Sirius's POV
I shut the door quietly behind me and leaned against it, crossing my arms. Tara looked up from the desk that hadn't been moved out of our room and gave me a small smile before returning to what she was working on.
"You and I need to talk," I said after a minute of watching her write.
She looked up, nerves flashing before her eyes before rolling her chair back out from under the desk. I found myself glad that she didn't instantly try to assume what was going on. Instead, she looked up at me and asked, "What is it?"
"Tara," I looked down for a moment before shaking my head and standing up to go sit on the bed. "You've been so distant since you were sent down to... that place. I... I'm worried that you're not doing well."
She tilted her head curiously to look at me, "What would give you that impression?"
I scooted closer and leaned forward to take her hand before looking her in her eyes, "Tara. I have known you for over a decade and a half now. I know when something's bothering you."
Thankfully, she didn't bring up that I wasn't actually there for the majority of that time. For all I knew, she could have changed her behavior. This could be a woman that I could no longer read. For all I knew, she could need the isolation now.
I continued on before she could say anything, "You don't have to tell me anything that happened if you don't want to. I just don't want you to have to suffer alone. You've been so quiet... I'm just worried. You do nothing but work at this desk and exercise."
She looked at me, somehow calmer now that I had spoken and finally said, "I know. I know I've been distant." She looked down and shook her head. "This injury... has been a long term thing. I have to be incredibly careful about it. Once I'm able to stand again, Apollo will replace the brace that's been on my spine since the initial injury. But I have to get it back into basic function before he can put the brace on. I have to get it back into alignment. And everything that has happened recently... Sirius, I know you've felt it. The war's been back for nearly a year now, ever since Harry saw Tom. I'm trying to plan ahead. For the battle. The final battle. But everything is forcing itself against progress right now."
I sorted through the jumble of information and filed most of it away for later, "What do you mean 'against progress'?"
She grimaced, "My spine is stuck. It's just in one place, and I've been working at it for weeks, but I can't get it to release. It aches all the time and now I can't get in touch with Wesley for some reason. I don't know what's going on and there's not much I can do about it right now while I'm still injured."
I allowed the silence to linger for a moment before she finally sighed, "I can't get things done, stuck the way I am, whether I'm able to write or not. There's information that needs to be gathered, people that need to be checked on personally. I can't just contact some of these people out of the blue for the first time in a decade- they need true, physical proof that I'm actually alive. There are so many things I have t do. I'm writing as many people as I can for information and for help and it just isn't enough right now. Something is coming in the next few months- I've felt it for the past few weeks, growing in my mind. Tom is back, but something more is coming. And there's nothing I can do about it."
It took a moment before I crossed the room to crouch beside her at her chair, "You still have time then."
She looked over at me, brows furrowed, "What do you mean, time?"
"To heal. A few months is a lot of time if you look at it in the space of days in a month. And who says you can't travel and fight like that? You've always been able to figure something to work around an injury or a difficulty- what's a disability compared to some of the other things you've done? You need to think outside the box, even if you think you might be stuck in one."
She blinked slowly, and her head tilted to the side, and for the first time, I realized that in the past weeks, the mischief had left her eyes and the energy had followed. But now a fire seemed to return, small and uncertain, but I knew that determination when I saw it- Harry was so like her sometimes, and he had yet to notice it. Her hand moved to tap on the wheel at her left side, and sparks danced under her fingers, the physical manifestation of an idea that flew to her a moment later, her brows flying up in surprise in response. "I hadn't- I didn't..." She went breathless and then she was tearing through her drawers, making me take a step back.
I looked at the sudden, growing mess on the desk and floor around it, "What're you looking for?"
"You know how it's damn near impossible to get in touch with Alastor without going to straight to his house nowadays?"
She tossed something over her shoulder and a knife embedded itself in the wall behind me. I gave myself a small pat on the back for not flinching, as it had flown only a foot over my head at a velocity that had it in the wall to its hilt. "Yeah. Why?"
"Well, a while ago, he found me."
"What?" My entire world stopped for a moment. Moody had known. He had known where she was, all those years.
Her movements paused and she turned to lock those dark eyes on mine, daring me to say something more. I kept my mouth shut, and she continued, "It was really only about five years ago, when Harry had just been brought to school, and I was looking around the school for a way to find a place to see him without anyone other than Albus suspecting. Alastor had been hired by Albus to scout the campus and make sure nobody dangerous was lurking around, trying to get a taste of The Boy Who Lived. He stumbled across me on his third pass of the clearing I was in, told me his instincts had insisted someone was there. He agreed to keep my secret and gave me something to contact him, in case of emergency."
