Jekyll and Hyde

Sierra: It's amazing how stupid you people can be.

Wanda: ...Well, they mostly know Helen. And Helen's nice to the point of naivety. You should be grateful - it's the perfect cover. I do not own Harry Potter.

Chapter 11: Confrontations

Sierra threw the blast spell at Sirius's chest, knocking him over backwards and throwing him into the wall. Running across the room, she knelt down next to Ginny and checked for a pulse as Hannah came hurtling up behind her.

Sirius, still bearing some bruises from his last encounter with Sierra, realized that he had to act quickly to get them to believe him. Straining for his wand, he saw Pettigrew attempting to flee through the door and cast the detransformation spell on him.

Hannah whirled around to see "Scabbers" writhe and warp into a fully grown, thirty-something year old man. Sierra's head snapped up from where she was checking on Ginny; it was the first time she had ever really been surprised by something since Luna.

A stunned silence hung over the house for a minute while Peter Pettigrew whimpered and struggled to right himself.

Once again – like he always had – Peter attempted to run. But Sierra snapped out of her shock very quickly. Immediately, with a flick of a wrist she slammed him against the wall with a blast of magic just before shutting the door. Hannah broke out of her confusion a moment later, stepping forward to hold up Peter at wand point while Sierra looked between him and Sirius.

"What's going on?" She asked icily.

"Y-You have to b-believe me! Black-Sirius-"

"Shut UP! YOU'VE BEEN SLEEPING IN GINNY AND RON'S BED!" Sierra shouted, storming over to Pettigrew and slugging him in the face. Hannah moved her wand to Sirius, though she watched Sierra in fear, confusion and concern.

"Is she okay?" Hannah asked worriedly.

"She's fine. She's just unconscious." Sierra said with thinly disguised rage. "But she got very, very lucky...hitting her head against solid rock like that..." She turned her attention towards Black again, eyes blazing. "You bastard..."

Sirius backed up, his eyes dark. "I swear, it was an accident...I was just trying to make her let go of Pettigrew...I underestimated the force of my jump." He defended. "I was desperate to tell you the truth."

"What truth?" Sierra demanded coldly.

"Him." Sirius said, pointing his finger at Pettigrew. "He betrayed your parents. Not me. Peter was the spy for over a year."

"...You expected me to believe that?" Sierra asked icily, glancing between him and Pettigrew.

"He's alive, isn't he?" Sirius said with a low sense of urgency. "Supposedly I killed him and all those non magicals...but I couldn't have done that if he's still here, can I? He did it...held his wand behind his back, shouted 'Lily and James, how could you!?' before firing off that blast...transformed into a rat and sped off into the sewer to hide."

Sierra stood in silence before turning her head towards Peter.

The mousy man immediately shrank away from her, "I didn't! I couldn't have! It was him...it was him I swear..."

"...Hannah, keep him there," Sierra said darkly as she walked towards Peter. Hannah nodded slowly in stunned silence, though she kept her wand pointed at Sirius.

For a moment, Sierra stood in silence in front of Peter, staring down at him with unfathomably dark eyes. Then she pointed a finger at him and her eyes turned blood red.

Peter screamed in pain as images were torn from his memory; flares of him sneaking off and speaking with black robed men, him standing at the side and watching Voldemort murder someone who he had delivered to the death eaters, and finally Peter whispering an address into the ear of his true master.

Sierra stumbled backwards once she released his memory.

Tears dripped down her face. "not my baby – please -" Her mind spun, her breath came out unevenly. She could have been here...

"Helen? Helen?"

"not my name..."

"What?"

"You bastard... ...!"

Hannah let out a frightened cry when a familiar knife appeared in Sierra's hands, which escalated into a scream when she jumped at Peter and buried it in his chest.

Peter screamed, Hannah screamed, Sirius jumped to his feet. Blood splattered Sierra's arms and face; she drove the knife in three more times before a blur appeared at the entrance.

"Expelliarmus!" The knife was yanked away by a mysterious force. Remus had appeared at the doorway, and he was staring aghast at his goddaughter.

