"Right, then. Which one of you arseholes is John?"
Your Honour, I call Cluedo. The answer you're looking for is Alex Fawley, in the corridor of the secret Death Eater Headquarters, with the gun. This collection of facts could not have been anticipated applying to this particular individual at the start of the year, yet she felt more like that girl shaking against a stone wall outside her school than she had in months. Fear pulsed through her like a heartbeat. Something strong and unyielding. Something brilliant.
Her life meant something now, she could feel it in the fragility of her bones and the open vulnerability with which she faced the guards. Every single part of her body where a curse could hit was ridiculously clear in her head, already aching as if in preparation for her slow and painful demise. She hadn't felt so alive in such a long time.
"John?" She asked again, "He here?"
One of the guards pointed at a man across the hall. John of course, being deaf, couldn't hear Alex, and since he had been facing the other way when she made her rather dramatic arrival, he hadn't been able to read her lips either.
The second time, though, having seen the guard pointing at him, he waved at her to indicate himself and said in a slightly off-kilter, low pitched voice, "Yes?"
The sound of someone who is almost or entirely deaf speaking is heart-breaking, mainly because it becomes immediately clear that this is not their choice way to communicate. It's like going abroad and all the locals speaking broken English instead of you learning their language in their goddamn country. Alex's mother had always stressed the importance of at least attempting to learn parts of the local language when they went on holiday, and had drilled the attitude into her children. And this wasn't even foreign. This was BSL. Alex bit her lip.
She knew very little sign language. The alphabet and a number of specially selected swear words were pretty much her limit. So she pointed at John and drew her finger from her middle on the other hand to her thumb across her palm to say, You J?
He nodded.
Alex then rather awkwardly mimed cradling a baby. Luckily the message got through because the lines smoothed from John's face, he dropped his hand from his mouth to say thank you, and pushed past her into the lift.
Then it was just Alex and the three Death Eaters that Guard No. 2 had not-so-tactfully referred to as 'dickheads'.
"Right then." She said, taking another step forwards. It was only then that they seemed to clock the gun at her side, "What happens now?"
They stared blankly at her. At last, one spoke up, "What do you want?"
Alex felt her hands shake for a second. Okay, New. Maybe some fearlessness could help right now.
"Such deep philosophical questions." New could be felt gripping control of her face and twisting it, "I'm sure the Dark Lord would be interested to hear of them, especially in regard to his command."
"The Dark Lord?"
"Yeah, you know," New smiled, mouth like a knife wound, "Your boss, both in a spiritual and physical sense. He sent me down here."
"Why?"
It was Alex who answered this time, having got the general gist, "The Blacks want their toy. It's been found that Sirius Black is a defunct model and he's being sent back to the manufacturers. Don't want a repeat of the Galaxy 6."
The one closest to her grunted, "You spend a long time thinking that one up?"
"Seconds." She smiled sweetly, "Some of us have more than two braincells, which is why we're not placed on lackey duty."
The guard's smile soured. He looked up and down her Hulk onesie pointedly, "And that's the new uniform is it?"
"If you can work it." Alex spun in place.
"What's with the muggle thing?" He indicated her gun.
"I'm blending in. Undercover work in America." Alex answered competently, "And putting muggle-sympathising animals out of their misery in a fitting way."
"Hal," One of the other guards said, "That's Alex Fawley. Pureblood. I heard the old boss talking about her. Pivotal, he said."
"Is that right?" The first guard- Hal- was obviously not too pleased with the reveal of this information, though he had no choice but to step aside. Alex would be lying if she said the picture of his moustache bristling as he was forced to open the door for her and, at her instruction, close it behind her again didn't fill her with a sense of vindication.
And there was Sirius Black.
He was gagged, his hands tied behind his back by silvery rope. His hair was greasy and distinctly un-Sirius. It needed a good wash. This in turn made Alex realise just how much effort Sirius Black must have put into his dark locks every day to make them look the way they did. Her mouth quirked up at the corner involuntarily.
"Hi." She said.
Sirius' reaction to her had not been quite what she anticipated. His eyes bugged out, locked on the gun in her hand, and he was struggling against the restraints, muffled vulgarisms barely audible behind the gag.
"Okay." Alex continued haltingly. It was fair to say her sense of trepidation was far more advanced than it had been when confronted with a hall of murderers, "I'm going to take the cloth out of your mouth now."
And she did.
"... Fucking hell. They really got you." Sirius immediately launched into a tirade, "A fucking puppet. Killing me, now? Go fucking ahead. Try it. I've got a skull made out of adamantium."
Alex could barely hold back a glance towards the door, where she had no doubt the guards were leaning against the metal, listening in, "Black-"
"That's a superhero metal." Sirius spat at her, "Which I know because Alex liked them and she told me."
She really needed him to shut up now, "Black-"
"And you probably know as well because you went through her fucking head like a diary." Sirius glared at her, "You're sick, and..."
He kept rambling. Alex turned her eyes to the cement ceiling, as if asking for help. Eventually, having decided there was no other alternative to the option her mind suggested, she muttered, "I'll try not to enjoy this."
And then she punched him in the face.
"Ow!" Black yelped, staring at her.
