A/N: Special credit to AmaranteX for this one, she killed my writers block!
Enjoy!
Chapter 36
Don't call me 'Baby'
I breathed out a wush of air and turned to the man beside me who stood gaping at the curtain;
"So, what was that about?" I asked nonchalantly and Sirius released my hand with a jerk to reach up and pull at his hair;
"My Mother isn't my biggest fan." he blurted and I pressed my mouth into a thin line;
"No I got that bit, I meant the part where you felt the need to wave me like a shameful war flag in front of a painting of your Mother after almost having sex with me on the floor of this derelict hell hole seconds before." He turned to me abashed and I felt a line form at my brow; "Well congratulations Black, if you wanted to make me feel like some cheap scum you couldn't have done a better job of it!" For once the sting I felt from the barb of another actually escaped and I instantly regretted my words. I should not have allowed him to see how much his actions affected me; I pressed my hand to my mouth and growled in frustration and confusion and in just general over whelming crushing reactivity to the pressure that had become every damned day of my suddenly overtly ludicrous life. I felt my skin tingle and the dust settled on the floor brushed off the ground in a whirl before settling again as I span around and stormed up a nearby stairs.
His plodding footsteps followed me and I felt my nostrils flare. I didn't know what I was doing; I kept running up a seemingly endless labyrinth of stairs until I eventually reached a stair that just led to a set of French doors. Sirius followed me up every flight, my chest was heaving, I really wasn't what one describe as fit by any stretch of the imagination and my beautiful gaunt fiancé seemed to have similar trouble negotiating the stairs. My hand reached for the handle on the glass door, I had no plan and I could see the winter rain outside. His hand was suddenly wrapped around my wrist as it jerked mine away from the handle.
"I wouldn't do that if I were you." he hissed in an imitation of himself only moments before;
"What is that Black? A warning? An order?" I pulled my hand back away from him and held it to my chest, the damaged skin strangely smooth to the touch.
"It is just some advice love." he crooned and I pointed my index finger toward the underneath of his chin as I snarled;
"Don't. Call. Me. That." a sneer followed onto his mouth and was followed up by a cruel grin, something I could not bare to think about as I though of why I as bound to the man in the first place; his hand hit the wall to the left of my head as he leaned down to my level. Even then I could still feel the heat rolling off him in waves, my mind was still not completely calm from before as I felt the pulse between my legs start up and I pressed my thighs together pathetically to try and maintain reserve.
"You don't like it?" he asked and I felt my cheeks flush as my words got stuck in my throat. I closed my eyes and shook my head.
"Stop." I said but he only moved closer, I could here the rain pounding on the glass next to us;
"Stop what Jude?" he spoke close enough for his breath to disturb my hair before his mouth once again dropped to pull at my ear and I shuddered as a whimper escaped my mouth.
My skin sizzled as his teeth raked over the edge of my throat;
"Being a cad." I pressed as my heart fluttered fast in my chest and I felt my confidence slip toward my feet, I knew in that moment that if he really wanted to it would take Sirius little time to persuade me to consent to go to bed with him. I felt weak and meagre and I hated it.
"So this is your opinion of me." He crooned as if he were wounded. His hand which he did not have pressed to the wall crept up my waist and I opened my eyes as my temper finally shook off my lust; my wand was in my hand and Sirius was thrown to the other wall before even I knew what I was doing. He caught me with an assessing gaze and I ground my teeth off of one another.
"What do I look like to you Sirius?" I cried as I spread my arms out so that he might view me, my ash blonde hair and colourless eyes, my pale legs stretching out into my clunky boots, my red rune cloak draped over my white dress and wand resting loosely in my botched left hand; he bristled as I stared him down;
"You're just a kid Juniper, you don't know what your getting yourself into, that much is apparent." his mouth set in a stubborn, arrogant line he placed his hand on the banister of the stair to leave.
