A/N: Thanks to Forever Siriusly Sirius, formerly lizaluvsdoggies, I'm up for a bunch of awards, including for this story! topic/44309/76958455/1/#77125655 PLEASE VOTE. Read the instructions. If you know of another story of mine you'd like to be nominated, throw that up there too! :D I'd really like for you guys to vote for me in January, especially because I'm not really big on the forums and that's probably the best way to get votes. I'm telling all my friends, but many of my readers aren't people I know irl, so I'd love you to spread the word! Also, if we're not up against each other, please vote for Forever Siriusly Sirius (formerly lizaluvsdoggies), so that we can thank her for this lovely opportunity!
ALSO, as I've told FSS as I'm now going to refer to her, this is the LAST CHAPTER of this story. There will be a sequel, of an as of yet undetermined name, and there will be a prequel about Matty and Sirius's time prior to Azkaban and whatnot... maybe even some of Matty's after that. We'll see! You have FSS to thank for that one, all her idea! LOVE YOU ALL. Thanks for reading this story, and please check out some of my other work! Keep your eyes peeled for more Matty/Sirius/twins stuff!
-C
Matty could feel her heart pounding in her chest as Sirius put the shield up between her and Bellatrix, both thrilled that she didn't have to fear for her very right to breathe for just a second, giving her a moment to gather her thoughts once more, and then instantly horrified that Bellatrix had now rounded on Sirius.
It was difficult to focus on their duel too long because there was a small commotion and Matty realized that something very important had happened: Dumbledore had arrived.
It was over, Matty realized. Dumbledore was rounding up the Death Eaters. She watched, stunned, as he did it all with so much ease and grace, as though even the veterans that they all were from the first war were merely children playing at dueling. This was the real master, arrived to save them all.
And only Tonks had been seriously hurt. With proper medical care, she would be fine.
But then there came a sound that chilled Matty to the core and tore her out of her thrilled relief.
"Is that the best you can do?"
That mocking voice, that set of words...
She didn't even have to look to know what was happening, and when she did turn as she heard the cold voice of Bellatrix Lestrange utter the words of the Killing Curse she saw that they had somehow gotten to the dais already and she could see it almost happening in slow motion, Sirius disappearing into the veil, a laugh frozen on his face as he fell backward into it, gone.
Gone.
It wasn't Azkaban this time. It wasn't... it wasn't...
Gone.
It was gone.
And as the reality of what had just happened sank in and Bellatrix was hurrying off somewhere, Matty saw Remus holding back Harry from rushing to the veil and trying to somehow pull Sirius back out of it.
Harry was screaming, and Matty was screaming inside too, but not at Remus, not after Sirius.
At Dumbledore.
He'd kept Sirius caged up for that long year, kept the girls away, not kept either the girls or Sirius properly safe, and then he didn't even have the decency to arrive soon enough to trap Bellatrix with the other Death Eaters.
He let Sirius die.
He let Sirius be taken away from Matty, just as he'd let Caradoc be taken away, and Lily, and James, and... and...
Harry had broken free of Remus's hold and rushed not to the dais, obviously realizing by now that Sirius was... gone.
Instead, he ran after Bellatrix. Matty would have gone with him, helped him, except that she didn't have the energy to fight Bellatrix with any confidence, not when every bit of her was shaking, not when she felt so hollow.
Probably never again.
But she wished him the best and hoped he killed her and killed her slowly and painfully. What did it matter that he was just a boy still?
Sirius had killed for the first time not much older than Harry. And it was a brutal, vicious act.
But it was necessary, and it was deserved, and so was this and that was all Matty could think as she felt her knees giving out.
Kingsley caught her, and his voice said something rumbling and comforting and sweet and probably horribly inadequate, but she couldn't even hear him. She was still staring at the dais, still half-wishing Sirius would come back, even though she knew he wouldn't.
He was gone.
Gone.
Matty saw Remus and Albus approaching her, saw their mouths moving, heard words garbled with the distance of grief, and then she saw Remus's wand point at her, his had shaking slightly as Albus turned to follow after Harry.
She wanted to stop him, wanted to say no, but she wasn't really sure what he was doing as he held that shaking wand up to her face. And she couldn't form the thoughts, couldn't form the words.
For a horrible split second she thought he was going to modify her memories somehow, but how she hadn't quite worked out yet.
But that fear disappeared as she realized that wasn't happening as her body stopped moving and Kingsley let her slide toward the ground slowly, gently. The vision of the room around her blurred and she saw that Remus's hand was no longer shaking but completely twitching as the whole of the world faded and twisted and went black around her.
