Previously in the Darklyverse: Sirius delved into Emmeline's histories with both him and Peter in the effort to free her from the Imperius Curse.
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March 15th, 1982: Emmeline Vance
The first thing Emmeline does when she breaks free of the Imperius Curse is cry.
It's great, ugly wailing accompanied by full waterworks. It's embarrassing, really. James is the one who gets her free in the end, and with the limited portion of her brain that Emmeline has available to pay attention to him, she notices that he looks uncomfortable—and can she blame him? James is one of Emmeline's best friends, but they're not exactly best friends, if you know what she means. Still, he sort of edges closer to her after the first thirty seconds of it and pats her hand awkwardly. When she just cries harder, he mutters something like "screw it" and pulls her into a hug.
She doesn't know how long she sits there on the floor, all her limbs chafing from the ropes that he frees her of, clinging to him. It's not that she wants to go back under the Imperius Curse, but while she was cursed, she felt a certain sort of peace, even if it was tinged with stress about the possibility of disappointing Malfoy. Now, that peace is gone, and it's been replaced not just with the usual flood of war-related anxiety but also with all of the crap she usually buries about Peter and even Sirius right on the surface.
Emmeline had pushed Sirius so far out of her mind that she hadn't realized how much she missed him—if not as someone she used to love, then at least as her former best friend. Sure, they got closer again while working together at Scrivenshaft's, but now Sirius is teaching up at Hogwarts, and Emmeline hardly sees him outside of Order meetings anymore. She'd thought she was fine with it—she'd gotten herself to a place where she hardly thought about him—and then he had to go and break into her mind.
It surprises her in an awful way that Sirius still remembers so many of the details of their first kiss. She'd forgotten about Quirrell's essay—about the shockwaves that had coursed through her when Sirius tangled his leg up in hers before their lips connected. Now that it's at the forefront of her mind, Emmeline doesn't know how she can ever forget again. She wishes she could. She doesn't have any more of a chance of fixing what's wrong between herself and Sirius as she does of getting Peter back.
But James is here, and James isn't either of them, and James has never really done anything to hurt her. Emmeline contorts herself so that she's lying on her side in a tight ball, her head in his lap, and he rests one hand on her shoulder and cautiously scratches her head with the other. His fingernails feel good on her scalp.
"Sorry," she says once she's finally regained control of herself. She thinks about straightening up, but decides against it.
He keeps scratching. "It's okay. The Imperius Curse and the curse-breaking process take a lot out of you. Everybody reacts differently when they get free."
"I know." She's rescued enough people herself to already know this, but it doesn't make it any less mortifying.
"Sirius, uh… he told me what he had to tell you when he was with you on Saturday night. I think he's really sorry he went there."
"He shouldn't be. It got me rid of this thing, didn't it?"
"About that." James pulls his hand free of her scalp. "This isn't going to be like all the other people we've broken free of the Imperius Curse. You aren't just someone dispensable to do their bidding and torture random Muggles—they know you're in the Order."
"They've got to know by now most of who's in the Order. What I don't understand is why they waited so long to get at one of us. There was that string of killings last year, and then…"
"I still think this is more fun for them when they know they've got us afraid," says James darkly. "If we're all dead, there won't be any vigilantes left to be afraid of them. They were probably killing us just to remind us that they can. But Em, they're not going to let you go free after this. You missed a meeting with Malfoy on Saturday—they're going to know you're acting independently, and they're going to want to punish you for it."
But Emmeline's mouth has gone dry. "They waited to Imperius one of us because they didn't need another spy until now," she says hoarsely. "Before, Peter was all they needed, but now they've gone a few months without his intel, and…"
"We can't afford to worry about it," he insists. "The first thing we have to do is get you safe."
"And then what? Even if I go into hiding, they're just going to start targeting the rest of you one by one, if that's really what they're after."
She does sit up now, and her shoulder feels cold where James lets go of it. "Stay here today," he implores her. "Don't go home yet. For all we know, Death Eaters could—"
"Track me down at my flat? But James, if they're going to storm my home, they're going to be putting Alice and Remus in danger, too. I can't just leave them like that."
"Then Alice and Remus can come here, too."
Emmeline sighs. "We can't all stay here in Canada, James. There won't be anyone left to go on rescue missions."
After a pause, James says quietly, "We're going to lose this thing, aren't we?"
Privately, she agrees with him, but she's not going to let him know that. "It isn't over yet. We know about the Horcruxes, and we're going to find them and destroy them one by one. If their leader falls, they fall—and I'll make sure they fall," Emmeline resolves, climbing to her feet. "I'm going to find Dumbledore, and I'm going to make him let me help. If I can't go home—if I can't go back to Scrivenshaft's—I can at least do something."