"I am not finished!" I shrieked indignantly and my wand turned him to face me once again. He eyed my wand; my voice came out in a faux feminine tone, high compared to my deeper voice;
"Look at me sweetie! Do I not look like the sort of girl you can have at your beck and call? Am I not weak? Am I not an exemplary figure of naivety?! Is it not a good laugh that following my path of ignorance and foolishness I stumbled upon your cell in Azkaban?" He flinched at the name;
"Listen Sirius;" I lowered my voice to a whisper and approached him his place standing on the second step down on the stair allowed me to meet him at eye level, "if it wasn't for me you would still be rotting in that cell and if I hadn't brought you here you would be worse off than the dead so maybe you should stop thinking of me as a vacuous girl you want to;" I stumbled in my speech for a moment but steeled myself for a moment before degrading my language; "to fuck and start seeing me as the woman that I am." His eyes burned into mine, I thought of having him acknowledge. Of asking him if he understood; but I didn't want his subservience, I simply wanted him to see me as an equal. The rain continued to come down behind me and I released another puff of air;
"right," I breathed out and a wry smile found its way onto my mouth; "no more funny business." my wand slipped back down into my sock and Sirius's posture relaxed slightly. I stepped down onto the step beside him and he rolled his eyes before sniffing;
"You really are a Malfoy aren't you." he blurted and I smiled;
"Yeah, your Mother seems lovely too, you filthy blood traitor!" he shook his head and rolled his eye again;
"and I had to be engaged to you! Of all the mud blood whores!;" we laughed openly for a moment and I noted once again how I enjoyed his laugh; how glad I was that I had said the things I said even though I questioned myself even as I said them. Both of our tempers were running high, we had nearly gotten caught, our safehouse for the last month had been compromised. Our situation was dire at best.
"You know this house?" I asked as I looked up at the creaking rafters;
"I grew up here." he answered and I coughed lightly;
"Oh," I murmured slightly abashed and I turned to face his light eyes gaze; "sorry I called it a derelict hell hole." I bit my lip and felt a little relieved when I saw him smile out of the corner of my eyes;
"You can call his house of horrors whatever you like;" he turned to me with raised eye brows and his eyes fell down to my feet before following back up to my face at an excruciating pace;
"You never went to Hogwarts?" he asked and I shook my head no; he released a breathy little laugh that seemed more to himself and I felt my cheeks colour; "so Jude, if I am allowed to call you that;"
He raised an eyebrow at me and I raised a safe two in return before gesturing for him to continue; "just out of curiosity what sort of upbringing does a girl, sorry, woman like you have to have, to be capable of the feats you accomplish?" I felt my cheeks heat further and I ran my hands through my hair before dropping my weight on the wall behind me.
"What do you mean a woman like me?" I asked as I crossed my arms delicately;
"A beautiful woman." he offered with a silly smile that seemed to pull at the sides of my sternly set mouth;
"Couldn't you have just asked why I didn't go to school?" I prodded and he rested his hand on the banister behind him, the rain outside settled some what to a light mist;
"Oh, is it because you didn't need it?" his lips shaped mischievously and I huffed lightly;
"Yeah," I quipped; "that's exactly why."
"hey I am just speaking from experience here. I think the only time I ever saw you struggle with magic was the night you.." he trailed off as his eyes lowered to the ground,
"What was that?" I pressed and he shifted his lips to give a low whistle;
"Come on Jodie, I might have something to show ya." His eyes did seem to hold a genuine excitement as he turned before his feet thundered down the flight of stairs and despite the obvious subject change I still followed him with intrigue.
I followed him with heavy clunky boot clad footsteps until we reached the second story of the seemingly five story tall house.
"What…" I began to ask as Sirius stopped but then I saw his name on a dusty bronzed plaque on the door. I moved to wipe some of the dust from its surface but Sirius gently pulled my hand from the air;
"If I hadn't cursed it, it would have been long gone." he muttered and I nodded slowly as I noticed the numerous blast marks around the door, its looked like smoked damage on the pinstriped mint and pine green coloured wall paper.
"Can you open this without your wand?" I asked and he shook his head; He reached out and traced the letters of his name and turned to me for a moment;
"Well I was hardly going to lock myself out." he reached for the door knob and it creaked as it turned stiffly. Pressing his shoulder to the door he crinkled his brow and applied enough pressure that the solid wood gave and shirked forward out of its frame. He grinned triumphantly and I released my own wry smile as he stepped forward into the room;
"Voilá!" he said as he strolled into the room, I took a step toward the door but felt a sizzle of magic around it. I huffed lightly and cleared my throat as I heard Sirius rambling on in the bedroom having clearly not noticed my absence. His head popped around the door and he looked at me confusedly;
"Come in Jude! No funny stuff, I promise." he grinned and I was about to explain about the non inclusive warding of his room when something he said woke up my mind;
"Jude!" I blurted and my palm hit my fore head, I wondered if I should go to see if I could find the same mirror she had sent us out of when we arrived here but I was not happy to go back my the painting of Sirius's mother; he looked from right to left up the corridor and looked at me bemusedly;
"Am I not allowed to call you that?" he asked and I waved him off as I began to march up the corridor in search of a mirror.
