Summary: “You won’t,†he said and smiled, an ugly, disfigured looking thing as though he had forgotten the art. How she could remember his smile…. “I know you. You wouldn’t, Meda. Not to me.†Shortly after breaking out of Azkaban, Sirius Black pays someone a visit.
Categories: Dark/Angsty Fics Characters: None
Warnings: None
Challenges: Series: None
Chapters: 1
Completed: Yes
Word count: 2092
Read: 1055
Published: 04/17/14
Updated: 05/01/14
1. Chapter 1 by foolondahill17
Chapter 1 by foolondahill17
–I’ve been waiting until you were alone,†said the voice, and Andromeda whipped around. People sometimes whispered she had Seer blood. She’d always been very good at Divination. She could sometimes sense things -- different happenings -- with a presentiment almost…uncanny. Even now, staring at his figure silhouetted in the door, she felt as though she’d been expecting him, had waited all evening for his arrival, as though she had been foretold of his coming -- perhaps in a dream, or long ago when she’d been a child too small to remember.
–Get out,†said she, her voice cold and merciless in her own ears, almost drowning out the thumping of her heart.
–Meda --â€
–No,†she said, –do not speak to me. You’ll find no shelter -- no sanctuary here. Go.â€
–Meda, please,†he said again, his voice a whisper from disuse, lowered further in degradation and pleading -- in humiliation.
–I refuse to listen to your lies,†she spat. Her voice felt coarse against the flesh of her throat. –Leave before I notify the Aurors.â€
–You won’t,†he said and smiled, an ugly, disfigured looking thing as though he had forgotten the art. How she could remember his smile…. –I know you. You wouldn’t, Meda. Not to me.â€
–Do not take me so for granted,†she said, shocked and angry with herself to feel her eyes burn. –You don’t know me anymore, nor I you -- not anymore. Any ties were cut long ago -- thirteen years ago, Sirius.†She felt his name slip accidentally from her lips. It felt torpidly familiar on her tongue, as though her voice had not forgotten the way she used to laugh it, welcome it, caress it as if it lived and breathed. She hadn’t forgotten.
He started visibly at the word. In some disconnected part of her brain Andromeda wondered how long it had been since he’d heard it, if he was only known as a number in that -- place. She wondered perhaps if he had forgotten it, his name. He smiled again, the same cruel smirk that held none of his life.
He was dead, she reminded herself. It was because he was already dead.
He looked dead, like a decaying corpse. His skin was stretched, yellowing and taut, across the bones of his face. His hair was long and unkempt. It had always been long -- before been long -- but never like this. He’d always considered his hair a matter of pride, had swept it back from his face with casual indifference. Now it looked limp. It curtained his face like tattered drapes might hang about a shattered window.
Andromeda fought back other familiar impulses, like his name when it had fallen thoughtlessly from her tongue. She wanted to run to him like she had all those years ago when he’d come to visit. She wanted to embrace him, to take his head in her hands and kiss him on the cheek like he’d always pretended to hate. She came to herself and flung away her thoughts, back to the deepest regress of her mind where the rest of her family lay. She was repulsed at herself.
Perhaps Sirius guessed her thoughts for he continued to smile at her -- leer at her. Azkaban had not stolen his arrogance.
–I wanted to see you,†he said suddenly, sounding stiff. He was evidently unaccustomed to conversation. –I don’t know why --â€
She had never wanted to set eyes on him again.
She stared at him, mustering all her cold wrath into her gaze and he suddenly looked afraid.
–I’m sorry, Meda,†he stumbled upon his words. –I -- I know how much I’ve hurt --â€
Andromeda laughed, a bitter, feverish sounding thing that had something of Bella hidden in its ripples. –It’s funny to hear it from you,†she said. –You’ve hurt a great number of people. Least of all me.â€
A spasm of pain seemed to cross his face, –I -- I know….â€
–What is this?†she scoffed, taking herself unaware as had her laugh, –Is this regret? From you, Sirius? Why, Blacks do not regret. Remember? We do not make mistakes.â€
His face seemed to get whiter. His eyes, sunken, dead eyes of a corpse, almost flickered with pain. –Don’t,†he said, –Not -- not from you, Meda. Please, not from you.â€
They relapsed into silence. Andromeda’s heart was racing. Her breast heaved with breath. She stared at him in contempt -- in disgust.
–Why are you here?†she asked when she couldn’t bear the silence any longer.
–I only,†said Sirius, –I only want to see -- to see you, Meda. Only to see you.â€
–Not to kill me?†she hissed. Her throat was obstructed by something harsh and unyielding. It was hard to breathe. –Don’t you want to kill me too? Like you’ve done all your friends?â€
–No,†he whispered as though he begged her. She felt her heart throb unexpectedly. She had never imagined she’d talk like this to Sirius -- never imagined she could hate him. She disgusted herself -- and disgusted herself further for feeling such things for him -- him a criminal, a murderer. She held her chin high and refused to let down her mask.
–Your,†stammered Sirius, –Your daughter. Dora --â€
–Don’t you touch my child,†said Andromeda abruptly, her heart throbbing with a different kind of pain.
–No,†he said again and seemed to cower, –No, Meda -- I -- no.â€
She wondered why he still stood there and what he could possibly want from her. He was right, she had no intention of informing the Aurors. But he would certainly find no asylum with her. She wouldn’t let blood stand between him and the safety of her family.
