It was late and everyone was asleep. Of course they were all asleep. This never would have worked if anyone had known that she was leaving. Everyone was keeping such an annoying watch on her lately. They were watching the squirt too, but not like they watched her. She didn't mind it most of the time. It only bothered her when they wouldn't let her cry. "Stop crying!" They would all say, but that was all she could seem to do.

She wasn't sure where she was going, but somehow she knew she'd find it. She'd asked Remus about it. She wanted to know every detail of the room down to the last crack. She wanted to picture it in her head first before she actually had to see it. That way, maybe she'd be more prepared for it. She hadn't bothered to get dressed. She just threw a robe on, one of his robes, over her nightgown. It was too big for her, but it was her favorite. It was black. Not the kind of black that is a little faded; pitch black. She had to hold it up so that it wouldn't drag on the ground and get dirty. It can't get dirty. It has to stay exactly as it is. She looked down at her feet and it took her a moment before she realized that she had stopped moving. How did she get inside already? It seemed it would have at least taken some cognitive thought. Then again everything seemed to be a blur to her anyways. Everything was going so fast. Everyone seemed to just buzz around her as she simply sat there watching as the hours passed on the clock.

Now, which door was it? Who the hell thought of putting so many doors in here? Which way did Remus say it was? Right and then straight ahead, or was it another left? Well, might as well just start opening doors. Door after door…rooms that are empty, rooms full of furniture, rooms with books, rooms with file cabinets. The next was a dark room, but not the right one. Now, these last few doors had rooms of all different color. One green room, one blue room, red, purple, and a yellow room as well. What purpose did all of these rooms serve? What purpose did….well, she would find out soon enough. Amilye grabbed the handle of the next and turned it. She had to jiggle it a little but it opened and she stumbled in off balance. She almost tripped on the stairs.

Stairs.

There were stairs in this room. She turned away from the inside of the room and shut the door carefully. She made sure she heard the little click, but she didn't let go of the handle. She stared down at her shoes as she wiggled her toes within them. She didn't want to look around. She wasn't curious anymore. She could just open the door and walk back to the house. No, there was no need to panic. This could just be a room with stairs. Not necessarily the room with stairs. No, she knew without turning around. There was no need to look. No sense in kidding herself now that she was here. She could feel it in the air. Not that she could describe the room as having air. It was dead. Why should such a room exist? She continued to watch her feet as she turned around one slow step at a time. The sound, no matter how small it was of her shoes on the stone steps, the tiny pat resounded in her ears. Her eyes still focused downward, the tears started to fall.

I don't want to be here.

I don't want to do this.

Amilye didn't bother to wipe away the tears. She was used to feeling them as they followed their usual path down her porcelain cheeks. She hardly even noticed them anymore. She stepped down one of the wide steps between the benches. She was still looking down. This wasn't that bad. One step at a time. She could do this one step at a time. She took another step down. There was no one here to rush her. No one knew she was here. It was just her. She was here. Alone. Alone again, always alone. She was always being left alone. He was always leaving her. Why couldn't you just stay in one place? Another step down. He could never stay in one place. How did he ever go to school for seven years? Another step down. He'd wanted to buy a house at one time. It was right before the incident with the Potters. He'd asked her to move in with him. Another step down. Two steps down. Three steps down. She moved a little faster. Four steps down. Solid ground. There were no more steps. There were no more steps. There were no more steps.

She looked up a little bit. She could barely see the base. It was about five feet in front of her. She took a few steps forward and watched as it came closer into her field of vision. She looked at the base. Dark. It was all dark. She could see the veil. It was very still. It was neglected. Inelegant. Maybe it was just the bottom edge. She looked up a few more inches. No, it was still ragged. The archway was made of stone. It stood on its dais in the middle of the sunken pit. Amilye closed her eyes and raised her head. She arched her chin and prepared herself. She stood with the composure that comes only to those like herself who were bestowed with such elegance and grace. She opened her eyes, and sank to her knees. She had merely glimpsed it when she lost her balance. She clenched her eyes tight.

No.

This was the last place you were standing.

Or was it over there? Was it from the other side? She opened her stinging eyes and looked at the archway. It was ancient, cracked and crumbling. The veil was starting to sway. The cold air around her was fluttering. The veil continued to move ever so slightly as if it had just been touched; as if someone had just walked through it. Amilye stood up. She concentrated. She reached her right hand out to touch the veil. It was surprisingly soft and light. It moved toward her as her hands caressed the material. She watched her hand as it moved and she saw what she had forgotten was wrapped around her wrist.