"What are you looking for?" he asked and I began to twirl a piece of my hair around my finger nervously;
"A reflective surface." I responded and he snorted;
"and they call me vain." I heard him mutter and I laughed lightly as I spotted a gilded frame and approached it to see if it was a mirror;
"Sirius I don't think anyone had called you anything but criminally insane for the last decade;" I reached the frame and saw that it was what I was looking for, except it lacked the person I was looking for. I wasn't in it either, no one was, as Sirius reached me his reflection stood facing him, he shifted his hair, he was kind of vain as he had said nothing and my reflection was conspicuously absent. A rivulet of smoke bloomed up from where my reflection ought to have stood and I watched transfixed as it spread out across the expanse of the inside of the mirror like a shifting black cloak;
"See you look fine!" Sirius told me as he gestured toward the blank space where I should have stood but I did not turn to him despite my relief that he was blind to what was there to be seen, or rather, not seen.
I saw in the corner, the beaded red eye of my own personal demon and my skin prickled as all my blood dropped into my feet, my gut twisted and I was stiff with fear.
The smoke covering the hall reflected on the inside of the mirror pulled back swiftly as it had pulled in and moved toward the front of the mirror, as it did the walls reflection bore a message written in familiar silver liquid, the sort I had seen pulled from my own gut onto the hand of the grin not to long before. I did not know what the symbols meant, the message was written in rune and about as easy to comprehend as Dumbledore's psyche.
The smoke from the mirror continued to sweep forward as I stared at the runes until I realised it had reformed at my feet, looking down in abject horror I saw the black gas sweep up toward me like a toxic cloud. I looked up at the mirror and was met with the blood shot eyes of Jude who called out to me as she hammered on the glass.
"Run Jodie!" but I was powerless, fixed to the spot as I felt the cool gas slip down my throat and fill my lungs like a compound of lead and fibre glass. Leaving me to leak and haemorrhage within myself. I placed my hand on my throat as I choked and felt my face wet. I reached up to wipe away the tears leaking from my eyes as I choked and saw my hand stained red. Blood.
My vision blurred as blood filmed over my eyes but I could feel arms bind around me as Sirius pulled me toward him. I realised I was thrashing, my mind seemed to fill with the dim, heady red weight of my own blood but I felt the weight of Sirius lift off me as my hand began to brush against something cool and smooth. I thought I could hear all sorts of screaming. My eyes stung so I kept them closed. My knees buckled so I let them shift of there own accord. My body seemed to have its own business to attend to as my mind lulled off under a pressure of pain and bizarre purposelessness. I felt as if there was no other way to me as my hands continued to brush over the wall and I scowled to myself as I was irritated by the desperate and distracting screams. Luckily a moment later my ears made a short pop and all I could hear was a low ring.
After a while the wall seemed far less important so I decided that I would sit down. It would make sense for me to be tired. I hadn't breathed in any air in a while, I was bound to feel a little weak. I opened my mouth to take a dizzy breath as I sank to the ground sleepily and wiped some of the blood from my eyes. In my stinging view as I opened my bleeding eyes a crack however I realised that a mouthful of blood had slipped from my mouth as I opened it to breath, I spluttered. It sort of blended with the upholstery of my cloak and I began to rub it in curiously until my lungs seemed to heave.
I began to retch and cough and splutter and was surprised to see a plume of smoke some out from my mouth; my head lulled to the side and I saw Sirius;
"Look! I am like a dragon." I puckered my lips and blew out a great lung full of the smoke and as I did I began to feel tired;
"That's great baby can I come over to see?" I looked over at him and saw that he looked markedly damaged sat at the end of the hall, I gestured for him to come over and saw my wand in my hand I raised my eye brows at it and nodded for him to come over as I exhaled another great plume of ash;
"Don't call me baby Sirius." I chastised and as I coughed violently for a moment and then teetered in my position slopped against the wall Sirius caught me.
"What happened to you?" my voice scratched as I saw a line of red formed along the side of him face; he laughed tremulously and I was surprised to see a tear run down his face as he pulled me closer. I felt drowsy; I heard the reverberation of his dulcet tone but I couldn't make out his words as he responded. I had decided I needed some sleep, I was drowsy. I convulsed again with a cough and then dozed off.
A/N: Thanks for reading!
PLEASE REVIEW.