"And what, in his mind, would classify as an emergency here?"
She raised a brow and gestured to herself, "I am in need of an inventor, obviously, and Alastor has made himself quite able in this world with what he has done for himself. I might be able to create things, and the gods I serve may even be able to do wonderful things, but nothing has done anything to help. You and I both know that Moody's got a stubbornness even worse than mine- how do you think he managed to figure out a way so that he could get around so well."
"All he has is a prosthetic leg, though."
"Ah," she pulled a small conductor's watch out of the drawer and shook it slightly before setting it on the desk beside her and reaching into the drawer once more to pull out an ancient sheet of paper and a unique looking pen. "That's all he lets you see. Just as all I usually allow is the sight of the scar and my tattoo."
She paused again at the mention of the tattoo, the briefest hesitation that only someone who knew her would hear. And then I had an idea at the thought of it, "Maybe he could help design a special saddle for Tide or something!"
When her entire face fell, I knew I had said something wrong, and I watched as she forced herself to push herself closer to the desk and begin writing with the quill on the paper, "I can't find him either."
"What?" And once again, I was shocked. "What do you mean you can't find him? I thought you two were bonded?"
"We were. We are. But he has blocked me from his mind."
My voice came as a somber whisper. "Why?"
She shrugged, "Because I had to make him leave. He was too big to hide. I visited him for a while, but he hated when I left and eventually told me to stay away if I wasn't going to stay with him. We are bonded. It's painful to be away from one another. It was even more painful every time I left, both for him, and for me, and he hated to see me in pain too. So he told me not to visit anymore. We had a only a few brief conversations with our bond after that, but it felt like knives every time, knowing that he couldn't come to me and I couldn't come to him. Eventually, he blocked it and me. I'm not sure if it was to keep me or him from the pain, but either way... his magic is too powerful for me to simply break through it and I wouldn't do that even if I had the ability because it would scare him and hurt him. It would break what trust we still do have left in each other."
"So... he's just gone?"
Her lower lip wobbled and I wanted to take the question back immediately, "For now, I suppose. Until I can finally get back up on my feet or I can travel myself... he's somewhere in the world right now. I just hope he's somewhere he likes. Somewhere nice and cold... maybe he went to one of the Poles."
Her faux optimism was heartbreaking and I wrapped her in my arms. She rested her head against me for a minute, heaving another long sigh that I suspected was holding back tears that had not been shed in some time. But after that moment, she sucked the breath back in and sat herself up as straight as she could again, and went back to look at the letter.
My brows furrowed and I changed the subject, despite wanting to let her talk about it more, "You're not using any ink."
"The watch is linked to a clock in his house. Incendio. Once the paper is fully burned, it will reappear in that clock, and it will give the grooves left by my quill ink for him to read. The clock will tell him there is a message waiting for him there."
The paper burned away before our eyes and I watched as it lit up the room for a moment, the mess on the floor sending shadows all across the carpet. And a few minutes later, the watch began to sing a tinny little tune, before cutting off abruptly. She held it as it rang and we watched as the hands on it moved of their own accord before landing on a time an hour from now. She tucked it away into a pocket, "He'll be here then. I let him know it wasn't an emergency, so he must not be too busy."
"What're you going to do in the meantime?"
"Probably do some stretching," she looked around, rolling herself back and forth a little.
"Will you come with me and have a drink?"
She didn't even hesitate, relief seeming to flood through her, "Sure."
Moody found us in the kitchen with spiked tea in our hands, firewhiskey making the tea even hotter than usual. He turned down a cup before I could pour one for him and then he and Tara disappeared into the room she was using for training and they stayed in there. I didn't sleep very well usually, but without her by my side, I didn't even try to sleep and James came downstairs around midnight after spotting the light from the fire in the living room while he was on a trip to the bathroom.
"Thought I heard Moody here this evening? Is that what Tara's doing right now?" He leaned back on the sofa next to me and took my offer of tea and firewhiskey quickly, sipping at it with a small shiver.
"Yeah. I gave her an idea apparently, and she needed an 'inventor'."
