Jocelyn grinned.
“It’s brilliant!”
Sirius frowned at her.
“It’s dangerous, is what it is!” he said reprovingly.
Jocelyn rolled her eyes.
“Oh, Sirius!”
“You think this is a joke?” he demanded. “I tell you, this thing is dangerous! Terrible things could happen if you went down there.”
“What things?” she questioned, raising her eyebrows skeptically.
“Terrible things,” answered Sirius, looking mysterious.
Jocelyn rolled her eyes again.
“Sirius,” she said, a note of impatience in her voice, “you’ve already said that.”
“It’s worth repeating,” Sirius replied severely. “Things … change down there, Jocelyn. People change.”
“What, there’s a spell that makes them change from bad to good?” suggested Jocelyn mockingly.
“No, from living to dead,” Sirius corrected bluntly. “Trust me, nothing good ever came from going down there.”
“How do you know? Have you ever been down there?”
“I’m not stupid enough to attempt it.”
“Or maybe not brave enough “”
“I hope you know me better than that!”
She looked at him, startled, and saw that his eyes had begun to blaze dangerously. She reached out and softly rubbed his arm.
“I do,” she whispered.
The fire in his eyes died, and his look softened.
“I didn’t show this to you so you could wander down there,” he said softly. “I showed it to you so you would avoid it. I don’t want you accidentally stumbling upon it one day.”
She frowned.
“But I thought you couldn’t stumble upon it. According to the legend “”
“Legend!” Sirius scoffed. “A legend is nothing more than a strand of truth woven into a tapestry of lies by people who aren’t even sure which thread the truth is. Believe me, you can stumble upon it.”
She shrugged.
“All right.”
“But you won’t stumble upon it, because now you know what to avoid,” he added much more matter-of-factly, stepping away from the entrance and sealing it up. “So, we’re done here, and no worries.” He turned away from the hidden entranceway, but she didn’t follow him. He turned back.
“Jocelyn?”
She was staring fixedly at the last spot he had sealed up.
“Jocelyn!” he said, more sharply this time.
She started, turned.
“What?”
“Promise me you won’t ever go down there,” he said gravely.
“Sorry?”
“Promise me “” he took a step forward and placed his hand on her shoulders “ “swear to me you’ll never go down there!”
“Why “?”
“Do it, Jocelyn!”
“I swear it!”
He released her and stepped backward, his breathing suddenly heavy.
“Thank you,” he whispered, turning away from her. “Thank you.”
“I swear it!”
The words echoed in Jocelyn’s memory as she made her way down the damp, stone corridor.
But really, what did her promises mean anymore? She used to swear she wouldn’t do a lot of things. She’d sworn she wouldn’t let anything happen to her family…. Sworn she wouldn’t just sit back and let things happen…. Sworn she’d always fight by Sirius’s side…. Sworn she wouldn’t fall in love with him…. Sworn she wouldn’t let his nature kill him….
Jocelyn’s pace quickened. There was still time to keep that particular promise.
Well, what did it matter now? Keeping a promise she’d made when she was thirteen wasn’t really an option anymore. She’d known from the moment she’d read those two horrible words on that first scrap of paper that it wouldn’t be.
“Swear to me you’ll never go down there!”
“I swear it!”
“What the hell!” A startled voice cut through the silence like a whip.
Jocelyn started, and took an involuntary step backward as a light was shone in her eyes, blinding her. Then, quite suddenly, the hand holding the light dropped.
“It’s you,” said the voice quietly.
White spots were flashing in front of Jocelyn’s eyes, obscuring her vision. She didn’t need to see, however, to know who the voice belonged to.
“It’s me,” she whispered.
Sirius swore quietly, and Jocelyn felt anger rise within her. So that was the best reception he could give her?
“That doesn’t change the fact that I’m here, Sirius!” she snapped.
“No, unfortunately it doesn’t!” he replied. He looked at her as he spoke, but the white spots prevented her from seeing his eyes. “What the hell were you thinking “?”
“What the hell were you thinking, leaving me a note like that!”
“A note like what?”