"Em, we have no idea where Dumbledore even is. Just—stay here for now, okay? You can send Walsh off with a letter and ask him to come here and meet you, if you want, but none of us wants you to go home—not yet. Frank's mum is bringing Harry over soon—Frank gave him to her when he had to go in to work today, but she can bring him back now that you're better—and Sirius wanted to come by to see you, too."
Oh, god, Emmeline doesn't know if she's ready for that. Her instinct is still to run home, but she can kind of see James's point—she and her roommates might all want to lie low elsewhere for a while, at least until they regroup. "I'm so tired," she tells him. "Can I sleep on your couch?"
"I'll do you one better—you can have my and Lily's bed," he says. "The rest of the house might be loud once Harry comes back, and we cleaned the sheets this morning for you. You might be out for a day or so—the un-Imperiusing process takes a lot out of you."
"Yeah, I remember from when I used it on other people," she says gruffly. "Tell Augusta hi for me."
She should be asleep the second her head hits the pillow in Lily and James's bedroom, but she lies awake there for at least a quarter of an hour, her head swimming. She misses Peter. She hates herself for missing Peter.
He wrote to Mary after the letter Emmeline managed to get off to him—that has to mean something—but he told her that he didn't want any of them to contact him again. How much of their relationship—the most meaningful relationship Emmeline's ever had—was a lie? How many times did he put her life in danger without her knowing?
She doesn't notice herself finally falling asleep: one moment, she's thinking about Peter with daylight peeking through the crack in the curtains, and the next, it's pitch-dark in the room. She tries to raise her wrist to her face to check the time, but there's a pressure restricting the movement of the bedsheets. Opening her eyes blearily, she can see somebody sitting on the edge of the bed next to her—Sirius.
He's still dressed in his day robes. His legs are swung over the side of the bed, his feet on the ground, but his torso is twisted toward her. His eyes study her face, searching for something. "Good evening, Emmeline," he says quietly. "You should go back to sleep. None of us was expecting you to be awake yet."
"Then why are you sitting on my bed watching me like a creeper?" she grouses.
"It's morning in Britain right now, and—I wanted to make sure you were okay."
"Of course I'm okay," she says, but then she thinks better of it. "Actually, no, I'm not okay. Why would I be? The love of my life is a traitor, and I just got free of the Imperius Curse, and you…"
The hint of a smile vanishes from his face, and he turns away to face the other wall. "I know I… said things that weren't fair to you when you were like that."
"You love Remus," she reminds him—reminds herself. "You've been fighting since October to get Remus to take you back, and I fought to get over you for…"
"I didn't know what else to do to get through to you," he says. His voice sounds like he's begging. "But I should have known it would be thinking of Peter, not me, that would turn the tables."
"You and me, we aren't…" Emmeline swallows hard. "I miss you. At Scrivenshaft's. They have me doing the day shift with Elfrida."
"Elfrida?" Sirius wrinkles his nose. "That old hag?"
"Working with you was a lot more fun," she says, laughing. "She's impossible to talk to, and she gets snippy with me if I don't angle the quills just so on the shelves."
"I'd skip breakfast sometime to come and keep you company, but Elfrida might take issue with that."
"Ah, well, it's the thought that counts. Budge up."
Sirius lifts his bum up so that Emmeline can loosen the covers enough to sit up in bed. "I don't… I didn't forget about you, Em. Just because it's not like that between us anymore—even though I moved on—I don't think anybody ever really moves on, you know what I mean?"
"Yeah, I know what you mean." And she does, because that's how she feels about Sirius, too.
"I should have been seeing you more often since I left Scrivenshaft's. If I can sneak out of the castle to see Lily and James every week, I can sneak out of the castle to see you."
"Well, you can kill two birds with one stone for a while, at least. I don't think James wants to let me leave this house anytime soon, now that we know the Death Eaters are after me."
He smiles. "He's just looking for help with childcare. We'll figure out how to keep you safe, and you'll be out of here in no time."
"James can't keep me here," she says, her resolve strengthening. "I have to find Dumbledore. I have to help put a stop to this. Go make yourself useful and bring me Walsh and something to write on, will you?"
"…Well, at least get some more sleep first. You can write to Dumbledore after."
"No. I have to—"
"All you have to do right now is sleep. You've had an exhausting week. The Horcruxes will still be there in the morning."
"You're not my dad," Emmeline mutters, but she slumps back down and lays her head on the pillow. This time, she goes right out.
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END OF PART TWENTY