He hummed, "'suppose Moody's a good one to call for that."
"I suppose," I sipped at my tea. "What about you? What's going on?"
"Just a nightmare. The war coming back's got me a little jumpy."
I shot him an understanding look, "'s'why I didn't go to bed yet."
We were quiet for a moment and then he raised a brow and eyed the door Tara and Moody were hidden behind, "They explode anything yet?"
I shook my head, "Not as far as I've heard. But it's still early."
We drank our tea in silence after that and for a couple hours remained awake together, until the door to the room flew open and Tara- somehow- tramped her way down the stairs. Her movements were certainly slow, and not entirely confident, but Moody let her go a few feet ahead of him as they approached us. Tara had a grin on her face.
James was on his feet his eyes as wide as his smile, "What did you do?"
"I had an idea but I wasn't sure how to follow it through. Moody tried to explain a couple of the magical bone anchors he used on his leg to keep it moving right. He also grabbed the piece of my spine that was out of place and pulled it back in so it was right."
"Grabbed-" I blinked a couple of times, wondering if I was hearing things because I was tired. "What?"
"Moody's got a couple invented spells that he uses that he helped me learn. He used one of them to pull my spine back into the right place. The other one we used to anchor my spine in the right place, so as long as I keep myself balanced nicely for the next few weeks while it heals properly again, I'll be able to walk and stand for a while until I get too tired."
The man patted her on the back roughly, "Glad I could help better than a god could. Call me if you need anything else, eh?"
"Course, same to you."
He gave us an acknowledging grunt and then left the room. We heard the door slam a moment later.
I walked up to her and held my hands out, "This is amazing! I didn't think you would find a solution so quickly."
She smiled, "I know! Alastor really knows his stuff- he's done a lot of healing on himself so I called him to see if he could help me create a functional brace for me to stand properly. He did me one better and did this! I'll still need the chair and my crutches for a while while I get used to it and get my muscles and spine back into working order, but at least I'll be able to walk. It might not mean that I can Apparate- and I might not like to do it around you guys too much, but I can still Shadow Travel as long as I can walk. I probably can do it in my chair too, but I hadn't even thought to try it."
James grinned and gave her a hug before pulling back and yawning, "I'm happy for you, Tar'. Can't wait till everyone else sees in the morning, but I ought to head back to bed. Lily'll start to worry soon."
"Thanks. See you in the morning," she gave him a wave as he walked up the stairs back to his room. She looked back up at me, "And thank you. For making me feel like I could actually do something about my situation again."
Finally, I relaxed and smiled, so glad that she was better and walking again, even though she wasn't really better, just assisted temporarily. I hoped silently that nothing like that would ever happen again and wrapped my arms around her, hoping it would give some protection to one of the most dangerous women in the world.
Tara's POV
I slept. I exercised. I wrote my contacts.
Over and over again, for two more weeks after I got back on my feet. And then finally, I felt my body was safe enough to Shadow Travel at least. I said my goodbyes early one morning and stepped deep into the darkness.
I had considered immediately going to search for Tide, but the way my back was at the moment, didn't give me the maneuverability I might need to do any serious fighting if it was necessary, and I still couldn't be on my feet for a whole day without my crutches. They stayed strapped to my back now, just in case. Instead, I had chosen to go to my friend Wes's last address, where he and his husband had lived- to my knowledge- up until at least the last few months, until I had lost contact with him.
My letters sat left on the doorstep, unopened, and I knew something had gone wrong. Creeping through the house told even less of a story than I had hoped though. I had expected the scene of a great battle, but instead found everything still neatly tucked away, only a few articles of clothing obviously missing. It looked as though they had left of their own accord, but it still didn't make sense that I wasn't able to find them. Owls were trained to go to the person, not just the address, and these had still been delivered here. Something very strange was happening.
And then, in an instant, the whole house seemed to shake and I crouched and stepped my way back into the shadows where I was safe and invisible. A few minutes later, five men walked in through the front door- Death Eaters- the letters left behind meant to confuse, the neat house because Wes and his husband had probably known they were coming and had chosen to leave rather than fight the day they came.
