DISCLAIMER: I do not own any characters in this story apart from Sylvia and Timothy. All the rest is the product of the genius imagination of J.K. Rowling.

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Alicorn: Thank you for your good words! Err, yes I have read some Mercedes Lackey, but I had no idea she had influenced me so much that it showed in my writing!!! I think I'm kind of flattered! But maybe she would not be.

Nite Queen: Glad to hear from you again! No problem though, we are all supposed to have a life outside the Harry Potter fandom… uh, well, okay….anyway, thanks again for your presence and support.

Stormcloud Empath: Hey, thanks!! You wish is my command. I did this I soon as I could!

Sirius the Homicidal Maniac: Thanks for your concern, my daughter is well now. Glad to see I'm not the only one with mixed feeling about the Solidaris stuff… good review that!

Sothis Star: Thank you for an in-depth review! I've never read "Magical Beast and Where to Find Them" but I assumed that fairies were strong only in groups like bees or ants who are stupid and weak independently but a force to reckon with as a group. That is why Sylvia made a swarm of them. They move and live as a hive. Would you agree with that interpretation? There is nothing to forgive, your 'nit-picking' helped me a lot. I love to know what I do right and what I do wrong. It is the only way to get better!!

A/N: After a few reviews on the weird Solidaris conversation, I have edited it, keeping only what I liked. Thank you all for your opinions and comments.

Well, I didn't really like the last chapter, but I think this one is definitely one of my favorite. It is also the longest yet. I know I'm not the best with sentimental scene, but bear with me, there is some action further down. I also know that it finishes, again, with a cliffhanger. Don't hate me!! I still have to work on the spying they need to do next. It just felt like the right place to stop.

Thanks again to Aurias for all his hard work!

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Chapter 12: Field Work

"Tim? What about him? What has he done? Is he close by?" She could hear the fear in her voice and could do nothing about it. Hearing Tim's name from Dumbledore's mouth was ominous and disturbing. She unconsciously clutched at Remus' arm and looked pleadingly at Sirius, as if he could make everything right by stopping Dumbledore from ever uttering HIS name again. She had felt so safe in the wizarding world, she never had suspected that her old nemesis could come back in her life through her new friends. Magic had nothing to do with her old life, how dare Dumbledore bring it into the open!

In a daze, she let Sirius unfasten her grip on Remus and gently eased her on the couch. "He's not close, he doesn't know where you are." He took her hand and tipped her head so that her eyes met his, "Do you understand me? You are still safe here." She took a deep breath of the unmoving air and almost choked on it, it was so humid and heavy, but it did clear her head. She relaxed marginally and nodded to Sirius. She was being stupid, Sirius would never tell on her; he was loyal to his friends. Of course, she was not totally sure he thought of her as such, and she knew next to nothing about Dumbledore. Could they have led Timothy to her? She tensed all over again and almost jumped on her feet to start running. Only the three men's worried gaze held her. Their eyes told her they cared about her, that they would never leave her alone to bear her troubled past, that they were with her, no matter what. Could she really bring herself to risk believing what their eyes were saying? She had known them for so little time; she was not that loveable. Could they be faking their anxiousness? Did it matter if they did? She let her breath out in a long sigh. With it, she let the fear go, deciding to trust these people, for better or worse. A part of her mind was still lecturing her sternly, "You're crazy, never let your guard down, don't trust anyone, it might be a trap, you don't go relying on people just because they have wonderful eyes!! Get yourself out of there, you are better off alone..." "ENOUGH!" She had enough. Enough of being alone, enough of not trusting anyone, enough of being afraid of everything. If those three were going to get her killed, then by God so be it.

She opened eyes she did not know she had closed, sat up straight and looked at Dumbledore. "What was it, that you were saying about Timothy?"

Dumbledore's face lit up in a dazzling smile as if he knew of all that has gone by in her head, and was glad of the conclusion she had reached. As usual, his smile made her answer with one of her own without wanting to. He came and sat at her side on the couch while Sirius took the other place near her. Remus, seeing that, uttered a spell that made a chair from the kitchen fly until it was just in front of her. They were all there, surrounding her, close enough so that she felt comforted but not enough to make her feel edgy or crowded.