“‘I will be dead long before you read this!’ What did you expect me to do after I read that, Sirius, turn around and go back to Hogwarts?”
“That would have been the intelligent thing to do!”
“You just don’t get it!”
“No, you don’t get it! We are going to die, do you understand me? You’ve come here to DIE!” The word echoed sinisterly off the stone walls.
Jocelyn looked up at Sirius and, as the last of the white spots faded away, their eyes locked.
“I knew that when I came,” she whispered. “I’m not stupid, Sirius.”
“Well coming here was a really stupid thing to do,” he muttered angrily, looking at his feet.
Anger blazed up in Jocelyn again.
“You’re glad I came, admit it!” she snarled.
“Yes!” Sirius said sarcastically, his head snapping up. “I’m really glad I led the only person I’ve ever “ ever “ my cousin to her death,” he finished quickly, without looking at her.
Jocelyn gave a humorless smile.
“Death,” she scoffed. “What makes you so sure there’s death down here?”
Sirius’s head snapped up again.
“You know, Jocelyn, could you ever, just once, even pretend to trust me?”
Jocelyn’s eyebrows rose.
“Trust?”
“Yeah, trust,” Sirius snapped. “Having faith in someone once in a while!”
Flames burst in the windows of Jocelyn’s eyes.
“I had plenty of faith in you!” she snapped.
“Yeah?” sneered Sirius.
“Yeah,” Jocelyn snarled. “I had faith you’d overcome this stupid drive for revenge!”
“You leave that out of this!”
Jocelyn’s jaw dropped.
“What d’you mean, ‘leave it out of this’?” she gasped. “It is this!”
“Oh, this is getting us nowhere!” Sirius growled. “We’re not going to survive this if we can’t trust each other!”
“Like I’m supposed to trust you after what you did after my father died!” she muttered contemptuously.
“Maybe I did that because I cared for you, did you ever think of that?” Sirius exploded.
“If you cared for me you would have done what I told you to “!”
“What, like Hector did? Just sat and studied in the library while you were in danger? Well, look who’s risking his neck for you now “!”
“I wouldn’t even be here if weren’t for you! And leave Hector out of this “!”
“Why, because he did?”
Jocelyn flinched as though he had struck her.
“You’re just jealous,” she said finally, her voice shaking, “because while you were busy hunting down Death Eaters I went out and found someone else!”
“I’m not jealous!” cried Sirius, outraged. “Angry? Yes! Disappointed? Extremely! But jealous? Of that git?”
“Angry, disappointed, jealous, it’s all the same!” she shouted semi-hysterically. “If you hadn’t been out trying to save the world “!”
“It wasn’t the whole world, Jocelyn!” Sirius roared.
She glared at him disbelievingly.
“Just one of them,” he whispered. He reached out to cup her cheek in his hand, but she jerked back, looking stonily away from him.
“Look,” he said finally, “if you’re happy with Hector, if you don’t want to get involved with me “”
“Sirius “!” she said quickly.
“No, listen to me!” he cut her off firmly. “If you don’t want to get involved with me, fine, that’s your decision. But if we’re going to survive this “ this right here “ we need to know that we can trust each other, all right? I need to know you’re watching my back.”
She didn’t answer at first.
“Jocelyn,” he said quietly, but firmly. “Jocelyn, I need to know you’re watching my back, all right? … Jocelyn!”
She nodded, slowly.
“I’m watching your back, Sirius,” she whispered. She looked up at him then, and their eyes locked. He saw everything in that look: her hurt, her confusion, her pain… but mostly, her rejection. Finally he looked away.
“Let’s go then,” he said quickly, patting her shoulder, and, together, they turned to continue on.
A/N: Hey guys! Sorry about the long wait, especially with such a cliffy! First it was just the pre-Christmas rush at school, and then I went to Poland for three weeks, and when I finally got back from there I was so exhausted I needed a vacation to recover from my vacation, which of course didn’t happen because I immediately went back to school, and now there’s finals rush there! All that to say, sorry about the long wait, and thank you for your patience with me! I will try to make sure you won’t ever have to wait that long again! Peace out. ~ Trinsy