Sirius didn't come back that day. Or the next. Or the next. Or the next. His birthday passed with no celebration whatsoever and Lavinia simply stared at the present she had intended to give him, at the wedding ring in its little case that should have been around his finger, just as she still had a ring around hers. Paris returned that day, but Lavinia didn't bother sending him out again. The legal papers she'd intended to have him carry still sat on her desk, a constant tug on her thoughts, reminding her of the promises they'd both made. Promises that now seemed so far away and so worthless. Promises of forever that she suddenly realized neither of them could keep.
Every day that he was gone his absence was like a physical thing in the house, a phantom presence that kept sneaking into those few disjointed conversations Lavinia and Remus had attempted, amplifying the grief they already had. As if the awful silence left in the wake of Lily and James's passing wasn't enough pain to be getting on with.
"Give him time," Remus kept saying. "He needs time."
And Lavinia would have. Would have given him all the time in the world, would have let him stay away for as long as he needed. All she wanted was to know that he was alive. That was all she would have asked. All she would have needed. One tiny little bit of proof and she could weather this storm. Could weather any storm.
But proof that he was alive arrived on the fourth day after he had left and Lavinia decided that she had been wrong. She could not handle anything as long as he was alive. Because she could not handle this.
Proof came in the morning Prophet, which Remus had started getting delivered again as soon as they had gotten news of the Dark Lord's defeat, presumably to keep track of Death Eater arrests and the like. After all, they didn't really need to be in hiding anymore. The biggest threat was gone. And with James and Lily dead... there was no secret left to keep, even if Sirius had been there. Which, of course, he wasn't. So it was a moot point anyway.
When the paper came, Lavinia was sitting on the couch with a mug of coffee in her hands, as much of a breakfast as Remus had been able to convince her to have. She took the Prophet from the owl, tucked a few coins into his pouch and unfolded it. Right there on the front page, in big bold letters, was the worst headline Lavinia had ever read.
SIRIUS BLACK ARRESTED FOR MURDER OF 12 MUGGLES AND PETER PETTIGREW
The world slipped away. There was only those words. That ink that spelled out something that was wrong. That had to be wrong. This couldn't be real. None of this could be real. The world couldn't turn this upside down this quickly so this headline had to be wrong. It had to be.
The words of the article barely registered, but it didn't matter. She got the drift. Peter was dead. Sirius had killed him. Had betrayed James and Lily and killed him. Twelve innocent muggles were caught in the blast that took out nearly an entire block. And then Sirius had laughed.
Impossible. It was impossible. For multiple reasons.
Impossible.
Lavinia didn't care what the article said, didn't care about the evidence staring her in the face, she didn't believe for a second that Sirius would have sold out his best friend. And those thoughts she'd been having started to trickle back in, the pieces of some great puzzle falling into place and in some ways, it was worse. Worse to know the truth. Worse to know that he had lied.
Because Sirius had run at the news that Peter had abandoned his home, with no sign of a struggle and no broken enchantments. He had fled with fear and guilt in his eyes and he had said... had said...
Remember I love you.
Like he knew what he was about to do. Like he knew the price. Knew it would cost them both the forever they'd promised.
But It didn't matter what he had said. She did not care what he had said. What mattered was what he had done. Or not done. The Sirius she knew would never have put the Potters in danger. Would never have left the house if it threatened them.
A little voice whispered in her head that the Sirius she knew would always come back to her and since he hadn't done that... She brushed it aside.
She could not - did not - believe that Sirius would have left the house if it would have risked exposing his friends. Which implied that it hadn't. And the only way that could be true was if... if he had never been secret-keeper at all.
But then, who had been?
The paper dropped out of Lavinia's hands and onto the coffee table.
Peter. Peter, who no one would suspect. Peter, who had gone into hiding at the exact same time they had. Peter, whose disappearance had made Sirius near frantic with worry. Because there had been no sign of a struggle. Because that meant... that meant Peter had gone willingly.
Lavinia closed her eyes, understanding washing over her along with a guilt that seemed to creep into her very bones. Peter had betrayed them. Peter had been the spy. And Lavinia hadn't seen it. Had even fought for him, begged Sirius to trust his old friend.
Her fault.
It was her fault that Sirius had trusted Peter enough to switch them out. A clever move, really, and one that would have worked had he chosen anyone else.