–I wanted,†started Sirius and stopped. Andromeda waited for him to finish, for him to leave. At the same time she felt a curious kind of pulse in her stomach, like longing. She didn’t want him to go.
She realized she was shaking. She wondered if this was what insanity felt like, this coursing of conflicting emotions through her veins.
–I’m glad,†started Sirius again. There seemed to be something stuck in his throat that prevented him from speaking. He struggled passed it. –Glad you’ve made a life -- I’m happy -- glad for you, Meda.â€
–I’m surprised you can still feel happiness, Sirius,†said Andromeda, acutely aware she was being cruel, merciless and not caring, wanting to pump him full of pain. –Didn’t the Dementors suck it all out of you?â€
Sirius’s face was insipid and paper like. He seemed to tremble. –I -- I can’t, Meda. They did.â€
His words struck her like a physical blow and she immediately wondered what she’d expected. Sirius, her little, laughing cousin Sirius, unable to feel happiness. What a horrible casualty, happiness. She forced back these thoughts, these regrets, tried to punish herself for remembering him as he’d been.
She wanted to tell him to leave again. She wanted to take out her wand, to make him writhe, to make him hurt for his betrayal -- Instead she found herself saying something entirely different, something unexpected but at the same time completely predictable because she had wondered it for such a long time,
–How?†said she, –How did they not -- the dementors -- you’re…different. How did they not take over completely? How did you get away?â€
His lips twisted, face contorted in something like agony. –You wouldn’t believe me,†he said haltingly, –If I told you.â€
–How did you escape?†Andromeda’s lips ran on of their own accord. –Why? What are you trying --?â€
–Why?†said Sirius and almost looked angry, deranged. –You don’t know, Meda? You don’t -- I’d do anything -- you -- anything,†he was growing paler, as if only the memory of the dementors was able to suck him of his life, fill him again with empty fear. –You don’t know. Anything -- to get away. I’d -- sell my soul….â€
Andromeda laughed again. A high pitched, hysterical peal of laughter laced with bitterness that echoed deformedly off her kitchen walls and made Sirius look at her in shock. –Poor choice of words, Sirius,†she said through gasps of breath, when she could form the words. She dug her fingers into her side. –Sell your soul.â€
Sirius breathed something that sounded like a strangled laugh. Andromeda clawed at her ribs harder to distract from her throbbing heart. He stopped smiling and suddenly looked afraid again. For a moment he looked on the verge of saying something but Andromeda interrupted him,
–What for, then, Sirius?†she said, –You still haven’t told me what for.â€
–Freedom isn’t enough?†said Sirius.
–You’ll never be free,†said Andromeda’s lips. –They’ll catch you again,†she pushed passed the spasm of terror that severed his face. –You know it. You’ll never -- not -- not again.â€
–You don’t know --†started Sirius again. Andromeda was getting tired of this. She was tired of this string of passions, this aching fever. Her whole body was shaking. She fought back the urge to laugh again, or begin screaming, to take out her wand and curse him, to run to him and fall at his feet, beg him to stay…. She’d protect him.
–I’m,†said Sirius, –I’m looking --â€
–Looking for what?†she spat, and grabbed the first thing her hands came into contact with because her fingers were shaking so violently. It was the back of a chair. She clutched it until her fingernails bit into the wood but was at the same time unaware that she did so. –Your Dark Lord? Are the rumors true? He’s dead, Sirius. Gone. There’s no use --â€
Go back. Give yourself up. She’d meant to say it but her throat closed in of itself. It was not in his nature, not in hers. He’d run until he died.
–No,†he said, –No, Meda, not him.â€
It was something in the way he said it, some underscore of doom, some lingering accent of wrath, of fire. It made Andromeda choke.
–Who?†she whispered, her voice low and rickety when she’d meant to sound fierce. It seemed as though a shadow fell over the kitchen. It was death, death himself and hate. –Who then? Who else have you left to kill?â€
A tremor seemed to run through his body. A strange light sprang into his eye. It made a shiver run down Andromeda’s spine. It made her fear him, fear her cousin for the first time in her life. She suddenly understood it. She understood it all, how he had survived the dementor’s power, how he’d escaped, why he’d come….
Revenge. The same force that had driven Bella to the last peer of insanity. It had ravished homes, torn families asunder, lit Sirius’s eye with grim resolve. Revenge, a rank obsession that had kept Sirius breathing on the gates of death. Andromeda’s revelation sent her into a cold sweat. She backed away from him.
Sirius smiled again. It was no longer a mockery of his former self but something entirely new. It was fully formed and ugly, something designed. –You don’t know, Meda,†his voice slithered across the kitchen floor. –You don’t know.â€
She shuddered. Her hands clutched the back of the chair although in a convulsion. His eyes were empty again, his smile gone. He looked again defeated but she remembered, remembered the spasm of hate…. –I’m glad,†he croaked again, –glad for you….â€
She felt as if she was going to be sick. Bile rose in her throat. She gagged and turned her back from him, unable to stare at his face for another second. Her reserve had broken. She was utterly haggard, exhausted, done.
He left. With her back to the door she felt it. Her heart seemed to seize and she turned back around to say something… something. Perhaps that she was – was sorry, perhaps come back, perhaps only to whisper good-bye…but she already knew he was gone. It was too late.
The door she faced was empty.
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