***Chapter One is finally here. I would have uploaded this a couple days ago, but was being stupid and the server kept timing out. ANYWAYS! Here it is, enjoy, and please review and let me know if you like it! 3 ***
Chapter One
January 5th 2008
Allyson's arms were wrapped tightly around John, holding her brother against her chest so that he couldn't see what she saw. She rested her forehead on the top of his head, her tears soaking his light brown curls.
"Ally?" The boy's tiny voice was muffled by her shirt.
Allyson shushed him with a shaking voice. "Come on Regs," she wavered. She turned her back on the sight before letting John go and turning him towards the door. "Go wait outside, okay?" She pushed him forward gently, hands on his shoulders.
John looked up at her confused. "What's wrong Ally? Why are you crying?"
Allyson shook her head and pulled the door of the bedroom open, sending John out to wait in the living room. "I'll be right out, okay?"
After a long moment of watching her face, John finally nodded. "Okay." He turned away from her and Allyson waited for him to settle on the couch and turn on the telly.
As soon as she was sure he would be occupied for a while, she turned back to the room and the tears, which she'd thought she'd had under control, started anew. She walked slowly back to her father, where he lay on the ground beside the bed. He could have been sleeping if it weren't for the dark red that stained his chest.
Allyson hadn't seen what had happened. She'd taken John shopping with her and come home to find the house empty, or so she'd thought. Then she'd stepped into her father's bedroom.
She knelt beside her father's still body, trying not to sob loudly and draw John back into the room. "Daddy..." she breathed, pulling his hand into hers and lacing their fingers.
She jumped when she saw her father's eyelids flicker, dropping his hand onto his stomach. His eyes opened half way and his mouth twitched as if he was trying to smile at her.
"Dad?" Allyson choked, praying that this wasn't an illusion.
"You gotta go Ally," was the nearly inaudible reply after he'd given up trying to smile. "You 'n' John. Gotta get out."
Hope swelled in Allyson's stomach. Maybe her father would live! "Where dad? And you're coming with us!" Her words were desperate.
A wet sounding laugh sounded and died in the same second. "Ally, I'm dead. Not even the best wizards at St. Mungos could heal me." His eyes closed and he was silent for a long time, and Allyson was afraid that he had died, but then he opened his eyes again. "Hogwarts. Go there. You'll be safe. The charms... are still protecting it... from muggles." His voice was even quieter than before and Allyson had to lean forward to hear.
She took her dad's hand again. She knew what he'd said was true. He was too far gone for anyone to be able to help him. "I love you daddy," she whispered.
Allyson thought he might have tried to nod, but it ended up looking like a jerk of his head. "Love you too. And Regs. Don't let him see me like this." His eyes fell shut again and Allyson's grip on his hand tightened. "Hey, tell everyone at Hogwarts... that I died doing something brilliant, will you," he breathed after a moment. "A muggle gun is hardly the way Sirius Black ought to have died." A light smile made his lips twitch and Allyson laughed slightly through her tears.
"I'll tell them you died laughing," she promised. "And I'll think up some great death scene along the way."
"Good girl."
Those were to be the last words she ever heard her father speak. She knelt beside him for a long time, until she heard the TV turn off and tiny footsteps tiptoeing their way towards the room. Wiping her sleeve across her eyes, she pulled the door open to catch John staring at her with wide eyes, hand reaching towards the door.
Allyson slipped outside and shut the door. "I told you to wait out here."
"I thought I heard you talking and I wanted to talk to dad."
Those words almost caused the tears to start up again. "Regs, I gotta tell you something, but first, I want you to go put clothes and a toothbrush and anything else important in a rucksack, alright? We're going on a trip."
"Is Dad coming?" John asked, eyes lighting up.
Allyson managed a weak smile. "He'll always be with us." John darted away and she heard his footsteps pounding up the stairs to do what she'd told him, and Allyson set off to do the same.
John grabbed his big rucksack he used when their father took them on camping trips, and shoved a couple handfuls of clothes in the bottom, his flashlight, a couple comic books, his water bottle, and his favourite toy – a miniature model of the Hogwarts Express that was bewitched so that it produced actual steam and the bogies and wheels moved. He placed it very carefully on the top of everything else in his bag. His father had given it to him as a present for his birthday and he treasured it above any other possession.
He paused as he was about to leave his room, glancing at his bed. He was eight years old, but he still slept with his blanket and stuffed animal from when he was a baby. He hid them whenever his friends came over, but he liked having them. They were from his mom. That, and the picture of her on the shelf over his desk were all he had left of her, since she'd died when he was only two; he didn't really remember her.
He crossed the room and shoved his stuffed monkey under his clothes in the bottom of his bag, then wrapped the blanket around the picture and put it in carefully before leaving his room and going to the bathroom to grab a toothbrush and toothpaste.
The last thing he grabbed was his sleeping bag from the garage, where he waited for Allyson. She arrived about ten minutes later, carrying the car keys.
"You're not allowed to drive," he stated. "Where's dad?"
Allyson turned to John and he frowned. Her eyes were red like she'd been crying. "John," she started softly.
John felt dread in his stomach. His dad and sister didn't call him John. He had been named John Regulus Black after his dad's brother Regulus, and they always called him by his middle name. The only time he'd ever been called John was when he was in a lot of trouble, or when Allyson had told him his rabbit had died.
That was how he knew that whatever Allyson was about to say was going to be bad. And he was right.
"John, Dad isn't coming with us. He... The muggles killed him. He wants us to go –"
The rest of his sister's words faded away. Dad is dead. No. He couldn't be. John was vaguely aware of arms restraining him as he made a mad dash for his father's bedroom, but he escaped the grip and was in the house before she could stop him again. He flung open the door to his father's bedroom and froze at the sight of his dad laying still and pale on the ground beside the bed. He couldn't hear, couldn't breathe; he felt like he'd been punched in the stomach. He choked on his sobs and hardly noticed Allyson picking him up, carrying him back to the car, putting him in the backseat, and backing the car out of the garage.
He returned to awareness to find himself curled in the backseat. His father was dead. Gone. Now he didn't have any parents.
The last thing he saw before he squeezed his eyes shut, was Allyson casting a spell from the front lawn, and as they pulled away, flames began to lick at the walls of the house, raising dark plumes of smoke. He then shut his eyes, burying his face under his arms, and dissolved into more tears.