She let out a deep relaxed breath and inhaled deeply. The smell of the salty ocean filled her nostrils. It was glorious here. How had he ever decided on going to Brazil for a vacation? She looked behind her, up at the bungalow. The warm light from inside enveloped the tiny building giving it a kind of ethereal glow. This was perfect; being in paradise with the people she loved the most. They were all together again. Finally. Suddenly, a warm hand sneaked around and covered her eyes. A broad smile crossed her lips and she tilted her head away to look aside at Sirius.

"Trying to sneak up on me?" He smiled at her contentedly before sitting down next to her in the sand.

"Uh huh." His head nodded with excitement.

"And why are we sneaking?" He leaned his head forward until he was inches from her face.

"It's what we Marauders are good at." Amilye grinned at him and kissed him quickly. She hadn't meant it to be more than a quick kiss but Sirius reached up and sneaked his hand along the back of her neck, keeping her in the kiss. She was kissing Sirius on the beach, at sunset. How perfect was this? The kiss ended but Sirius kept his face close to hers as he spoke, his forehead resting on hers. "So, while you and Maddie were out shopping today and spending my money on all the extravagancies you could imagine…"

"We didn't find anything worth buying! It was horribly disappointing."

"I made you something." Amilye started.

"What?"

"I said, I made you something."

"Like what?"

"Like this," Sirius reached in his pocket and pulled out something small. He held it out in front of her trusting that she would love it, and not reject it. Much like his own heart. He'd spent all day finding, and threading all the tiny shells into a necklace. There were pink ones and white ones, brown ones and tan ones.

"You made this?"

"All by myself." At this one moment in her life Amilye realized that she would never love anyone as much as she loved Sirius Black. Amilye knew that he loved her. This was it. Nothing in the whole world could ever make her feel the way that she did right at this very moment.

"Sirius, I can't…you….I mean that…"

"You're welcome." He slipped it onto her neck. Amilye's hand flew to it as she ran her fingers over the delicate little shells.

"Thank you." The veil seemed to sway towards her touch. The necklace around her wrist standing out stark against the dark of the veil. She touched the archway. It was so old. She was surprised that it didn't crumble under her touch. She couldn't look away. She was so intrigued by it. She looked harder at the veil. She didn't know what she was expecting. Did she really expect him to just walk out from behind it? Did she? Why couldn't he? Wasn't it possible? If you could go through, why couldn't you come back out? And then…

She heard something.

She turned her head sharply, her white blond hair flying about her face as her eyes glared back up at the door. No one. All of a sudden she felt like she was being watched. As if there was someone else in the room. And then, there it was again. A voice maybe? A small indiscernible murmuring.

"Sirius?" Amilye took a step back, as though she was giving him more room to walk back through. She waited.

Waited.

Nothing was happening.

"Sirius?!" She spoke more urgently, but her voice broke towards the end.

"Sirius…." She held in the sob that was dying to escape from her. She clenched her eyes tight and her hand flew to cover her mouth. She breathed quickly, thin erratic breathes.

"Come back…come back! Please. Please. Please…Sirius…I…" She finally let the sob escape past her lips. She leaned forward, holding onto the archway.

"I can't. I can't do this. I don't want to. I don't want to get over it. I don't want you not to be here. I want to see you the first thing when I wake up. I want to smell you. I want to touch your face. I want to see your smile. I want to hear you laugh. I want to be back in Brazil. I want to stop hurting. I don't want everyone to look at me the way they do; like they don't trust me just to move from one spot to another. I don't want to see Maddie with Remus and know how happy they are and hate them for it. I don't want to look at Harry and feel so damn guilty for never caring about him like you did. I don't want to be angry because you were there to save him. I don't want to have to blame him. I've always blamed him for everything else for too long. It's not his fault. None of it was. And I don't want to blame you. You and your stupid careless actions. I don't want to blame me, because I wasn't there, because I couldn't save you. I was never there. I never knew about any of it, anything with Voldemort or Lily and James. How much you loved them and I could never understand why…How did we go through everything just to end up like this?"

"Amilye…"

She looked around furiously. She knew that she had heard her name for sure this time. There it was again. She stared at the veil. What if she just looked behind it? What if she just pulled the veil back a few inches? She looked behind her one last time before she turned back to the archway. She reached out a shaky hand and took hold of the edge of the veil. She glanced up and walked through the veil.