"My dear," Dumbledore began, drawing her attention back to him, "since you have told me about Timothy and his link to the Death Eaters, a lot of security leaks has become understandable. Muggles with wizard family members have been found murdered in the last two years, and not all by magical means. Some incidents were thought to be the works of muggle thieves or bandits, but some were killed by the mean of the killing curse. The murders are neither random nor was anything stolen, and some of those families were under magical protection. The Ministry of Magic had no idea how the locations were discovered. We suspected a spy in the ministry, but never did a muggle was even thought of as a possible source of information. Until you came here and told me your story." He paused for an instant, as if hesitating, "Sylvia, your husband needs to be stopped. We cannot go on with him snapping at our heels. A lot of good people were killed, some didn't know about the wizarding world and they were just killed because they were the wife or kids of someone who was linked to us. In order to stop him, we… need your help." He waited for her reaction, but she gave no sign of what she was thinking. In fact, she could feel or think of nothing. She was so tired. They wanted her help. Right. Doing what? Walk straight into Tim's office and tell him he had been naughty? Ask him to stop at once? She had no lever on him, no filthy habits with which they could blackmail him and no sexy tricks that could turn him around. She had been nothing to him but a toy.

She rubbed her nose ridge with weariness, "What is it that you want me to do?"

Dumbledore examined her with gravity as if weighting her amount of courage and determination against what he was going to tell her. "We have led Timothy in a wild goose chase, over a false sighting of you in Bath. He will be gone tomorrow from his flat in London for about four to five days. You know where you have found the first messages. I want you, with Sirius' help, to get inside the place, take the latest messages and leave a virtual spy, so that we learn how he gets the notes. Then, if possible, follow the messenger and destroy or arrest his informant. If he gets it by owls, which I highly doubt, Sirius can put Owl charms around him without his knowledge." His voice dropped down to a gentle whisper, but she heard every word, "I know I have no rights to ask you this. You will have to see him again, to go inside the very place where you were hurt the most, to touch things and see person you once knew and cared for. Even under a very good disguise, and magical help, it will still be very dangerous. Will you help us? We could do it without your help, but it would be more difficult, long and the result unreliable. We need to put a stop to this…this massacre as soon as possible. We need to cut Voldemort from this source of information or all the fighting might be in vain."

A long weighty silence followed this lengthy explanation. Sylvia still felt detached, as if this conversation in no way concerned her. The three men seemed to be holding their breaths, awaiting her response. "You are aware," she said slowly in the silence, making Remus and Sirius jump, " that if I do that, I would be having a panic attack every fifteen minutes or so? That would not make me a very reliable spy, would it?"

Dumbledore nodded, "Yes, I know. I had a talk with Madam Pomfrey. She also told me in no uncertain terms that doing so would probably result in mild to severe neurological damage to you. It is your choice."

At that, Sirius got to his feet, white with anger to confront his mentor. "You can't ask her to do that if it is going to cripple her for the rest of her life!!! You just can't! What kind of wizard are you?!"

The old man raised steady eyes to meet Black's furious ones, "The kind desperate enough to try to stop a war before it starts. Because if it ever starts Sirius, her nerves will be the least of her worries and all of us will be dead."

Sylvia put a calming hand on Sirius' arm, adding her logic to Dumbledore's, "It is my choice, Sirius, and my nerves. Madam Pomfrey told me already that I was probably too far gone anyway. There is a very large chance that I will never recover as it is, so a little bit more damage…" She shrugged at her two gaping friends and smiled, "Thank you for the knight in shining armor rescue though, that was sweet. I've never had a man jump at my defense before." She turned to Dumbledore again and gave him the answer he was waiting for. "If you are willing to trust my failing nerves, then I will do it, or try to anyway."

Then she got up and went to her room with an overwhelming need to both cry and laugh hysterically at her own folly.

***

Crying did help, a little. She felt as if she had just sealed her own fate, committed suicide without actually dying. Nothing was ever going to be right again, she knew. She had deluded herself with illusions that when everything would be finished, Tim dead or in prison and she free once more, she could go back at being the Sylvia she was before Tim came and destroyed everything. She would go back to her parents and her friends, flirt a little, maybe even find a gentleman and get married again. She had wanted to have children in her first year of marriage. Now she thanked God that she had decided to wait a bit.

Yes, she was too far gone now, she was so different from what she used to be. Her body and mind were wrecked and she was charging straight into danger. Nothing like the sensible girl she always was proud to be. Logical, stable and even tempered, that was her, never impetuous or wild or even dreamy. Such a good little girl.

