Dragon Fire burns, grindylow Bite, near drowning, acromantula venom, curse scar, torture curse- trapped, chained down, sacrificed, strangled- 'help?-' 'help?-' 'help?-'

Nami held her head, rocked her body and whimpered in the dark. She gripped her head so tightly that her nails were digging in to the skin- and she released her head with a strangled sound when the wounds healed instantly. "I don't deserve that- I don't- don't fix it! Please don't fix me anymore!" she begged, ripping her hands from her head and trying not to injure herself further.

Her soul-mate, her precious person, the one person who was supposed to love her, the one good thing about her and Nami hadn't been able to do a thing to help them. Not through the dragon burns in November, the creature bites and drowning in February, and the chaos in April that Nami couldn't have afforded even if she'd had months to prepare for it.

Nami's only hope had been that after April the options she'd been getting would calm down, she was wrong. Now she was getting a 'nightmare: wake up?' warning nightly, as well as more notification's of bruises and worse yet, mental prods that cost so much more than physical options. For psychological trauma was more difficult to heal than any bodily injury, and it seemed to be continually plaguing her soul-mate now.

She couldn't afford it. Nami didn't have the points for even the physical wounds, she didn't get enough during March to recover from the rest of the year let alone to afford to buy anything. Worse yet, her theft during the latter parts of her free time was stalling out because of how hard she was focusing on her soul-mate. Which meant she'd never be free and she'd never save her village.

Nami realized the truth, she had to pick. She had to choose between her freedom and village or her soul-mate who always had, without fail, helped her even when Nami couldn't return the favor.

And Nami had no idea what she was supposed to do. All she knew was that eventually, her soul mate would realize the truth about her, and they wouldn't be able to accept it. Not with how good they were to afford so much for her. And if Nami stopped helping them like she knew she'd have to, to save her village. Then perhaps they'd stop supporting Nami, perhaps they'd stop caring about her, and she couldn't even blame them for it.

She didn't deserve their help.

"Your hint said 'another world' didn't it Sirius?" Holly asked in Grimmauld place as she finally found a moment with Sirius alone. Which she'd seen was incredibly difficult with the Order all over the place. Not to mention Hermione and Ron both knew she was drowning in stress, among other things, and they were both being a bit overprotective, especially after her brief explosive freak-out when she'd arrived.

Thankfully Ron had been dragged off to help the twins clean, and Hermione was debating soul-mate hints with Ginny.

"It did," he confirmed, "why?"

"Mine sort of… said the same thing, did you ever…" she trailed off. It was a question plaguing her for the last year, something she hadn't wanted to ask Sirius in a letter because she knew what fate befell his soul-mate. She hadn't wanted to upset him with her questions, but in person, Holly found she couldn't hold her tongue anymore. She was much too curious.

"Figure out how to reach them? Have enough points to go to their world?" he ruffled her hair, "let show you something, and don't tell the shrew lady, she'd never let it go." Holly gave him a quick nod as Sirius dramatically glanced around them, then with a wink he took her hand and carted her up to the library. Once inside he did another dramatic glance around to Holly's amusement, before he reached up and placed his hand on one of the shelves. She watched as the shelf opened up, revealing a secret room and gave a gasp. He grinned eagerly at her, pleased to finally have some real one-on-one time with her, something he'd wanted ever since he'd been locked up.

True Holly wasn't a baby, and he'd never get to gush about her firsts with James and Lily. Nor would he ever drop her off to Hogwarts for the first time, or see her excitement when she got her first wand, or even see her Hogwarts letter. But Sirius could still have a few moments with her, he could still spend time with her now, and that mattered to him. Sirius would take every second he could get with his kid.

"The perks of being a Black are limited, this is the only one other than the gold, this part of the library only opens with someone with Black blood," he smirked, "which includes you, I blood adopted you when you were three months old, behind Lily's back of course. Ah… that includes Arthur's kids as well." He added as an offhand comment as if he hadn't stumped her with the knowledge that blood adoptions were possible and apparently Sirius was considered her blood father and not just her godfather.

"The Weasley's!? No wait hold on, you blood adopted me?! I need more details on that Sirius!"

"Didn't you know?" Sirius answered, utterly skipping over the blood adoption, "Arthur's mother was a Black, so they all have Black blood."

