A Broken Inheritance

Chapter 61: Breaking and Entering

She didn't respond immediately. Just stood there, perfectly still, fingers curling slightly around her elbow.

"I'm not keeping you anywhere," she said at last, tone clipped. "I'm trying to keep you out of something you don't need to be in."

"That's not your decision to make."

She scoffed, barely looking at him. "Sirius, you got out. You don't owe this place, or me, a damn thing."

"That's not the point."

"Then what is?"

He stepped forward again, jaw tight. "The point is—this. Us. I don't want us to keep pretending we're strangers. Or worse—cordial acquaintances. Like we didn't survive that fucking house together."

Anastasia's expression barely twitched, but something in her eyes sharpened.

"Yeah? And what do you want instead?" she asked. "Heartfelt chats? Tearful apologies?"

"I want to be in your life," he said plainly.

She blinked.

"I want us to stop doing this thing where we act like we don't know each other. Like we weren't everything to each other for years. We're not strangers. We were never strangers."

"You want to be in my life?" she said, voice quiet and sharp. "Then tell me something, Sirius—what life exactly do you think I have?"

He didn't answer.

Anastasia's expression tightened.

"You think I can choose who's in and who's out? You think this is still about being mad we didn't sit at the same table for dinner six years ago?"

"I think this is about you shutting people out and pretending you don't," Sirius said evenly. "That's what I think."

She scoffed under her breath and turned away, pacing slowly toward the bookshelf, fingers trailing along the spines like the argument bored her.

He didn't buy it. Not for a second.

"You're out," she said. "You got out. You ran, and it worked. You've got a home now. A family. A chance."

"I didn't come here to compare pain—"

"No?" she snapped, spinning around. "Then why are you here? Why now?"

Sirius's jaw clenched. "Because you're cracking. I can see it."

Her face went still.

"And because I'm sick of standing at a distance while you fall apart in front of James bloody Potter and pretend like it's nothing."

She crossed her arms again. Tighter this time.

"You really want to talk about James right now?"

Her voice was calm, but the undercurrent was lethal. A warning.

Sirius didn't back off. "I want to talk about why James had to sneak me into your room just to get a fucking conversation."

Anastasia's jaw twitched. She said nothing.

"I want to understand," he said, voice rising, "why I'm being kept at arm's length when we grew up in the same bloody hell."

Her face didn't move. That was always her trick. Stillness as a form of defense.

"You're not angry I left," he said, more to himself now. "You've never been. You've never once acted like I abandoned you. So why the distance?"

"Because you don't belong here anymore," she said, finally. "And dragging you back into this—into them—would be selfish."