She turned on her back, fixing through the window the waning moon floating over the treetops. It was late, she realized. She had cried for a long time, unaware of anything but her own misery. With a start, she thought that Remus was probably gone, she did not even say goodbye to him or thank him for his friendship. She hastily got up and went to her small desk to write a short missive to her friend. Once finished, she went to the window and softly called the small barny owl, which shortly came and went to deliver the message.

She turned back to her bed, but she felt too awake and too anxious to sleep. She decided to go to the kitchen for a glass of warm milk. She really needed her sleep, the next few days were going to be difficult enough without going through them half-asleep.

She opened her door slowly, trying not to make any noise. Sirius would probably be sleeping on the couch; there was no need to wake him. At least one of them should be fresh and alert in the morning. She slipped through the crack of the door and carefully treaded her path around the nosiest spot on the wood floor. She suddenly froze as a movement caught the corner of her eyes. She instantly turned her head toward the small living room and there she saw the large form of a man, black against the moonlight coming from the big window behind him, standing there, unmoving.

Sirius. He was awake after all. She relaxed her awkward stance and stared at him, letting her eyes roam on his powerful, naked back and strong arms, delineated by the soft blue light of the night. A shiver ran through her as she struggled to keep from moving even a finger, unwilling to break the moment. Slowly, as if alerted to her presence by some instinct, his profile appeared over the window and he called softly, "Sylvia?"

"Yes." Her answer was but a murmur but he heard it and turned to face her. Her feet moved on their own volition to get closer to him, where she could see his face.

"Are you all right?" His voice was low and vibrant and his gaze searching.

"No. Not really." She shrugged and averted her face. She felt ugly. She was still fully dressed, having thrown herself on her bed to cry without bothering to undress. Her eyes were red and puffed, her hair flat and dead and her mouth felt, and probably smelled, like a sewer. After a moment of silence, she continued, "Sorry…to have disturbed you, I just wanted a glass of milk…." She closed her mouth on her babbling and spun on her heels to resume her trek to the kitchen.

"Wait!" he called.

She half-turned toward him, "Yes?"

He took a long breath, "Do you remember I told Dumbledore that I knew a spell to talk to my friends while in animagus form?"

She faced him, her interest aroused in spite of everything. "Yes, I do. What of it?" She asked calmly

He closed the small gap between them with two steps, his warmth enveloping her like a blanket. She had to raise her head to keep her gaze firmly on his face. She dared not look lower in fear of losing the little control she still had. She could feel his body close to hers, his scent assaulting her nostrils, his proximity awakening her body like nothing else could. He gazed down on her, not touching her and licked his lips. She groaned inwardly, "Please, don't do that!"

"I would like to perform the spell now, since we are both awake and about. It would save us time tomorrow and since I will travel as a dog, we will need to keep in touch. What do you say?"

She kept eye contact and answered boldly, "Okay, but you have to answer something first."

He stilled, visibly taken aback, and considered her for a while. His voice sounded husky when he asked, "What is it?"

"The night we came back from Harry's house, I fell asleep on the couch. I awoke the next morning in my bed…" she whispered the rest, her face aflame, "na…naked. Do you by any chance had anything to do with that?" She made the mistake of lowering her eyes to his broad shoulders, wanting to avoid his eyes. "Oh jeez! What got into me, asking that? God! He's gorgeous!" With an effort of will, she brought back her gaze to his face, surprised to see it as red as hers was a moment ago. Her eyes grew wide at the sight and her mouth uttered a faint "Oh." of understanding.

"Oh! Indeed." He said in a low, hoarse voice, staring at her. "I guess I should apologize…" his gaze lifted from her face to contemplate the darkness above her head, "but I will never, as long as I live, forget that moment. You were like a kitten looking for warmth. It took all I had to leave you there." His eyes came back to hers, "I swear, I did nothing more than undress you. I did not touch you, as much as I wanted to… You believe me, do you?" He seemed anxious that she did. She nodded, unable to speak and her stomach was in knots over the desire she could see in his dark gaze. She only had to raise her head a trifle to meet his lips with hers… she started to do so, but suddenly backed away from the moment, afraid of the intensity of what lay between them. It was rather like being fascinated by fire, wanting to touch it, yet knowing you would get badly burnt if you did. She took a step back.

She took a steadying breath and said with false enthusiasm, "Well, how does this spell of yours work?"

