A Broken Inheritance

Chapter 67: Spring and Other Illusions

She hated asking. Hated what it meant. But he'd show up. She knew that. He always did.

And so he did.

Sirius stepped inside of her room that night like he was still thirteen and used to breaking into her bedroom at Grimmauld Place to steal back the astronomy book she always took just to annoy him. Same posture. Same smirk. A little slower now. A little quieter.

His hair was damp. He hadn't bothered to dry it properly. His boots were muddy. His wand was tucked behind his ear like a cigarette.

"Well," he said, looking around. "Still dramatic, I see."

She didn't answer. Just stepped back, letting the door close behind him.

He glanced around the room like he was expecting it to bite him. "Nice decor. Still very Slytherin Meets Psych Ward."

"Sirius."

"Just saying. You could stand to open a window. Let a little light in. Air the demons out."

"I didn't ask you here for interior design advice."

"No," he said, letting his smirk fade. "You didn't. Why did you, again?"

A silence stretched between them. Uncomfortable, but not unfamiliar.

He looked at her then and she saw it. That flicker of something behind his eyes. Worry, maybe. Or suspicion. Or just... history. He didn't say it, but she could tell he'd noticed how thin she'd gotten. How sharp her collarbones looked under the edge of her sleeves. How tired she was.

She crossed the room without another word, knelt on the cleared patch of stone she'd been using for weeks now. Same velvet cloth. Same blade. Same pendant, still tangled, still gleaming faintly in the lamplight.

Sirius didn't move.

She gestured for him to sit. "Well?"

He stared for a moment longer, then dropped down across from her, legs folding under him with the ease of someone who spent most of his childhood on cold floors.

"You're lucky I'm not the dramatic type," he said.

She eyed him. "You're not?"

He scoffed. "I guess it does run in the family."

Anastasia didn't laugh. Of course she didn't. But she didn't correct him either. Just tilted her head, the pendant catching a flicker of light as it shifted beside the blade.

Sirius watched her for a moment longer, the smirk fading at last. His expression sobered, though not entirely. He always kept a touch of levity on hand, like armour. Still, something in the set of her shoulders must have registered, because when he spoke again, his voice had gentled by degrees.

"So?" he asked. "What is this? A séance? Bit late to be summoning the family ghosts."

Anastasia hesitated, her fingers tracing the edge of the pendant lying between them. "Do you remember what happened in the Great Hall? Back in January?"

Sirius raised an eyebrow. "Um, yeah, vividly. Kind of hard to forget."

She looked down. Her hands were still. "That wasn't... a fluke."

Sirius's eyes narrowed. "Go on."

"I didn't know what it was then," she said. "Not really. But I do now. I've figured it out, I think. James helped."

He leaned back slightly, resting one elbow on a bent knee. "Ah. So that's what all the late nights in your room were for."

Anastasia didn't answer immediately. Her hand hovered near the pendant, fingers brushing the chain like she was testing its temperature. Then she sat back, spine straight, hands folding loosely in her lap. Her eyes were fixed somewhere just past him.