1981

Nellie was just putting the finishing touches on her makeup when the doorbell rang. She couldn't suppress a giggle. Her costume was excellent- she was going as a ghoul, slathering on green facepaint and heavy black brows over a hideous dress made of Sirius' old torn-up t-shirts. She'd made the face paint herself; they had little money, and going out of the flat for anything unnecessary was more than she cared to chance.

Sirius had gone to visit the Potters and check in on his godson. Don't look, don't look, he had laughed at her as he swept out the door. The costume's gotta be a surprise, luv. When I come back tonight. She had giggled and obligingly closed her eyes. In the darkness she could feel him kissing her, his laughing lips pressed against hers.

"Coming!" she called, tucking in a strip of t-shirt here and there to perfect her costume. She wondered Sirius had done this time around- a pirate, a goblin? Probably not a ghost- it would seem a little grim with everything that had happened this year-

She flung open the door and stopped short. Her visitor was not Sirius but Minerva McGonagall. Nellie was startled to see tears dripping down the end of the old woman's bespectacled nose.

"Minerva? What in the world is the matter?" She ushered her inside, shutting the door quickly behind her. "What can I get you? Cup of tea?"

"Don't bother." Minerva took a deep breath and drew out her wand. "This is just a formality of course, and one I'm none too pleased with-"

"Minerva, what the hell-"

The older witch pointed her wand square at Nellie's chest and she froze. "Do you know of any connection between Sirius Black and He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named?" Minerva's wand hand shook but her voice was steady.

"What? No, I don't know what you're talking about." Her heart was beating very fast. Sirius was supposed to be home by now.

"I didn't think so," Minerva said softly. She stared at her over the rim of her spectacles. "You'll want to sit down, dear."

Something numb inside her was ringing like static on a dead line. She did as she was told.

"The Potters are dead, as is Peter Pettigrew"

Something caught in Nellie's throat and she fought the urge to be sick. "Where's Sirius?" There was something she was missing, something Minerva wasn't telling her.

"Sirius was the Potter's secret keeper."

"I know. But then how did Voldemort-"

"Sirius betrayed them." Minerva's voice was forcibly even and slow, as if talking to a petulant child. "He betrayed the Potters, and he killed Pettigrew, too."

She reeled, clutching the arm of her chair. We bought this chair together, at the little antiques store down the way. We had to search all our pockets for enough change to get it.

"They're sending him to Azkaban as we speak."

"That's not- that's not possible." Something was dreadfully wrong, someone had made a mistake. "Minerva, listen to me-" She tried to match her old professor's sternness but her own voice sounded high, wavering, mad. "Please, you have to see reason. Sirius would never-"

"He did, Nellie. There are thirty Muggle witnesses to prove it."

"No-"

"I have to go, my dear." Minerva's voice was much softer. "Someone will be by to check on you soon."

"You mean interrogate me?"

The older witch was already wrapping up her travelling cloak again, settling her spectacles back on her nose. She opened the door, then looked back. "Harry Potter lives. I thought you'd like to know." She grimaced. "I'm sorry, Nellie. I truly am."

Someone from the Order came by to question her as promised. She hadn't moved from the chair; the green paint had dried painfully hard on her face. He asked her many questions, most of which she couldn't answer. It was after three in the morning when she finally kicked him out, threatening to hex him if he didn't leave.

The next morning the ministry came. Have you seen the papers? She hadn't. She hadn't left the chair still. Her nails made crescent moons in the old, familiar green fabric. Have you heard You-Know-Who has fallen? No. You don't seem overly joyful, ma'am. Perhaps you weren't as dedicated a supporter of the Ministry as we've been led to believe. One of them, a witch with a long, pointed nose, followed Nellie upstairs and watched as she washed the green paint off her face before they took her in.

"Care to watch me take a piss, too?"

The ministry witch hadn't, but she warned Nellie they had the house surrounded and would duel to kill if she tried to escape. Nellie merely laughed. She laughed as she took a last look at the tiny little sink stained with green streaks, the shower they had shared together that always creaked when you turned it on. She laughed as they bound her arms and pushed her into the fireplace, coughed at the powder that filled her nose and mouth and spat her out on the floor of the Ministry. She laughed until she fell asleep in a metal chair down in the Department of Mysteries.

Did he ever go out without telling you where he was going? Did he ever say or do anything unusual or out of character? Did you yourself ever have any contact with He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named or his followers, known as Death Eaters?

"Contact? Yeah, I fucking contacted them." She strained her wrists against the tight metal cuffs that held her to the chair. "With curses, and now they're dead. Meanwhile you've been sitting on your fat ass in this dungeon interrogating the people who fought your bloody war for you."

They had dismissed her after another hour or two. She merely made her way to another branch of the endless Ministry building. The black marble and dazzling gold were sickening to her. She had to ask several times before she found the right office.

"Look, Barty-"

"Mr. Crouch, if you please, miss." He glowered down at her from hooded eyes and she scowled. She still had flecks of green paint in her hair.

"Mr. Crouch, I want to know when the trial will be. I want to know when Sirius Black will appear before court." She tried her best to remember everything she'd learned in school about magical law enforcement. Appear before court was definitely a phrase she had heard.

"Miss… Stevens, is it?" His brow wrinkled in a frown and she knew she was being tested, recalled. All these fuckers cared about was smelling the pureness of your blood.

"Yeah, Stevens. You wouldn't have heard of it."

"Perhaps you are unfamiliar with the Ministry's transition some months ago into martial law." He flicked his wand and a neat stack of paper appeared before her. She took the top sheet, smudging it with green. "If you will look at article 92, section C, you'll see that we can, in fact, imprison enemies of the state without trial." He folded his fingers neatly. "It is for the safety of the public that we enacted these laws, to preserve our state of magical unity in this time of crisis."

The small, dark words just looked like meaningless smudges. "Fuck this. Fuck you."

"Miss Stevens, I'm going to have to ask you to leave."

Some blue-robed bastards wrestled her out of the building with expressionless faces, and she let them. How long had it been since she had eaten, slept? Since Sirius had kissed her, in the darkness of her closed eyes? She hadn't even looked at him, she thought blankly as the Ministry guards shoved her to the pavement.

"Arrest her?"

"No. Let her go." Barty Crouch's voice seemed to come from high above her. "She knows nothing. She is nobody."

"You are officially banned from Ministry premises," the guard was droning in a monotone. "An official from the Department of Magical Law Enforcement will be visiting your place of residence tomorrow morning."

The pavement grated against her cheek. It smelled horrible. His mouth had been on hers- fifteen, twenty hours ago? Her last chance to see him, and she'd closed her eyes.

Around her, people were moving. Ordinary people, who didn't know that their world had almost ended. Who didn't know that the Potters were dead and Sirius Black had killed them. They stepped around her with sidelong glances or noises of distaste and fear.

When the street had quieted, she picked herself up, feeling her muscles aching. Sirius. Sirius a traitor. Sirius in Azkaban. Something in her was disconnected, broken. A dangling end hanging, sparking into thin, sheer air. Something was terribly wrong with her wrist where she had fallen on it.

She stumbled into a quiet alleyway where she could apparate without being seen, then turned into thin air and went home.