"That's not- Sirius!-"

"-Anyway, back when I was younger, Regulus and I used to sneak into here. It's where the good books were-" he reached out pulled a book revealing a hidden box behind some old looking books, then opened it with a wink, to show some naughty magazines. Holly rolled her eyes skyward temporarily distacted, even though her eyes strayed slightly at the female forms across the front pages… another sign that maybe she wasn't into guys like the other girls in her year.

The previous years' ball had been a challenge for Holly who had wanted to ask Cho Chang or Fleur to the ball instead of Cedric or Krum. Holly would never forget the bite mark she'd put in her lip as she attempted to keep in her seat when she'd seen Fleur for the first time, like most of the male population which excluded Seamus and Dean - that was a fairly large sign to where their eyes really strayed and where hers did. Thankfully Holly was distantly sure Hermione hadn't noticed her reaction since she'd been focused on Ron making a fool of himself. Regardless Holly didn't need that concern on top of everything else happening in her life. She knew how muggles reacted to that sort of thing, and she had no idea if Sirius or her friends would accept her for it- or if her soul-mate was even female like Holly was beginning to suspect.

"Back a few hundred years, one of the Black's had a soul-mate from another world who had enough points to travel to ours, they wrote all about that world in their journals." Sirius shuffled through the books until he found one, "might not be the same world as… either of ours, but maybe you'll learn something."

Holly accepted the book and hesitated for her next question, the one plaguing her all through her fourth year. "If I… if I decided to leave, and to go to them…" she could afford it, she could afford it right that moment if she really wanted to. The awareness of the option waiting for her had been the first thing on her mind a week previous when Holly'd thought she'd been expelled. Holly's very first thought at that moment had not been despair at being expelled, but relief and hope that she'd be able to meet her soul-mate for real. She'd been about to press the option when the next letter arrived and stopped her.

"What would I do?" Sirius wondered tilting his head to look Holly in the eye, "I'd probably try to follow you. I'd spent all my time figuring out how to do it, then I'd crash in on your life one day and have your kids call me uncle Padfoot. I'd dote on them like crazy; they'd be so spoiled it would be ridiculous. And you'd try to kick me out of your house, but I'd refuse to go, and I'd sneak back in as a dog." He smiled a bit wistfully, "would be nice, I think. No more war, no more of this house, we could just live…" Sirius sobered up as he recalled not for the first time that while Holly had the option to escape to her soul-mate, his was gone. "you do what you have to Holly. If you can escape this war, if you need to… then do it. Our generation should have ended it before it fell onto your shoulders. And ideally, this war would have never involved you guys. I'd end it right now if I could, so you kids can stay kids." He sighed and glanced at the secret room they were in and… debated as a thought entered his head.

The Order had stopped him from saying anything before. Dumbledore, Remus, Molly, they all wanted him to keep his mouth shut. But secrets is what had them think Remus was guilty. Secrets were what got James and Lily killed; Sirius wouldn't let it kill Holly.

Filled with caution, Sirius flicked his wand at the door adding to the secrecy charms. He didn't know if any spying spells had been placed on them and the spell would prevent that magic from passing information while it surrounded them. It was one of the few charms he knew intimately after years working of pranking, in fact, all the marauders knew it like the back of their hands.

"There's something I need to tell you," he confessed, "about what you-know-who wants… and what we're protecting. But you need to promise me that you will not tell anyone about it, including Hermione and Ron. The Order, no, Dumbledore doesn't want you to know about this Holly, and I don't know what they will do if they find out you know the truth."

"Sirius… I won't tell." She'd already been burning in anger about it, about the obvious lies spoken just out of her line of hearing. Secrets that directly involved her. Secrets Molly kept stopping Sirius from confessing. She had gotten the feeling that Molly specifically had been trying to keep her and Sirius from being alone, especially out of sight of everyone else. Which made asking the personal question she wanted to ask a challenge, until then.

Holly stared at her godfather in shock, and then horror as he confessed the real reason her parents had gone into hiding all those years ago. Forced her to realize she could never flee the war to her soul-mate even if she wanted to. Because as terrible as it was, Holly would not doom the entire magical world to Voldemort's reign for her own happiness. She could not allow herself to go to her soul-mate until the prophecy that even Sirius didn't know the full words of, was fulfilled.