And now, this house was meant to be their trap. When the house had shook, I had heard the doors lock magically all around me, the windows nearly cracking with the force of the spell on the house meant to keep people in. But nobody who had set this trap had anticipated me. And they certainly hadn't known I had been the one sending the letters. All of my letters were written in code to be translated upon their arrival, and none of them carried my name, so they wouldn't have been of any use except to have been rather suspect because of the code. And still, no true valuable information was in them. So the whole place had become a trap to use against somebody who was sure to come back for old keepsakes. Evidently, they didn't know my friends as I did.
I hid myself around the first corner of the hallway and kept my spine as neutral as possible so I could turn on a dime.
"Think they finally came back?"
"Hope so. These ones are a nuisance to keep having to check on."
"You really think they're as good fighters as the rumors say?"
"I didn't say nuisance because I was scared of 'em. Just nothing changes in here ever. I feel like we're being told to check for them for nothing. There hasn't been a sign of them here in weeks, and they don't seem to be coming back to get any of their stuff or those stupid letters. I don't understand why the Dark Lord wants these two marked off so bad either, I've never heard of either of them."
"They're old friends of someone's," one of the others in the back that had been silent so far spoke up. "An old haunt of his. An old haunt of ours. If we're lucky, we won't ever find them, and they'll remain alive wherever they are. Because if we kill them... the old friend... she's just waiting for a reason to come back. I know it."
They were all quiet then, because it wasn't like any Death Eater to be overly superstitious, and being the oldest there, they seemed to think he was telling the truth. I wondered who it was behind that mask, and what stories he had heard of me that made him nervous. But that was all I had needed to know. I didn't need to take care of these ones right now, and I didn't want to either. Wes and Paul had told me where they would go if they needed to hide. If they had used enough protective magic around the place, that would've taken care of the owls I sent too. If they'd used the spells I'd taught them, they wouldn't have been able to be found by most of the gods as well, which was probably why the few times I had tried to send Hermes, he had said he'd left the letter on the table for them. Of course the god would never admit to not being able to find someone.
I went through the shadows again, only just starting to grow tired with the constant traveling. Of all of the abilities I had, I used shadow-work the least, and it certainly showed with how it would start to wear on me. Thankfully, I wouldn't have to do many more hops, if my guess as to where they were was correct.
I got lucky. Both of them sat at a small fire in front of the stone cave they used as their hiding spot, and neither of them attacked me when I made noise as I approached. Instead, they both turned to look at me slowly, and neither of them looked surprised to see me. They did look excited though and they stood and came toward me swiftly at first, before seeing the crutches and slowing down. Instead of swinging me around like I had expected, Wes hugged me carefully and Paul did the same. I was grateful, but a little disappointed. It had been a long time since someone had consensually swung me around like a ragdoll. Strangely, I missed it. But my back certainly wouldn't thank me for it, so I resigned myself to waiting a few more months before I could aspire to that level of flexibility.
"Took you a while. What happened?" Wes asked.
I waved him off, "It's a long story. Are you guys okay?"
"Yeah. We got out about a day before the Death Eaters came for us, so we ended up being fine. We've got plenty of things stored away here to survive for quite some time and that's without us hunting and gathering." Wes watched as I walked to sit by the fire for a moment. "Seriously, Tara, what happened? You haven't had to use crutches in a long time."
I gritted my teeth but made myself relax. These people were my friends, even if I hadn't seen them in a while. "Hades had a task for me. I went into Tartarus and completed it. Hopefully, it'll help put the war off another year or so. I took a few pretty serious hits, but I should be mostly better in another month or two. In the meantime, I'm going to start tracking people down. I can't be used for missions or anything like this, so I'm going to make use of my time. Like it or not, if Tom is gathering an army, then we're going to need to gather one too. If you guys are with me then I hope you'll help and look through some of your old names."
Paul nodded slowly, looking at his husband, "We can do that. Anything else?"
I hesitated, but then dipped my head, "I'm looking for Tide. I don't know anyone's seen him or even heard from him... I'm... Honestly, I'm not even sure how to start looking for him, he's had me blocked out for so long."
They looked at each other and Wes looked down, "I don't know, Tara. We haven't seen or heard anything of him since you disappeared."
Paul bit his lip, "Didn't Lya say he'd heard someone had seen a dragon up north?"
Wes grimaced but agreed, "Yeah, but that's just 'a dragon'. That's hardly any information, with all the reservations up here for them."
"Well, then something had to be unique about it to have caught their attention, then don't you think?"
It was enough of a hint to go on, "Thanks, Paul, I'll look into it definitely, but I'm starting to overstay the time I have. Is there anything you'd like me to do to help? I'm sure I can manage the Death Eaters if you need me to."