If possible, his eyes glowed even more, and he smiled. "Yes. The spell." His voice still had this low husky tone and Sylvia shivered again under the caress in his voice. "It is called the Arcanus Loqui charm. It goes like this: since I'm the wizard, I will initiate the spell. I will send a thought toward you, like a knock on a door. It is up to you to accept it or not. My thoughts will go just as far as you want them to…penetrate. People usually keep them in the outward region of their thoughts, where you talk to yourself. It is called a 'public' area. Then, you 'follow' the alien thought to its origin with a thought of your own. Since you are not a witch, it will be impossible for you to ever initiate contacts. But once the link is there, we can keep it open for hours. It is always severed when one of the two is unconscious or asleep. I will never force a contact on you or try to pry into your dreams. Those are the rules. Do you trust me to respect you in this?" She nodded, "Do you understand everything? Any questions?" She shook her head. "All right, then."

He walked to his discarded robe and took his wand from one of its pocket. He turned to her, his wand high. "Are you ready?"

She swallowed her nervousness and answered clearly, "Yes, I am." It all sounded so…formal. Like a ceremony. Sirius mumbled a series of odd sounding phrases, pointed his wand at her and closed his eyes. She held herself up tight, waiting for light and thunder to struck her, but nothing happened. Trying to see what went wrong, she took a look around her, then made a survey of herself. That's when she felt it. Like a feather brushing her scalp. She concentrated on the feeling, curious. She touched it with a tentative tendril of thought and heard a whisper, "~It is me, Sirius, let me in. ~" She gasped and almost lost contact. It was much more than just a voice!!! It was like a little ball of Sirius Black essence wanting in! It was all there, his musky scent, rasp voice, the feeling of his profound dark eyes, the warmth of his large body, his sense of humor and his playfulness, his desire and caring, his regrets and pains, his love for his Godson and Remus and even the dark corners of his fears and nightmares. Did she really want all of that inside her head? Did she really want to give that much of herself over to him?

"Is it suppose to be that…that…, I don't know… so full of yourself? It's like looking into your personal diary! I thought it was going to be like…like talking, only inside each other's head."

He frowned, "You're describing it exactly. What is it that you felt, then?"

She told him, at length. The more she explained, the whiter he became until he finally collapsed on the couch-turned-bed.

"What you're saying, it's not possible. Only people who have been together for a very long time can feel the other to such a deep level." He stared at nothing for a while, trying to decipher what could have brought this on. "Maybe…maybe it's my fault," he suddenly said, startling her out of a half-doze, "I think my time in Azkaban might have had an unexpected side effect. In order not to lose my mind in there, I had to keep a firm grip on who I was, on my feeling of self. I think I'm now so used to it, that I cannot distance myself from…myself. It's all in a tangle." He raised his eyes to her, "I'm afraid that in order for this spell to work, you'll have to take all of me or nothing at all. I don't think there's a middle ground in me anymore." He stood up, all business, "You don't have to decide that tonight, you're tired, it's very late. Better to catch some sleep while we can."

She looked at him with furrowed brows, "Would it not bother you to let me feel, know so much about you? What I felt was very…intimate. It's not me who should give this a second thought, it's you. I would have access to…damn! To your very soul!" She was angry with him for not considering every risk, for not really thinking about what it was that he was offering her.

He walked to her slowly, "I don't have to think about it, Sylvia. I've lived with you remember? I saw how careful you tried to protect Max and his sister. I saw how good you were with keeping secrets. I would trust you with my soul and more. You don't have to do the same for me, this is my problem, not yours."

"It doesn't feel very fair, receiving so much from you and giving so little of myself in return." She said dubiously. "I want to try again, now. Please?"

His gaze deepened, "if you're sure… " At her nod, he closed his eyes and she did the same.

This time, she knew what to look for, so she found the soft touch immediately. She touched it carefully and again she felt him, all of him, like a part of her she did not knew she had lost. "~ I'm here, here…~" She followed the fragile thought until she had a visual image of him, welcoming her with a smile. He extended his hand to her, she took it…and felt the link fall into place between them.

She opened her eyes and sent a thought at his 'presence' in her mind "~ Is it done? ~" She discovered with some surprise that what she felt was the emotions surroundings his memories, not the memories themselves. She was definitely grateful for that. From the amount of emotional pain coming from the corner of him connected with the twelve years he lived in prison, she was pretty sure she did not want to see the memories. He was all light and shadows, innocent and ugly, a dangerous man and a laughing boy all at the same time. He was also solid as a rock and so rooted in his faith in his friends, in his sense of responsibility to a lost little orphan boy that he felt like an unmovable granite mountain. Dedicated, single-minded, noble, he was right; there was no middle ground in him. He loved and hated with the same intensity, with his whole being. She could even feel the part of him that was his animagus; loyal, playful, free, but also lonely and lost, despairingly trying to find a place to call his own.