The last thought before she was overtaken by sleep and black was that she hadn't told him she loved him enough that day, that he should have been reminded properly before falling through that veil, because now it was too late.
He was gone.
/-/
Matty found herself waking up in what she recognized as an unused teacher's quarters from her own time at school when she and Sirius would sneak off and find corners like this with a bed for special nights like anniversaries to make love uninterrupted.
It was where they had made love on his seventeenth birthday.
And now he was gone.
She felt like she was about to be sick, but she couldn't tell whether it was that feeling of him being gone or the being awakened from being sedated magically, which usually did come with slight nausea.
But there was nothing slight about this feeling.
And there was Dumbledore, watching her with a perfectly neutral face, watching her as she felt as though she was about to retch, as she fought the urge to literally shred the bedding she was laying in and on.
"The girls?" she finally said hoarsely, managing to swallow back the bile in her throat.
"Maëlle is apparently a quiet prodigy at dueling and suffered only minor scratches," Albus said in an even, almost emotionless voice. "Merryn's leg was badly broken, but Remus fixed most of it and Poppy was able to fix it up very quickly when she was returned to Hogwarts. No permanent physical harm done."
No, but the emotional damage, the knowing that their father was gone and never coming back, that their mother was never going to be all right ever again...
They were old enough to understand that now, to understand why she hurt so badly all the time, that she would never be all right without their father.
And they were never, ever going to heal properly from that. No, those wounds would follow those girls for the rest of their lives.
Had the girls not been there, would Sirius have gone? Could they have talked him into staying at Grimmauld Place?
No, she didn't think so. Harry would have-
"Harry?" she said softly.
"Not well," Albus admitted. "Physically worse than he's been to my memory, but not incurable by any means. Emotionally... well. I suspect you and Harry would have quite a lot in common emotionally at the moment."
No.
No, even Harry could never understand because Harry hadn't loved him as Matty had. No one had ever loved Sirius as Matty had. And she could almost feel his breath on her neck and knowing that she would never feel that properly again hurt so much more this time than it had the first time. She wanted to die.
"Matea, you have your daughters to think of," Albus said gently. "And Sirius wouldn't want-"
"You don't have any right," she spat. "You have no right at all to tell me what Sirius would or wouldn't want. Not after you let this happen. You let this happen to me all over again. I will never forgive you for this."
He gave her a look with his blue eyes harder than she had ever seen them and she was sure that he was going to reprimand her for irrationally blaming him, but he said nothing for so long she wondered if the world had frozen. Finally, he spoke.
"I do not ask you to," he said finally, not gently as he had been, but harshly, as he had when she had tried to get herself killed by Bellatrix during the first war. "But this battle may be over, but the war has barely begun. Voldemort showed himself in the Ministry that night, he was seen by Cornelius and many others. The war has taken off and I need to know that I can trust you to fight with us going forward and not give up for your pain."
Matty wanted nothing more than to give up, but when she heard these words she realized what he was implying.
"Bellatrix," she rasped. "Bellatrix is still alive."
Albus inclined his head in the affirmative slightly, solemnly, almost by way of apology, the apology she had wanted so badly for Sirius's death.
But the thing he was truly sorry for, it seemed was not ridding her of the thing she feared more than Voldemort himself: Bellatrix Lestrange.
Matty didn't think she would ever sleep again.
Of course, the best she really could have hoped for was Azkaban, but Bellatrix had already been broken out once and Matty wasn't foolish enough to believe that it couldn't happen twice.
"Will you be able to fight this war, Matea?" Albus said softly, with a bit of urgency in his voice.
She could picture Sirius falling through that veil, so far gone that she had no body to bury, even. Then she saw Bellatrix's sneering face and her heart was seized with equal parts fear and fury.
"I have to," she said quietly.
Bellatrix needed to die, or Matty needed to die trying to do it, because there would be no peace for her if it went any way but that.
Albus watched her searchingly for a moment as if trying to discern her reasoning for her answer.
But he wouldn't have to think too hard about it, she knew. Sirius, Lily, James, Caradoc...
Everyone but Remus that she had cared about before the girls was gone, ripped from her. She had no choice but to fight because they would have never forgiven her for dropping the torch that they had lit with so much effort and determination.
He nodded then, telling her that the girls would be visiting her as soon as they were done with whatever it was they were up to at the moment and could be summoned to see her, and then she was really well enough to go, physically.
She managed to wait until he had left the room to let the tears fall, and then she cried them bitterly, completely, and violently with the hopes of dispelling all of them by the time the girls made it to see her at her bedside. But she couldn't tell if it made her feel better or worse, crying.
