It was a quiet night for Sirius and Lydia, sitting on the sofa, watching the fire, a glass of wine for each of them as they cuddled. If every night were like this, Lydia might have decided to consent to marriage. She saw less and less of Remus all the time, and it was almost becoming easy to forget that she had ever been in love with anyone else.
Not that she was in love with Sirius. But she knew well enough that many marriages had no love involved, that it was about comfort and good treatment. They hadn't fought at all since their first big fight. Even though that fight had been particularly bad, Lydia didn't feel like she should consider that in her gauge of her relationship with Sirius. She hadn't seen any other signs that they would have problems like that.
And he hadn't hit her. That was the really important thing. Becoming her own mother was one thing, but becoming Severus's mother was something even Lydia could not stand for. If that were to happen, she didn't care where she ended up, she would leave right then and there.
"You smell so good," Sirius whispered, burying his face in her hair and breathing in deeply.
She barely had a moment to relish in the feel of his lips against her neck before there was a cracking sound and she saw a phoenix feather and a note materialize on Sirius's lap.
Not even showing a sign that he'd been doing anything else a moment before, he was suddenly rapt with attention, his eyes scanning the note. He grew pale as he read.
"Is everyone all right?" Lydia asked urgently. "What's happened?"
"Raid on a Muggle street," Sirius said, already jumping to his feet. "Our people are fine so far but they need me. Bellatrix is there."
Lydia looked up, stunned. She said nothing while Sirius poured the rest of his wine into her glass, setting his on the side table.
"Sirius…."
"I have to go, love," he said. "She's killed fifty Muggles already, and that's just the ones she's done. I need to go."
Lydia just stared up at him, still feeling the shock of what he had said first, not even fully processing this new information.
"Sirius," she whispered. "What…"
"Don't wait up for me," he said, kissing her forehead gently. "I love you."
"But what if you…?"
"Don't wait up," he said sternly. "I don't care if you have to take something. If I come home early, then I come home early."
But he might not come home at all. The tension in the air was suffocating, thick with unsaid words.
Finally, Sirius tore himself away from her and rushed out of the front door. For one brief, mad moment Lydia thought of running out after him, but then she heard his bike start, and the sound of the engine quickly faded into nothing, merely the silent sound of night.
For a few moments, Lydia just sat on the sofa, staring at the fire, feeling strangely angry, but she didn't know who or what at. Finally, she got to her feet and went into the kitchen, downing her nearly full glass of wine in one and rinsing it out.
She had a flash of a memory of her mother doing that same thing and she dropped the glass, catching it just before it hit the ground. Lydia looked in the mirror behind the kitchen sink and saw her own eyes wide with horror at her realization.
She was becoming her mother, and she wasn't as okay with it as she thought she would be. She closed her eyes and she could see the flash of green, could hear Severus's voice telling her to stay where she was. It wasn't the voice of Severus when they were still children, though, but the smooth, deep voice of the current Severus, the one she had seen at Diagon Alley but a month ago. She took in a deep, shaky breath, and let it rattle out again.
There would be no sleep if she didn't get rid of these memories. She wanted to write Severus, to beg him….
But he was likely at the raid as well. Lydia was well and truly alone.
She poured herself another glass of wine and drank it more slowly than the last, not exactly in sips, but in sizable portions. Pacing the kitchen, wine in hand, she wondered how long she should wait up before sedating herself. She really didn't want to have to take such measures, but as Sirius said, there was a chance…
Well, when Bellatrix was there, there was always a chance that he wouldn't make it out alive. His vicious cousin wanted him dead more than she wanted to follow the Dark Lord's instructions to the letter, it seemed.
Perhaps it was selfish, but halfway through her glass, Lydia had a thought that if Bellatrix was off killing Muggles and fighting the Order, then at least Lydia was safe for the night. Bellatrix was the person most likely to have the skill and determination to break into Sirius's house and kidnap or torture or kill Lydia, and if she was gone, then perhaps Lydia would be able to sleep easily without a sedative.
She finished the wine well not too long after, checking the clock. It was nearly time for her to get to bed if she wanted to wake up at a reasonable hour in the morning. Still, though, even after two and a half glasses of wine she was feeling far too anxious to sleep. Lydia paced the kitchen once more, draining the last drops of wine form her glass and cleaning both it and the glass Sirius had left by the sofa.
There was nothing else for it. She went and grabbed a vial of sedative and went to bed, readying herself and climbing into bed with slightly trembling hands.
It wasn't that she was alone that made her the most afraid.
After all, Lydia was alone quite a lot. She didn't always feel alone, depending on the circumstances, but it was something that, while she would not ask for it, she had gotten somewhat used to, and it no longer frightened her to stare into the darkness by herself.