"~ Yes, how do you feel? ~"

She smiled, "~ Like this. ~" And she opened herself to him, letting him feel everything. She had nothing to lose. The future she had dreamed for herself was more than improbable now, she was not even sure she was going to survive the next few months. She had decided to trust him, she might as well do it completely. She was also pretty sure he knew how she felt about him, so that was no big surprise. There was nothing really that she felt now was necessary to hide from him. He already knew her more than her own parents did. So, she was taken completely by surprise when she saw tears running down his face.

"~ What's wrong? ~" She sent to him, along with her worry, her care and her fear that she had caused him pain.

"~ He has betrayed and hurt you, like Wormtail did. You understand. You understand…~"

She understood. They were alike in many ways and yet in others they were as different as fire and ice. Where he was all black and white, she was made of all the shades of gray, when he was decisive and sure of himself, she was ambiguous, scared to commit herself, doubting everything and everyone. He could steady her and help her to believe, she could teach him that the darkness in him did not make him a monster or a madman doomed to loneliness. They could, if life gave them the chance…

She hold him and cried with him until he fell asleep, then she covered him and went to bed for a mere three hours of sleep with a smile on her face. Surprisingly, she felt… clean and full of hope. Timothy had not the shadow of a chance!

***

She came out of the shower, the next morning, dressed and refreshed, only to find that Sirius had already started breakfast. He had only his pants on and his chest under the morning light was even more tempting than under the moonlight. He looked up at her and smiled. There was so much joy in it that she answered it with a tremendous feeling of happiness swelling inside her. She sat down and accepted a plate of succulent looking pancakes. She raised a surprise eyebrow at him.

"This is my specialty, I can't do more than that!"

She laughed and attacked her plate with energy. "So," she said after only their coffee was left to drink. "How are we going to arrange things for this 'mission'?"

He smiled again, "There's nothing to arrange. Dumbledore saw to everything. We have an apartment rented for us, with a fireplace, and a computer for you, with enough muggle money to buy an entire store if you need to." Seeing the surprise in her face, he added, "The fireplace is for communication and emergency exit purpose and since going through the floo network would probably damage your laptop, the headmaster thought it preferable and more economic to buy you one instead of two new ones." He grinned at her delight and continued, "The apartment is located two streets down from your old home. We will go there from the Leaky Cauldron in a taxi, under a disguise of course. You already have Caitlin Blackburn's papers, I'm your dog, Skif. When I'm human, I'll be your friend Devlin Collier. Dumbledore gave me his papers. You also need to find yourself a job that make it possible for you to stay home a lot."

Sylvia thought about it, "Um. A writer for a children magazine I think."

"All right then, time to get into costume." He gulped the rest of his coffee down and got up. "I'll do the dishes, your disguise is quite a bit longer than mine to prepare!"

She transformed into Caitlin, glad that she was less complicated than Rowena. She packed clothes and make up, a few books and her nerves potions. In less than an hour, she was ready. She bolted the door, closed the blinds to indicated that she was not home, carefully put her laptop away and turned to face Sirius who was waiting for her beside the fireplace with the floo powder and his own packed stuff.

"Before we go, let's find ourselves a code to indicate that you want me to use the Arcanus Loqui. You could, for example, pat Skif under the chin?" At her nod of acceptance, he continued, "I will transform as soon as we are outside the pub, you'll stop a cab while I do it. I will initiate the contact inside the cab and we will keep it open for the rest of the day. This afternoon, we will go for a walk and see if Timothy is gone. Agreed?"

She nodded again. He was more used to this than she was, her hands were shaking while he seemed focused and very much in control. She took a deep breath and grabbed a handful of powder.

"Here we go." She thought before flinging the powder at her feet. "The Leaky Cauldron!"

***

Everything went according to plan. The apartment was small but fine. It appeared that it was owned by a wizard who owed Dumbledore and agreed to rent his home for a couple of weeks while he was on vacation. Hence, the place was full of magical devices which Sylvia had no idea how to use. The computer was a laptop of the latest sort with all the right software included. A note near it explained clearly that Remus had been very observant indeed and gave Dumbledore's man a list of everything that was on her computer back at the cabin.