The girls came in not too long after, Merryn still wincing with each step on her left leg, Maëlle looking just as beautiful as she had before the battle.
"Mum," Merryn said softly, sitting down beside the bed. "How do you feel?"
The words fell out of Matty's mouth before she could stop them.
"Dead," she said. "I feel dead inside."
The girls exchanged worried, sad looks.
"Mum, Daddy's okay," Maëlle said. "That's how he would have wanted to go, you know. And now he's with Aunt Lily and Uncle James..."
Matty nodded numbly, but she didn't know what to say. She didn't want him to be happy in some sort of afterlife. She wanted him with her, living life, making love every night and making up for all those years they lost when he was in Azkaban.
"Remus is at the hospital," Merryn said softly. "Tonks... she's going to be okay, but he didn't want to leave her side. I think he likes her."
Leave it to teenage girls to take a tragic event and turn it into fodder for gossip. Matty might have smiled if she hadn't had her heart ripped out of her chest.
"So now what?" Matty finally said. "Where do we go? What do we do?"
The girls exchanged looks again.
"Did Professor Dumbledore not tell you?" Merryn asked. "Daddy's name's been cleared, so he's saying that we can change our names to his now, if we want. We want to, though, Mum."
"Yes, we do," Maëlle said quickly. "And I think we should go back to our old house. It wouldn't be the same at Daddy's house without him there."
"Elle, Professor Dumbledore said we have to stay there," Merryn said, annoyed. "If we don't claim the house it might go to his cousin, and that's bad, remember?"
Bellatrix.
As much as Sirius had hated Grimmauld Place, as much as Matty had grown to hate it for caging him and for suffocating him...
Bellatrix couldn't have the house. And Matty felt that the girls changing their name to Black seemed to be contingent on the keeping of that essential house in Order possession. She had, after all, promised to fight this war. She couldn't give up another battle so soon after losing (or was it winning?) the last.
"We'll get your names changed tomorrow," Matty said softly. "We won't live in Grimmauld Place if you don't want, but we will be keeping it if that's what your father's will said because the Order needs it and the war is still the most important thing."
She wasn't sure if she was trying to convince herself of that or the girls, but they just nodded obediently and sat there, watching her for a long moment. They seemed to want to ask something, but they just sat there, watching her, and Matty still felt very sick.
"Elle, could you get me some water from the pitcher?"
"Yes, Mum."
Matty took the water, and they continued to look at her. When she'd finished the class Merryn put it back on the table.
"Mum?" she said softly. "Can you tell us a story? Can you tell us about Daddy?"
She sighed, looking up at her daughter's eager faces. She didn't know if talking more about Sirius would be a positive or negative thing for her mental state, but the girls looked so desperate to know more and Matty couldn't keep them from something they wanted, especially when it had to do with Sirius. They had hardly any time with him, and they loved him so much. He loved them so much.
They had probably expected a story from when she was young, but Matty had one she thought would be much better.
"When I took you two to the train your first year," she said softly as the girls settled in, "your father was there, in disguise, wanting to get another glimpse of Harry before he went off to search for Peter Pettigrew at Hogwarts. He didn't know about you, but when he saw me with you he knew you had to be his. You look very much like his cousin. I never told you that..."
"What cousin?" Maëlle asked eagerly.
"Narcissa," Matty said, her mouth twisting again. "Neither of us had liked her very much, but thankfully she was always very pretty. It took a bit of the edge off you looking just like her. Anyway, he confronted me after I came back, told me the truth of everything. He wanted to know everything about you, wanted to tell me everything about what had really happened. We went to where we could figure out how to get to Peter Pettigrew as soon as possible once he'd convinced me." She smiled bitterly.
"Do you remember the first letter you wrote me from Hogwarts?" she asked the girls. They both nodded eagerly. "I was out buying food and things when it arrived, and Sirius had already read it when I got back. He'd... he'd cried. I could see his tearstains on it when I read it. He was so upset that he hadn't been there for you, that that had been taken away from him... I'd only seen him so upset once before, when he'd gotten the news that his brother had died. He loved you so, so much."
The girls sat there in silence for a moment.
"I'm going to miss him," Merryn finally said. "I've gotten so used to him being there that... now..."
"Yeah," Maëlle sniffed. "But it's going to be okay, isn't it Mum? Daddy loves us and he's still with us in spirit. We're going to win this war, and it's all going to be okay, isn't it?"
Matty looked up at her daughter with tears forming in her own eyes, thinking of the things Sirius would have regretted not saying, things he would be missing out on now that he was gone.
And she couldn't answer the question, no matter how she tried to find her voice, because what answer could she possibly give?