It was more the idea that if something were to happen at that raid, she might be alone…without an end in sight.
What would she do if something happened to Sirius? Leaving him outright, that was one thing. She suspected he had written her into his will – for all the Order members had wills, on Dumbledore's demand – and what if he left her his house?
It would certainly be strange to leave the house, although she still thought of it as Sirius's, and not like it was home. But it would be even stranger to stay, alone, knowing that it was because someone died that she had a house, all over again. Lydia knew what it was like to live in a house with ghosts, and that was the last thing she wanted.
No, if something happened to Sirius, she would leave. Perhaps she would buy her own place, perhaps somewhere closer to Lily and James. She might move in with Lily and James while she was getting her feet on the ground again. Except she didn't want to be a burden to them, not really having a steady income yet, and they were trying to have a child…. It was likely they would put her up regardless, but still.
Perhaps…perhaps Remus would take her?
Without Sirius wanting her, perhaps he would finally realize that they could be together. It wasn't as if things were totally hopeless…. Were they? He had been acting strange, and she had no idea what he was doing for the Order.
But Sirius had been working for the Order as well. Surely that shouldn't preclude any sort of relationship?
Lydia curled up into a bit of a ball, staring at the sedative on the nightstand, thinking on whether or not she should take it. She felt an overwhelming sense of fear. What if…Sirius died, and Remus wouldn't take her, what then?
If she couldn't bring herself to interrupt the married life of Lily and James while she shopped for a house, if she couldn't get over sleeping alone in a house, Lydia really only had one option left.
Somewhere warmer.
Of course, this was all providing that Bellatrix didn't kill them all and someone didn't kill Severus, and then Lydia would be well and truly alone, in every sense of the word. At this thought, she trembled, unable to rid herself of the feeling that she was going to lose everything at some point.
After all, the war had no foreseeable end, calculations or no calculations.
She didn't realize she was crying until a tear fell onto the pillow. She had worked herself up, not into a panic, thankfully, but certainly not into a state that would help her sleep.
Lydia wiped her eyes frantically with shaking hands and reached up for the sedative. She was trembling so violently that she nearly knocked it off the nightstand in her attempt to grab it, and she would have hated to clean up that mess. She clutched it tightly, not wanting it to fall as she brought it closer to her.
Breaking the seal took her a moment, but she managed to unseal and then uncork the vial, tossing the cork aside, hearing it fall to the floor and then roll off. It would likely be under the bed when she woke in the morning.
She tried to steady herself, bringing the vial to her lips, drinking it very quickly, tasting the awful aftertaste on her tongue. Lydia wondered whether she should brush her teeth again, but if she got out of bed she would be fighting the sedative, and she didn't want to think about where that would leave her. Instead she turned over to set the vial on the bedside table. She heard it fall to the ground and shatter and she groaned. Should she clean it up?
No, she couldn't afford to fight the sedative. She comforted herself with the thought that Sirius would get in on the other side of the bed and would not likely step in the broken glass with bare feet. If he did, well, he knew enough to Heal himself.
The sedative was making her eyes droop, but it did nothing to stem the flow of tears, and as Lydia curled into a ball again she felt them falling off the side of her face and onto the cool pillow. For some reason, everything about the room felt cold. She would have shaken it off as a side effect of the sedative, but she knew that it wasn't.
She had been shivering, she realized, or shaking at any rate, and she began to stop doing that as her eyes drooped closed. But as her body relaxed in that way, she felt a sob welling up inside of her.
She let it out, just a single sob into the darkness, pulling the covers more tightly around her. Tears were leaking out between closed eyelids. She would have hoped the sedative would stop this, but it did nothing but make her sleepy. Perhaps she had been more upset than she'd realized.
Lydia let her thoughts grow muddled as sleep came, feeling all the while the tears leaking out onto her cheek, falling almost rhythmically onto the pillow. It was a mellow, dull rhythm, slow as a funeral dirge, and somehow that thought made her tears come a bit faster, either in defiance of this notion or in an increase of her distress.
Sirius might not come back. Remus might not come back. Lily and James and Peter might not come back.
And Severus, Severus might die too. And Lydia fell asleep feeling more alone than ever, crying tears she had no control over.
Lydia woke the following morning with the sensation of someone holding her tightly, kissing her neck. She stretched, frowning.
"Sirius?" she muttered.
"Good morning, beautiful."
She had no doubt he was smiling, but there was tightness in his voice. He was either worried or upset about something.
"Is everyone…?"
"All our friends are still alive," he sighed. "But there were seventy Muggle deaths, and a few Death Eaters."
Lydia stiffened.
Death Eaters being dead implied that someone from the Order had killed them, and she couldn't imagine such a thing previously.
