Note: This is one of the last two chapters of Breathless. A little sad but exciting, I know! There will be one more, and it will be the end. This is 100 percent sure. Thanks to all those who are reading, and I promise I will try to respond to all the reviews for this chapter and the next- I haven't had a lot of time to even get on and write, what with NaNoWriMo and college and all, so I hope you guys understand. Thanks again! I don't own any characters from Harry Potter, save Tawny and Charlie. I hope you enjoy this chapter!

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Mid-August 2009

Tawny watched Harry walking from the building and into the woods after they had spoken. Despite the heat, he was hunched over; his shoulders set as though against a cold. He looked troubled and it made the guilt rise in her again. Just before he reached the edge of the wood he turned to look back at the building. His eyes rose to the level of her apartment, and though she sat behind thick curtains with only a sliver of open window, she was almost sure he could see right through the curtains to her uneasy figure.

When Sirius Black had come into her life, she had been a child not much older than Harry. Both of their childhoods had ended with the same man. Tawny's carefree days had gone on too long; Harry's had been to short. But it was still hard to decipher who had been more changed by Sirius' short-lived presence. It seemed that Harry might never stop being a child where Sirius was concerned, and Tawny already felt too old for her years.

Though Harry had long since disappeared from the wood, Tawny could still see his sad eyes in her mind, his piercing gaze. When Sirius had made her promise to keep his secret, she had thought the pact had been simple. But Charlie had come along, an aspect of the crime she'd never expected; there could no be winning a game when all the rules had changed. Now she'd told Harry that she'd known Sirius, yes. But she had never really broken her promise. It was not that she'd forgotten that Sirius had loved Lily Potter; it was simply that she did not think it was something Harry needed to know. She hadn't known Sirius as Harry had. But she was no less unwilling to let his memory be tainted.

She'd considered telling Harry everything, the promise of unburdening herself of the secret tempting. But she could not shake what Sirius had repeated to her over and over the night she'd last seen him and the night she'd first known him.

"Besides Harry," she whispered the window, telling him the truth that Sirius had felt so important. "James was the person he loved the most."

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July 31, 1981

How had Sirus known?

He would never be sure; not that night and not in all the nights that followed, the long tortured nights of nothing but that deadly quiet night to keep him company. The day before, everything had felt normal. He had not yet left Britain, having wanted to make sure Peter got settled into the safehouse. He'd given Peter a clap on the back and a wide smile, and then he'd set off to pack his things and get ready. He was supposed to leave that night, but something kept him for a few days, anxious and unsettled. Then this morning he'd woken to a heart hammering in a fear he could not identify, a brow broken in sweat. And he had known. Before he'd even thrown on his coat and set off on his bike toward Peter's, he had known.

Of course Peter's house was silent, cold. Of course Peter was no where to be found, no struggle to suggest he'd fought. And though Sirius could feel something welling up inside him, it was not anger at the man who'd been the traitor, or at himself for believing Remus was- Oh, Remus, forgive me, he'd thought for one miserable second- or even anger at the villian who had wanted the Potters so badly. It was not anger at all. It was fear, suffocating him as he tried to shrug it off and set off into the night in search of answers. Sirius Black, fearless and brave, was stuck in the cold throes of terror. For once, it was no longer his life he'd risked. It was so much more important than that.

He died for them, he forced himself to think, his mind racing. Please God, please, let Peter die for them as I would have, as I should have. Please God, please Merlin, please anyone who is listening, let Peter have died for them, let my gut be whispering about something that hasn't happened, let them be smiling and beautiful as they always have been when I arrive at their home, still invisible to me. Please, and I will give you anything, I will give you everything I am-

But he had known, he had known already before he was there. How else would he have been able to find the house? And though the terrible realization had come before he even reached their road, his mind filled with rushed prayers that would never hold any impact, it did not lessen the blow to see it. Their house, their tiny little cottage where he had wrestled with James and kissed Lily's cheek, blown half apart. The silence that settled on it, like heavy snow, whispering around him like ghosts.

When he saw it he broke into a run, still full of hasty prayers and illogical could-have-beens, blazing through the quiet street as though he was on fire. He did not care that moment about the Muggles that might see him, about the man who had betrayed them, about a War or Voldemort or anything else. It was one thing, one thing that drove him-

He reached the house and threw the door open, though the classic gesture meant little in the rubble of the ruined house. Barreling through the house, searching, begging. Where? What had happened here? Where? He called and called, and though someone answered, it was not the person he'd been hoping for, and so he did not bother to stop, but just continued. It seemed to take ages to pick his way through the ruins of the tiny house. He was screaming at the top of his lungs, not knowing what he was doing. His hoarse voice was roaring into the night, and all he could keep thinking was, where?where? where-

Finally, after what seemed like hours, came discovery. A hand, a pale hand, poking out from under a broken beam. No. Was it-? No, please, no. He fell to his knees, digging, the skin of his fingers breaking, his nails ripping, but it didn't matter. His prayers, so specific only moments ago, had become formless begging, half thoughts caught in a jumble. Please, please, please. Take me. Hoping against all hope. Please, please, please-

And suddenly all the wind was knocked out from him, and the prayers fell from his lips like stones, like so many pretty birds hunted and shot from the sky, one by one. He fell backwards a little, gasping, caught breathless. And when he felt like he could, he leaned back and pushed the debris tenderly away. With as great care as humanly possible, he hefted the silent body from where it had been trapped, the limbs feeling light and empty in death. The person he loved more than anything in the world, cold and silent in his arms, eyes gazing toward the sky, lips unmoving.

"James," he whispered, his heart breaking with the sound of it from his own lips. "Not you, James. Anyone but you." And suddenly nothing mattered anymore, nothing could be so important as this man, as every happy moment of his life flashed before his life in great chunks. James playing Quidditch, James running with him as the stag and the dog, James smiling nervously at his wedding, James at the base of the whomping willow, James telling stories past bedtime, James sneaking firewhiskey into the boys' dormitories, James cursing Snape, James-

In that moment, with his best friend lying in his arms and a hundred years without him stretched like too long a road before him, he could say or think no more. A great heaving sob was wretched from his body, and with it Sirius Black was lost.

There was noise after, oh yes. But Sirius would never hear it. From that moment on, he was left in silence.