Skif sniffed everywhere before turning into Sirius, reassured that no one was around. "Let's eat. Then to Tim's place." He looked at her with worried eyes. "Are you okay so far?"

It was strange to be in London again, to hear the familiar noises in the very neighborhood where she used to live. She smiled at her partner, "I'm all right Sirius. I'm not that fragile. I'll tell you, one way or another, if I feel an attack coming." She looked around and frowned, "I think it's my turn to sleep on the sofa, you take the bedroom."

He took a ridiculous pseudo seductive pose and crooked a finger at her, "You are welcome to share, baby…"

She laughed and threw a pillow at him. "Go unpack, punk, while I make lunch."

~

On their way to Tim's, she stopped at an electronic shop for a digital camera, letting Skif, attached by his leash to a lamppost, wait outside. "~ There's a big, decorative vase in a corner of his office, I'll take pictures of it and reproduce it in 3D. It'll be a perfect place to hide a video camera. ~" She explained mentally to him. "~ I don't think Tim ever look twice at it. ~"

They soon found themselves in front of the building where she used to live. Her heart started beating a little faster. "~ Let's go a little further up, there's a back alley with a rear entrance to the building. I think we can sneak to take a look at one of the windows to check if he's gone. ~"

Skif just started to run in front of her in answer, pulling on his leash. She could feel through the link that he was not happy being hampered but they didn't have much choice. They turned into the alley, and found themselves in a dark and smelly dead end where the garbage cans were dumped. The only thing of interest was a metal door on the side of the building with a short flight of stairs and a banister. Sylvia felt her heart squeeze with painful memories at the smell and sight of the place. She refused to think of some of the things that had happened in here and instead concentrated on counting the windows.

Feeling her unease, Sirius changed back, taking off his collar. He took one of her hands and squeezed it in an effort to show his support. "Where?" He asked in a whisper.

"Third window from the far corner, on the second floor." She answered in the same manner. They walked to the end of the short alley and she pointed the right window to him. "That's his living room, the other window on the right is the bedroom. If he's not gone, he should be in one or the other, getting ready."

She had just finished her whispered explanation when they heard the screeching of the metal door opening and a handsome voice saying: "We're going to get her this time, we have too. My boss is getting to curious about why the strange murders continue even though my wife no longer has access to me as a way to get information. I had to tell him she had got away with more than we thought, which made me look like a fool to have bring so much stuff home."

It was Tim! With him were eight young men and a lot of equipment. Screams exploded inside her head, a red veil falling in front of her eyes. Fortunately, her throat was closed by panic and she could not utter a sound, otherwise her terrified shrieks would have been the end of them both. She wanted to flee, to jump on her husband like an angry cat and shred him to pieces, to let darkness engulf her and never come to, to hide into Sirius' arms and wail like a little girl, all at the same time. She started to gasp and shake.

Sirius took no time to act. He took her in his arms and kissed her, forcing air into her lungs. Making it impossible for her to move. His mind gripped her just as tightly, trying to cut through the wall of horror surrounding her. "~ Sylvia! Grab my shoulders! They are too many for me to tackle by myself. Our only chance is to make them believe we are nothing more than a couple taking advantage of a dark corner! Sylvia, come on, listen to me!! ~"

In a haze, like a woman drowning and trying to grab a life buoy, she extended an arm and put it around his shoulder, suddenly hugging him as if he was the only thing between her and death. She heard through the pain, a whistle of appreciation coming from the group and a few rude comments followed by laughter. She distantly heard Tim say: "She has nice legs, too bad we're in a hurry!" Then, the laughter died away as they moved toward the street, and were gone.

Clinging to Sirius' mind, Sylvia tried to keep the fainting spell descending on her at bay. Her eyes were hurting her with the tears that were unable to escape. After a brief while, Sirius' lips left hers and out of breath he said, "Let's get you somewhere safe." With her arm still on his shoulder, he helped her to stand and started in the direction of the stairs. It took a moment to Sylvia to register exactly where he intended to go. She tried to stop him. "~ NO! Not there. He could come back. He could hurt me again…~"

"~ I'm sorry. We don't have many options. We can't stay here and, in your condition, we're too far from the apartment. You need to take your potions and lie down fast. There is nowhere else. ~"

He dragged her to the metal door, and taking his wand out, said a soft word. The door opened slightly, they went in. With fire roaring in her head, she saw the corridor and the door leading to her personal hell. She fainted.

TBC…

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