Birds of Prey

Prelude

She bolted forward in her bed with a loud audible cry. cold sweat dampened her skin, the silk sheets cleaning to her otherwise soft skin. The images in her head swimming but not more prominent, more painful that the last cry of a man slipping into the world of the unknown. The place between life and death. Where there is hunger and pain, and hope, and nothing to quench it. Body and soul melded together in twisting cries of agony. he should not be there. He should not have crossed over. But nothing was more plain to her as she closed her eyes.

The long blond braided hair twisted around her body, he placed her now very heavy head into the palms of her damp hands. Her brow cold from the dream. No, this was no dream. This was real. The attack in the ministry. It was still raging. No. Dumbledore told her to stay away. She was not needed. But had he expected this?

She leaned her head against the headboard of her four-poster queen-sized bed, her silvery blue eyes gazing up at the black night of her room. Where no light glimmered. Where no window could look in. Her room in the furthest reaches of the one that could kill her.

A slight soothing song filled the room, musical and finely tuned. A soft feather brushed against her cheek as a bird of a magnificent blue landed on her shoulder, pressing its head against her cheek. Giving her comfort. But the tears were not coming. Not even the thundering rain outside the stone walls of her japanese castle could taunt her with the luxury.

Sirius was dead. And to the one person the man had once thought to have as his own did not cry. could not cry. A heart already shattered could not be broken. but guilt and anger pulled her from her bed as she furiously rose to her feet. Words forming in her mind of things that needed to be written to the newly-instated Headmaster of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.