Her fault.
And James and Lily were dead because of it. Because she had refused to be suspicious. Because she had refused to stop trusting him, stop caring about him. Because she had fought for him and Sirius... Sirius had trusted her judgement.
Her fault.
The weight of grief and guilt was crushing, like a piano dropped from the sky and she felt her bones breaking beneath it, her soul wrung dry as its heavy presence settled along her skin.
Her fault.
And true, she had not been the one to hand over the information and true, she should probably be blaming Peter more than she was but... but he had been so afraid. And so lonely. And of all of his friends she had been the only one who had fought for him. The only one who had kept caring and made sure he knew it.
She wondered then how all this might have gone if James and Sirius and Remus all had stopped to care about Peter just a little bit more. If they had bothered to try to help him just a few more times. If they had not left him lonely and vulnerable. And though she knew the world would have condemned Peter if they knew... she could not. Not when she had stood in front of Death Eater wands and considered doing the exact same thing.
One life for the price of another.
One life for the price of the world.
Lavinia could guess whose life Peter had bothered to protect. And though it killed her, though she hated every moment of it... she could not blame him nearly as much as she knew she should. Because part of her... part of her couldn't help but wonder if she might have done the exact same thing.
One life for the price of the world.
And how much would she give, how much would she throw away just to keep her friends safe? How much would she be willing to sacrifice to bring those lives back? To save the people she cared about? And Peter... Peter had had only one person left who he cared about. One person he thought was worth saving because the rest of them... the rest of them had not bothered. Had not loved him even knowing how terrified her was. Even knowing that deep down, he had a coward's heart. But Lavinia had. Because Lavinia knew that deep in her core... she was a coward too.
So she could not blame him, at least not for that. For turning their friends in... she wished she could hate him for that. Wished the broken pieces of her heart would stop pitying him. Stop feeling for him. Stop remembering the friend she had loved so fiercely, who had laughed with her and spent time with her and spared moments of his day that she knew both of them had cherished.
She wished she hated him.
And yet... She could not. Not when he was dead and the deed was done. Not when it couldn't be fixed.
And she knew then, that she would never tell a soul what she had guessed. Because though it might clear Sirius's name of this one misdeed.... She could not clear him of charges of murder. And she would not sully her friend's memory. Even if she couldn't forgive him... she didn't want to hurt him.
But of course, Sirius would not have thought that way. And as soon as he figured out that Peter had betrayed them... Well. The man she loved, the man she'd intended to marry, valued loyalty above all else. And in his grief, in his rage... it wasn't such a stretch to think he might have hunted Peter down, might have wanted answers. Or vengeance. Might not have spared a single thought for anything else in the world because James was dead. And Lavinia remembered only too well what the death of her own close friend had felt like. She too had run when Regulus had died. She had fled for the ends of the world, had wanted to hurt those who had hurt him. Hadn't spared a thought in the world for the worry she might have caused her friends in the process. So she did not blame him for that.
But she did blame him for other things.
Thirteen people. Thirteen. Lavinia was not stupid enough to think these were the first deaths on Sirius's hands. He had fought on the front lines of a war, after all. But these... Twelve muggles. Twelve innocents. Bystanders who had no role in this war, who had been in the wrong place at the wrong time and had caught the wild edges of Sirius's rage. And Peter. His friend. Or former friend, perhaps. But someone he had known and, at least at one point, loved. Thirteen people.
She wondered if he had even hesitated.
And yet, even that was not what made the void yawn wide. Even those thirteen wasted lives, even the death of yet another friend, would have been just more stones thrown into the pit in her chest, more bruises on her heart, more hells, to be sure, but ones she could bear.
No. What hurt, what really hurt, what made her leap head first into that void just to pray for a respite from this feeling, this awful feeling, was that he had had four days. Four days to screw his head on straight. Four days in which he'd had every chance, every choice. Four days to come back to her. And yet he had not.
And yes, it was understandable. Yes, she too had run and yes she too had failed to think of anything but her own grief when it had torn through her, but he had left. And despite every promise, despite the ring on her finger and the papers on her desk, he had not come back. Might never come back. Because he had been arrested. Arrested. And she knew where they would send him for the death of thirteen people.
Thirteen people.