Alex knelt down in front of him, pleading for his attention with her eyes. His real attention, the way he used to look at her, like she was real, like she was this brilliant thing that no one else had discovered, and he wasn't entirely sure what it was yet, but he was totally okay with never finding out.
"Black, look at me. Look." She whispered desperately, letting herself break into a smile, "I'm scared."
"You're..?" He stopped, searching her face. She watched as he found her, actually her, hiding in her own eyes. She watched as the realisation dawned and he began to laugh, slow and relieved, and dropped his head onto her shoulder, where the vibrations of his laughter echoed through her body too.
In any other story, in any other world, it wouldn't make sense.
But Alex Fawley had never laid claim to another world. Not when this one hadn't given up everything she wanted yet. And Sirius Black had never asked for another story. Not when his had given him so much, his friends, his concept of morality, a seat at Gryffindor table.
"Merlin, Fawley." He pulled back to look at her again. She could have been imagining it, but his eyes looked suspiciously shiny, "We need to have words about timing."
Alex grinned as she moved to untie him, "You really think I'd do something just because you asked?"
He stood up awkwardly, shaking out his wrists, familiar wry smirk in place when he turned to look at her, "Let a man dream, Fawley."
She shoved his shoulder, "'Man' isn't the word I would use."
"I'm hurt." He moved closer, close enough that Alex could see the relief in his eyes, see how much it drained him. She understood the feeling, "Truly."
And like a snap, Alex was shoved to the back of her own head, "Urgh. I'd tell you two to get a room, but that implies I'm invited, which would not be a happy occasion."
"Alex?" Sirius frowned at her, walls sliding about halfway up, like a car window, just enough so that he could peer over them.
"Sorry." Alex stumbled backwards, hitting the wall and leaning her weight into it, "I haven't got complete control yet."
"New?"
"She's here." Alex tapped the side of her head, avoiding his eyes. There was a dark humour to her voice, "We're negotiating the 'terms of your release'. Her words."
Sirius swallowed and made no attempt to close the new distance between them. Alex knew how much he hated New, knew how it must seem to him. Knew that now he couldn't trust a single word that came out of her mouth, because he didn't know who said it.
"So," He said slowly, "She's listening now?"
Alex felt her face twist, "Of course I am, idiot. So don't go sucking face with this little- Shit, she doesn't want me to say that word. Why don't you leave, Fawley? Maybe me and lover boy will have more fun when you're gone."
"What the hell." Sirius was pale.
Alex's face was scrunched up in pain as two parts of her head warred for dominance. Her skull felt like it was cracking open.
"Alex." It was Sirius' voice, like it had always been there. His fingers carefully ringed her wrists, and that was when she realised she had covered her face with her hands, "Alex, look at me. I'm scared."
A silent pact was almost instantly formed between the halves as they were brought back to reality. Neither of them wanted to die. This petty squabbling could wait until later.
"I'm okay." Alex assured Sirius, lowering her hands to give him a strained smile, and lacing her fingers through his as she did, "I am. All sorted."
"Just so you know," Sirius was smiling again, if only slightly, "This is very confusing for me."
Alex snorted, "Yeah, imagine what it's like to live it. It doesn't matter right now, though."
"Is that right?" Sirius raised his eyebrows. This felt so familiar. The Alex-Sirius banter that she became so used to, reliant upon, though she couldn't remember when.
"This might seem like a surprise to you," Alex whispered teasingly, "But we're still in an underground Death Eater party house."
Sirius glanced at the metal door like he was seeing it for the first time, "Now how did that happen?"
"Well, as far as I can recall, someone let himself get captured." Alex couldn't fight off a smile, "Someone who used to say- what was it, remind me- 'best dueller in-"
"I get the idea, Fawley." Sirius was grinning too, "What's your planning for getting us out? Where's your wand?"
"Don't have it."
Sirius internalised a flinch, "Backup?"
"Just the head-goblin."
Sirius breathed through his nose, "Weapons?"
Alex removed the gun from her back pocket and held it up between her thumb and forefinger.
Sirius stared at it, "Right."
"Theoretically, we should just be able to walk out of here." Alex hypothesised, "It didn't take much lying to get in. It won't take much to get out. Us two. I want to execute you somewhere else."
He choked, "Execute me?"
She winked, "Only if you don't do what you're told."
"Are you flirting with me, Fawley?"
Alex frowned, "Now you don't like flirting?"
Sirius sighed, "You're the most awkward person I've ever met."
"That's why you like me." Alex responded, "You just have to make life a challenge for yourself."
"I swear you're meant to be quiet and shy." Sirius commented absently.
Alex's smile wavered, "I think I've had enough of 'meant to be'."
He looked down at their hands, still knotted together, though both their palms were slick with sweat from the ideas they refused to let cross their minds, the ideas about what was waiting outside the door, "Yeah, me too."
"Okay then." She let go of his hands to reach for the door, "You ready to go?"
"No good luck kiss?"
Alex tapped the side of her head, "I don't make out with an audience. Sorry, Black."
"Black?" Sirius' eye glittered with mischief, "I thought I was an emotion, not a word-"
Alex groaned, "Shut up or I'll shoot you."
His grin only widened as he put his hands behind his back, waiting patiently as Alex tied them together again, "I've missed you, Alex."
Alex reached around him for the doorhandle, and felt him shiver as her breath ghosted his neck, "I think I've missed me too."