Wes snorted humorlessly, "Absolutely not. They're recruiting up here a lot right now, Tara... there are so many of them it's sickening. If any of us attack right now, we'll have Snatchers and Death Eaters on our tails left and right. We'll stay here. You go home and get yourself completely better before you take on the world. Find Tide, stay home, and deal with what's going on there. I have a feeling we'll all know when the height of this war comes, and when it does, we'll answer your call with everyone we can."
I smiled at them, glad that even after all these years, my oldest friends still had my back. I embraced them one more time, "I'm sorry I couldn't stay longer, but I couldn't stay where I was not knowing if you two were still okay or not. Hopefully we'll see each other soon, and not for bad reasons."
"We'll have to find a good one then," Wes said, almost leaning over to hug me. "We'll miss you. Stay safe, and don't hesitate to call us if things go south over there."
Goodbyes said, we waved at each other once more before I disappeared back into the trees, back into the shadows.
The snow on the ground outside of Augusta's place surprised me. It had been a few weeks since I had been outside, with the way that my legs had barely allowed me to get around the house, let alone go out into the yard or anything of the sort. But as I thought about it briefly, I realized that it was nearing the middle of November, and that in all of the issues with my injuries and finding my contacts, I had entirely missed Halloween- although as I thought back on it more, I may have been unconscious for it as well. Nevertheless, I knocked on Augusta's door as it started to snow once more and was invited in swiftly by the brusque woman.
"Have you talked to Neville?"
"I have. We'd like you to try. Please."
The woman was actually asking... politely. My brows raised, I nodded, "Of course. I'll do my best. But you have to understand that they've been in this mental state for as long as I've been gone. Even if I can lead them out of the maze they're stuck in, I doubt they're going to come out of it mentally healthy. To be stuck in that state for so long... I'm not sure if they've just been peacefully unconscious inside there the entire time. I'm going to try to find them and talk to them first to decide if it's worth trying to bring them out of there."
She seemed to know everything I was already saying, "Find them and talk to them. If they seem like they'd be worse off out, then it'd be horrible to get our hopes up. I'll tell Neville you'll try to talk to them, but you're not bringing them back yet. I don't want him to get too excited, poor boy. He's gone through enough, he doesn't need his hopes crashing down on him like that."
I agreed, "I'm going to go see them later this week. I've got a few more things to double check before I try to contact them at all."
We talked a little more, and then I was back out the door once more, and my back was finally starting to ache. I'd only been out a few hours, but the Shadow Travelling had taken a lot more out of me than Apparating did, and was why I had only really intended on doing those two things. But before I went back home, I now had one last thing to do. I Travelled to the Post Owlery in Diagon Alley and wrote to Lya- a man who had been in the year below me at Durmstrang- asking him if he perhaps had heard anything of Tide. I sent the tawny owl off soon after paying and he vanished into the distance quickly after that. I had to resist stopping in and revealing myself at The Leaky Cauldron. Tom the Bartender made an absolutely wonderful Mystery Drink, that he would never tell me the ingredients of. I reckoned it was full of more than one addictive substance. I missed being able to go out to the tavern or the pub or a bar- living a secret life didn't really allow much in the way of a social life besides who you were living with. And I had always loved chatting with Tom.
And I missed Tide. Now that I had every intention of tracking him down, all of my suppressed sorrow at missing him came rushing to the surface, along with excitement at the idea of finding him, and fear of being rejected. While he had been loyal to me all those years, I had sent him away. And I had sent him away for a long time. While a decade and a half wouldn't be too much to us in the future, with our lives bound to be as long as they were, but we had grown up together, and we had never really been apart for more than a few weeks at a time in the most difficult of situations. To go from always being with a animal that can speak with you and have the same emotional attachment as a human in some ways... I missed my old friend so much it ached more than my back, and I wasn't certain that he would want me back with all the heartache I had likely caused him.
After a moment of standing in a slightly dark alleyway, I stepped back into the shadows and returned home, a strange mix of sadness and elation roiling in my chest.
Sirius found me later in the day curled up in bed with my eyes shut, not sleeping. He climbed in with me and held me, not asking what had happened to put me in such away, just being a silent comfort until finally, I fell asleep, and the pain all left for a little while.
A/N Another random update.