So he was as good as dead. Worse than dead. Because they would make him suffer, make him hurt and cry and ache before he died. And she would never see him again.
She had not said goodbye.
And she couldn't decide if she wished she had because Sirius... Sirius had left. He'd had a choice. And he had not chosen her. And this grief... this was different. This was worse. Because she didn't know how to hold onto the man she loved because in the end... in the end it wasn't death that had taken him, wasn't some great accident or tragedy. This wasn't a parting she could pretend was no one's fault.
He'd had a choice.
The void in Lavinia's chest yawned wide.
He had not chosen her.
And just like that she stepped over that cliff she'd been hovering so near for the past several days and tumbled, freefalling into a void she didn't think had a bottom but at least here she couldn't feel. And she welcomed the silence, welcomed the numbness that spread through her. Welcomed the darkness of this endless fall.
But even in the silence and darkness, there was that whisper that had haunted her for the past four days.
Remember I love you.
So she'd been right. That had been goodbye. And Sirius... Sirius had known it.
Somewhere in the void of her chest, her heart, all the little pieces of it left by her many heartbreaks, by the many deaths and disappointments she had endured, shattered and blew away, mere dust on the wind.
She should have cried. She should have screamed and raged and grieved, but even as she stood there, her shock ebing to reveal a hand squeezing her chest like it wanted to tear it all out, Remus walked into the room, mug in hand and his face worn and tired, lined with more than just the grief of the past few days. Grief that would get heavier.
The thought struck her with the force of a train.
It was seven days until the full moon.
And with Sirius gone... Remus would ask her to lock him in a cage. To leave him to deal with his grief with teeth and claws and a mind that would not understand what to do with the hell she was sure was in his heart as much as it was in hers.
Seven days. Just enough time.
So Lavinia did not fall apart. She did not let herself. She just settled into the pit in her chest and decided to make herself a home there. After all, she didn't think she would want to leave anytime soon. She didn't think she would want to feel anytime soon.
That afternoon, Lavinia went to Diagon Alley and bought ingredients at the apothecary, her purse far too light afterwards. That evening, she brewed a potion, trying not to think too much about the lure of the knife in her hands as she chopped the ingredients. And that night, she set two identical flasks down in front of Remus, who looked up at her with a blank sort of pain in his face and words on his lips that she did not want to hear.
He said them anyway.
"Vin, Sirius was the-"
"I suggest," she cut him off in a voice that was not at all her own, "That you do not finish that sentence."
Remus closed his eyes and shook his head, his shoulders drooping and bowing. The dam broke. He was sobbing into his hands, tears spilling over his skin and Lavinia watched for only a moment, a cold sort of realization sinking in.
Someone had to be strong. For both of them.
And though she knew it was entirely the wrong thing to do, though she knew there would be consequences that she was not ready to pay, Lavinia embraced the hollow inside of herself, embraced the lack of feeling and embraced the tumbling fall into darkness. And through it all, she tried to convince herself that this empty inside was what strength felt like.
So she ignored the part of her that was screaming as she put her hands on Remus's shoulders and let him straighten up to see her face, see the silent camaraderie that was all she could offer. And then she wrapped her arms around him and wished and wished and wished that this was all it would take to make them both feel better.
Remus cried on her shoulder for hours and Lavinia hated herself for the dryness of her own eyes. Hated herself because though she could pretend it was strength, she knew what it really was, knew that this was just another way of running, of hiding. Knew that this was just another wall built for her coward's heart to hide behind. Knew that this time, there might well be no one around to catch her at the end of this plunge, because the only person left who might have done so was falling right by her side.
A/N: So, by popular demand, here is today's update. Not a single person said no to it so... here we go lol. I will say, I did warn you that it's not a good stopping point, but then, there isn't really a good stopping point until several chapters from now so... it was lose lose I guess.
In other news, I finally got around to fixing the backlight on my keyboard. It's been broken for like 2 years now and (here's the embarrassing part) I only realized like a week ago, that when it starts up from shut down, the backlight turns on for a moment. So it's not broken, it's a software problem. Which I fixed. And now I can type in the dark! Actually, I already good type in the dark bc not having a backlight taught me how to blind type which is basically what I do all the time now, but it does make it easier to figure out where to set my hands down when I start lol. So that was fun.
Anyway, as usual, I hope y'all enjoyed and I'll be back again soon!