“Jocelyn, are you all “ where are you going?” James changed questions mid-sentence as she bounded down the stairs and strode toward him in her traveling clothes.
“James, does Sirius have your invisibility cloak?” she asked, halting before him, and ignoring his question.
“Yeah, I gave it to him back at Christmas,” he nodded. “But Joce’ “”
“You’re not going after Sirius, are you?” said Remus sharply.
“Aren’t you?” she said, very quietly, and Remus and James both winced.
“Jocelyn, it’s no use,” said James desperately. “We don’t even know where he’s going.”
“I know where he’s going,” she whispered. “And I’m going there as well.”
She turned toward the portrait hole.
“Don’t!” said Remus sharply.
Jocelyn turned back to face him.
“Sirius once risked everything to get me out of danger,” she said quietly.
“And it’ll be a fine way to repay him by walking into it now!” snapped Remus.
“No, I suppose a better way would be to sit here and let him fight off the Death Eaters alone, the way you two are!” she retorted harshly.
“He told us it to stay out of it,” said James defensively. He felt indignant. Did Jocelyn really think that, given his own way, he would be sitting here, instead off fighting Death Eaters with Sirius? “He told us there was too much at risk. He told us it was his battle.”
“There’s nothing at risk for me,” said Jocelyn quietly. “And any battle of his is a battle of mine,” she added, and turned away again.
“Jocelyn!” said Remus sharply.
She looked back at him and their eyes locked.
“Please don’t stop me,” she whispered.
Slowly, almost imperceptibly, he nodded. She turned and pushed her way out of the portrait hole. There was a swish of a cloak “ a click. She was gone.
James and Remus had not told Jocelyn the whole truth “ they hadn’t needed to “ but they hadn’t been completely honest when they’d told her they merely “thought” Sirius had gone after Bellatrix. They knew he had. While he had never said the words, he had as good as told them earlier that day.
“I’m going up to London,” he had announced the moment they were back in their dormitory after their last examination was over that afternoon.
“You’ll be back Sunday, then?” James had questioned carefully, but somehow he knew the answer before Sirius spoke.
“I don’t know,” Sirius replied, without looking at James.
“You’ve found her, then?” Remus demanded.
“I didn’t say that,” said Sirius quickly, avoiding all their eyes.
James swore quietly, then picked up his wand.
“Don’t follow me,” Sirius commanded abruptly, looking James in the eye.
“You’re mad if you think I won’t!” James answered indignantly. “I’m your best mate!”
“You bloody idiot, don’t you think I know that!” Sirius snapped. “I saved your life back in October, you don’t think I’m going to let you throw it away now!”
“You don’t think I’m not going to repay you!”
“I have no one!” Sirius barked, and James started. “If I die,” Sirius continued, in a much calmer voice, “no one will mourn my loss.”
“I will “!” James began indignantly, but Sirius interrupted him.
“No on will mourn my loss,” he repeated firmly. “But if you die… Lily, your parents … the Quidditch team….” He gave a small smile. “No, Prongs, there are too many people’s hearts involved for you to put yourself at risk.”
James opened his mouth, saw the expression on Sirius’s face, and shut it again.
“And what about me?” Remus demanded. “No one’s going mourn the loss of a werewolf!”
Sirius put a hand on Remus’s shoulder and looked at him for a long moment.
“You just take care of Jocelyn, all right?” he said quietly.
Slowly, Remus nodded.
“And “” Sirius’s voice cracked. He took a deep breath, then said in a much steadier voice, “And say goodbye to her for me.”
Slowly, reluctantly, they had nodded. Sirius had given them a last look, a last nod. Then he had slipped through the door of the dormitory, and disappeared.
Jocelyn had been standing before the London flat’s front door for a full minute. She did not want to open the door, to see what was inside, to have her fears confirmed. Oh, she knew he wasn’t inside, but to open the door, to see the empty flat, would extinguish her last, desperate hope. It would make everything absolute, irrevocable. Another minute ticked past, then another, and still she had not even moved to open the door. Memories were haunting her, conversations, all the ways she could have prevented this. And finally, after nearly five minutes, she reached out her hand; her fingers closed around the icy, dirty-gray doorknob; her hand rotated; her arm pushed; the door swung slowly, creakily open.
The flat was pitch dark. Jocelyn fumbled for a moment, then finally pulled her wand out of her pocket.
“Lumos,” she whispered. A narrow beam of light fell across the floor in front of her. Raising her wand higher, she looked around the room. There wasn’t any sign of life anywhere. A minute later she had checked the other rooms as well.
Having confirmed the flat was empty, Jocelyn began searching more carefully for a clue as to where Sirius had gone. She had seen an old, roller-top desk in one of the rooms, but when she tried to open it, she found it was locked.
“Alohomora,” she muttered, tapping the lock with her wand, but the desk still remained tightly shut. Frustrated, she pounded the top of the desk with her fist, but she didn’t really expect this help. Something small fell to the floor, but Jocelyn was too intent on opening the desk to notice. Her hand throbbing, and angry now, she raised her wand, intending to blast it open. The narrow beam from her wand fell across a piece of parchment, wedged under the bottom of the roller-top. Curious, she bent down to look at it more closely, and saw the bottom half of some handwritten characters. Intrigued, she grasped hold of the parchment and carefully began working it free. When she had finally gotten it out, she saw it was only two words, underlined and circled: Toujours Pur. She frowned. What did that mean? Why was their family maxim a key to finding Bellatrix? Unless “
Jocelyn gasped.
“He didn’t!” she breathed.
If Sirius had gone there…
There wasn’t any time to lose. Crumpling the piece of parchment in her hand and stuffing it into her pocket, Jocelyn had turned toward the door when her foot slipped on something, and she heard the clink of metal on wood. Lowering her wand toward the floor, she saw the glint of something shiny. Bending down, she found a thin, gold ring lying by her feet, a piece of parchment shoved into its center. Frowning, she picked it up, pushed the parchment out of it, smoothed that out, and began to read.
Jocelyn,
I know I will be dead long before you read this, so I want you to know that
Here, it seemed, his hand had slipped, because the cross on the t jerked abruptly downward. The words below it were written in a hastier scrawl.
There is no time to say what I wanted to, and now I’m not even sure how to put it into words. Read the inscription on this ring, and I know you’ll understand.
I’m sorry “ so sorry “ about everything.
Sirius
Jocelyn crumpled the parchment in her fist, holding it there as she examined the ring more closely, squinting to read the thin, slanting inscription: Contre Ceux Toujours Purs. He had really gone, she realized. She opened the note again, staring at the words I will be dead long before you read this and the mutilated t, and in that moment she knew what she had to do. Stuffing the parchment in her pocket with the other piece, she slipped the ring on her finger, and turned back toward the door.
She had made her decision.