"I see you broke a vial."
"Did I?" Lydia muttered, screwing up her face and trying to remember. "Oh, yes, after I took the sedative."
There was a pause.
"And you didn't think to clean it up?"
Lydia sat up, looking down at Sirius with a frown.
"Honestly? I really don't remember." He just looked up at her. "This isn't what's bothering you, is it?"
Sirius just looked up at her still, face a mask of passivity that clearly didn't belong on his features.
"Sirius, which Death Eaters died?"
He shrugged.
"No one I know," he said.
Not Severus, then. That was a surprisingly comforting bit of information.
They stared at each other for a long while before Lydia finally said, "Who killed them?"
Sirius's eyes narrowed slightly and he rolled over, shifting and getting out of bed. Lydia blinked at him, wondering why he'd reacted so forcefully to her question.
"Sirius?"
"An Order member, Lydia."
He didn't bother getting dressed before leaving the bedroom. Lydia sat in bed, listening carefully, and after a moment she heard the sound of the kitchen door closing.
Lydia glanced down to make sure Sirius had cleaned up the glass before setting her feet on the ground. She climbed out of bed and pulled on her dressing gown. With tired steps she went out into the kitchen and saw that Sirius had begun tea.
"No one I know, then?" she pressed. This was what was bothering him, she knew. She wasn't sure what about it, or why, but the way he'd reacted was surely the reason he'd been tense.
"Lydia, don't worry about it," Sirius snapped, pouring tea for the two of them before getting out some eggs.
Ah. So there it was.
Sirius had been the one to kill the Death Eaters. She didn't know why, or how he was feeling about it, but for some reason it made her feel a bit sick, thinking of him killing someone.
"Sirius…." He turned and looked at her and Lydia summoned her courage. "Sirius, how many?"
"Lydia, let's not talk about this," he sighed. If he could have, Lydia had no doubt that at that moment he would have declared there to be secrets she couldn't know about. But surely it would be in the papers.
"It's in the Prophet, isn't it?" she demanded coolly. "How many Muggles, how many wizards. If no Order members are dead, then…."
"I already burned the paper," Sirius said darkly. Indeed, Lydia could see the ashes he had not cleared away before she entered the kitchen.
Why would he do that?
"How many Death Eaters did you kill, Sirius?" Lydia pressed, and he sighed.
"Three."
It was a like a blow to the gut. No doubt Severus had killed more people than that, perhaps more in one go, but the idea of sharing a bed with a man who had killed three people the night before made Lydia feel like there was a film on her skin that would take days to wash away.
Lydia turned her back to him, trying to collect herself, but she heard Sirius sigh again, moving toward her.
"Love, please."
Sirius had killed people, perhaps fathers, perhaps children barely out of school, hardly able to call themselves adults. He didn't know them. He couldn't say they truly deserved it. What if they were victims of the Imperius Curse?
"Lydia, will you look at me?"
She couldn't look at him. She wouldn't. Not while there were tears in her eyes. He touched her shoulder and she jerked away, moving to the door, but somehow unable to leave the room.
"Lydia, will you just tell me what's wrong?"
How could she tell him that it made her skin crawl to know that he essentially had blood on his hands?
"I wish you wouldn't do it," she finally choked out.
"What, be in the Order?" he said, frustrated. "Love we've had this talk."
"No," Lydia said quickly. "No, killing people."
She turned and looked up at him and instead of seeing some sort of sadness or contriteness like she had expected, she saw anger. Instead of promises not to do it again, he said, "I have to, Lydia."
"Does James?"
Sirius's face contorted. For all Lydia knew, Sirius was the only Order member who had ever killed someone, and that made her back away again.
"Are you afraid of me?" he demanded.
"No," she said softly.
"Then why are you shrinking away?"
"Because you're…you're…."
Yelling. Angry. Reminding her of her father.
Lydia shook her head, unable to speak any of those words.
"Why do you do it?" she demanded. "Why did you kill them? You don't even know who they are!"
"Lydia, if I didn't kill people, I wouldn't be alive!"
Her heart was pounding so hard she thought she could actually hear it. Was this true? But he had just all but said that James hadn't killed people. James was still alive. And if Lily had done it, she would have said, and Lily was still alive.
But…but they had both been close to death at one point or another, and no matter how badly Sirius came back to her she had never been afraid of him dying. Was this what he meant? Was his knowledge that she wouldn't sleep until he was home driving him to make such final decisions?
"I think I'm going to take a shower," she said softly. Sirius just watched her leave the room, and she wondered if she could get the feeling of that film off her body.
A/N: This chapter is dedicated to my most faithful reviewer, The Yoshinator, whose interactions with me have driven forward this chapter to completion. I hope it gives you lots to think on!
-C