Sierra stumbled to her feet. Her eyes were still glowing red, her face twisted in a grotesque amalgamation of grief and revenge-driven fury. Blood splattered her face, her lips pulled back in a snarl. She looked almost inhuman.

Peter whimpered at her feet, though he tried to drag himself towards Remus. Sierra lunged after him and drove her foot into his back.

"YOU KILLED MY MOTHER!"

She wrapped her hands around his neck, and Remus couldn't see any other choice. Forgive me! "STUPIFY!"

The spell hit Sierra head on; she was so lost in rage she hadn't given any thought to shielding herself. She collapsed to the floor, her hair spilling out around her.

**Later**

Sierra was groggy.

...mother...

What had hit her? Her head felt like she had been on the business end of a cast iron baseball bat. Her entire body felt like lead.

...Peter...Sirius...

Fuck!

She sat up quickly, flinching when her thirteen-year-old body protested her every twitch with a flood of pins and needles.

"Helen...you're awake now..."

Sierra looked to her right. Hannah, Ginny, Luna, Hermione and Ron were all next to her bedside, all of them looking extremely worried and a little nervous.

Hermione decided to break the silence. "...Are you okay?"

Sierra looked away. "...What do you think?"

"...I'm really sorry, Helen. We didn't want to stun you, but if Peter had died in the shack, Sirius wouldn't have been proven innocent."

"..."

"Dumbledore confirmed it, and Minister Fudge has been given no choice but to accept it given the fact that Peter is still alive. Sirius didn't betray your mum and dad to – to – to you know who."

"... Call him Voldemort, Ron." Sierra said without moving. "He'd kill you either way. He's nothing but a crazy disillusion prick anyhow."

Her friends exchanged concerned looks. This whole business about her parents betrayal and death was really hurting her, they decided. It would rattle anyone to discover such things, and Helen had always been gentle and very fragile.

No wonder she had a bit of a breakdown – they probably would have reacted the same way.

"Don't you want to go see Sirius?"

"..."

"Helen?"

"Fine. But...I'd like to go by myself."

"He's innocent, Helen." Hermione repeated, looking a little anxious. "Professor Dumbledore made sure of it."

Sierra slowly swung her legs over the side and muttered, "I believe you, Hermione. I saw it all in his head." Then she walked off slowly, limping slightly as she went thanks to cramped and tired muscles.

%&%&%&%&%&%&

Sirius was standing in the office quietly talking to Fudge when Sierra was lead into the office by McGonagall. Dumbledore stood up, but the older woman shook her head and gestured that they should leave.

Sirius, wanting to break the silence, guffawed and rubbed his neck. "You've got a mean punch, kitten." He remarked.

For a moment, Sierra said nothing. Then... "Why?"

"Why what?"

"Why didn't you take me with you?" Sierra responded, clenching her fists slightly. "Weren't you there? The night Hagrid took me away and left me with my family." She spat the word out.

Sirius swallowed and took a step forward so he was standing in front of her. "You're right, I should have been there for you. I don't have any excuses. It was...I saw your mother and father's bodies. I had suggested we might need to switch keepers for the spells...there were a few times where Voldemort and Bellatrix had managed to get the jump on me, and I was starting to worry...I thought Pettigrew was the perfect bluff. But he wasn't loyal. I went to your home and found your mother and father...James and Lily...dead. And it was all my fucking fault."

"... ... Voldemort killed them." Sierra said in a quiet, matter of fact sort of way. "Peter had the choice between saving his own hide and handing them over to that monster...and he chose to let them die. Not anyone else...he was just too weak to do anything but cower behind others who protected him...the minute he was in the line of fire, he panicked. It had nothing to do with you."

There were types like Peter back in the asylum. Narcissists, mostly – they would talk themselves up to be god's envoys, but when things went south they were yelling for their bodyguards.

She always knew who her enemies were. Besides, she would have gone after Pettigrew too.

Except, she would have managed to rip his spine out through his throat before the aurors subdued her.

And she still would.

End Chapter

Next chapter, while Fudge and everyone else are sorting papers, Sierra sneaks off to the holding cells by herself. Three guesses as to what happens next.

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