ANNABEL LEE
Part III Paradise Lost
I remember the last time I saw Sirius. We had grown apart since my graduation from Hogwarts. Two months after my graduation, I had a respectable job starting at the Ministry of Magic in Spain as the United Kingdom's ambassador's aide. My fourth year, my family couldn't pay for my education anymore. Somehow the Ambassador had found out about it. (I suspect Emily, one of my housemates, told him. She's the Ambassador's daughter.) He quietly offered me a job working in his office during the summer and on weekends and I've been working there ever since.
In any case, late one night I heard the door bell ring. When I opened the door, I saw Sirius standing on the doorstep. His face was slightly panicky as he asked to come in. I stepped aside as he anxiously hurried inside. I offered him a seat in the kitchen, but he said he'd prefer to stand. In the uncomfortable silence that followed, I began to make Darjeeling tea. He nursed his mug as he paced while I quietly sat, waiting to hear why he had come all the way to Madrid from London.
"Do you remember our first date at Hogsmeade?" Sirius asked abruptly and stopped pacing.
I nodded and said, "Yes, of course. How could I forget?"
Especially the way it ended, I couldn't help thinking.
"Then you must remember when Lily spoke of her sister, I well…" He seemed to be floundering for the appropriate phrase.
"Ran away?" I prodded gently.
Sirius smiled sheepishly. "Yeah, I suppose I did, didn't I? The reason I reacted so strangely is because when I was seven years old, I began to walk around the neighbourhood of one of my family's townhouses. One day, I met a little girl, Petunia Evans."
At this point, I could not help but gasp. Sirius was too submersed in his own past to notice my small interruption and continued without a pause.
"Petunia taught me how to skip rope. She was the sweetest, most innocent child I had yet seen in all my seven years among the noblest and, in most cases, the blackest aristocrats of the British Wizarding World. I was caught twice and only twice with her. The first time, I was denied food and water. The second, we were both tortured. By my parents. I never saw her again."
I reached across the gap that separated us and squeezed his hand. He looked up with guilt in his pained grey eyes. However, he pulled his hand away.
"You're not telling me something," I accused Sirius.
He bit his lower lip endearingly and muttered, "Mymum'sgonnakillus."
"What?" I asked, unsure if what I had heard was really what he had said.
Sirius looked up and met my eyes for the first time that night. "My mother is going to kill us," he said clearly and seriously.
I bit back a sarcastic retort but apparently could not keep the scepticism from my eyes as Sirius involuntarily thrust out his lower lip like a child. He looked as though he were about to throw a temper tantrum, so I quickly changed the subject.
"Do you need a place to stay? Mi casa es su casa," I said brightly.
Sirius arched an eyebrow. "Pardon?"
"My house is your house," I translated.
"Oh. Right, then. No, I'm alright. I'm on my way to meet up with the Potters in Portugal. I ought to be leaving now," he said while checking his watch.
We embraced and I walked Sirius to the door, exchanged our goodbyes, and he walked alone down the quiet street. I never saw him again.
While that was the last I saw of Sirius, that was not my final confrontation with the Black family. Two days later, Sirius' mother appeared on my doorstep. She was a truly beautiful woman; it was obvious where Sirius had inherited his good looks. However, unlike Sirius' genial air, Mrs. Black had an aura of reserve, aloofness, and deadly beauty. Her atmosphere was reminiscent of an icy street glittering like a multitude of diamonds while waiting to devour its next meal of steel cars and soft flesh.
"Where is he?" the Ice Queen demanded imperiously. She pushed past me as if I was the intruder and walked confidently into my small flat. She sneered as if putting on a smile would cause her to implode from the air tainted by my Mudblood breath.
"Well?" Mrs. Black sniffed, her harsh, haughty voice breaking into my reverie.
I shook my head slowly. She seemed to be sizing me up.
"I don't suppose you'd break under pressure," she murmured quietly. I shook my head again proudly. When I became close to the Ambassador, I had to learn how to keep my thoughts hidden from predators, even under torture. The witch gently touched a finger to my cheek.
"Pity. But you won't be nearly as beautiful as you are now when they're through with you. Expelliarmus." She deftly caught my wand and pocketed it. I stood, unarmed and stunned into silence at this veritable peacock showing off her feathers. The aristocrat reached into the pocket of her ruby red robes and pulled out a medallion. She whispered absentmindedly to it, "She's ready."
As hooded and masked figures in deathblack robes apparated in, Mrs. Black turned and smiled the most stunning smile, accenting her fine features. "Never hurt a Black."
Her deliciously dangerous words shimmered like an icy road between us. In a blink of an eye, she was gone, taking my last chance of life with her.
Good bye for now, my sweet Sirius.
