheritance

Chapter 61: Breaking and Entering

Her expression didn't shift. "Why wouldn't it be?"

"Because you've been avoiding me."

She tilted her head. "I don't think I have."

"You have," he said, firmer this time. "I've tried to talk to you every day this week. You haven't so much as looked me in the eye."

She gave a small shrug, the book still in her hand. "Maybe I've been busy."

Sirius exhaled slowly. "Ana."

She finally looked at him then, really looked at him, and there was a flicker—just a flicker—of something softer beneath the surface.

"What is there to talk about, Sirius?" she said quietly. "We're fine."

"Are we?"

"Yes."

"You sure?"

"Yes."

"You're lying."

She gave a dry laugh. "I'm not."

"You are. You've been lying to me since we were twelve."

That stopped her.

She didn't reply.

Sirius took a step closer. "We used to know everything about each other. Before Hogwarts. Before House colours and name-calling. You were the only one who ever saw through the noise."

Anastasia didn't flinch. But something in her eyes shifted, a faint crack in the stillness. She glanced down at the book in her hand and turned it closed with a deliberate sort of finality.

"And what do you want me to do, Sirius?" she said, voice still calm. "Rewrite history? Undo the Sorting? Take back everything we said?"

He stepped closer. "No."

"Because what's done is done," she went on, not looking at him now. "We don't have to rehash all this. That was a long time ago."

"And now we're good, right?" Sirius said, bitterness softening at the edges.

She gave a small, almost impassive nod. "Aren't we?"

"That's the thing," Sirius murmured. "I don't think we are."

She looked up then, and there was something close to surprise in her expression—just for a moment.

"You allow yourself to laugh around me sometimes," he continued. "You tease me. You let me annoy you. You act like it's nothing."

She crossed her arms loosely over her chest, watching him with that same unreadable coolness.

"But it's not nothing," Sirius said. "You keep me at a distance, Ana. You always have. Not on the surface—we've always been great at performing that. But not where it matters."

She was silent.

"You don't let me shoulder anything. You don't let me help. You barely even let me in."

"Because you shouldn't have to," she said simply.

Sirius blinked. "What's that supposed to mean?"

She exhaled through her nose. Not angry. Just... tired. "I know what this is. I know what you're doing. And I get it."

"I'm not doing anything."

She stepped closer then—not much, but enough to close the space between them. Her hands, cool and steady, came to rest on his shoulders. He stiffened slightly. It had been a long time since she'd looked at him like this—directly, unguarded. Maybe since that night in fifth year, when she helped him out of Grimmauld Place without saying a word. She met his eyes.