Adrienne awoke the next morning on Mrs. Figg's sofa to the smell and sound of bacon sizzling in the kitchen. After a short breakfast and a sincere thank you, Adrienne took her leave of the kind woman. She looked at her bracelet, half of it now useless.

Unfortunately, this somber thought distracted her, and though she touched the black glass bead, she touched the wrong wooden one, which sent her straight to Sirius instead of just locating him.

The alley she found herself in was luckily empty except for a big shaggy black dog who immediately transformed into her fiancé before her eyes. Wordlessly he enfolded her in his arms and she soaked up that feeling of complete security she could find nowhere else in the world.

"Listen," he began, "I don't have much time, I have to do something."

She looked at him, suddenly frightened. "What?"

He smiled down at her, but it looked forced. "Don't worry, hun. But I have to tell you this: I love you. You know that I love you more than anything or anyone else in the entire world. And you were the only thing I cared about more than James. I would never, ever have done anything to hurt him or Lily. Never. No matter what anyone tells you, always remember that.

"Sirius, what—?" But he was looking over her shoulder toward the main road. Adrienne was surprised to see his lip curl back in a snarl. Glancing over her own shoulder she saw a man walking by the entrance to the alley, and from the quick glimpse she got of his back she would have thought it was Peter Pettigrew.

She turned back to Sirius, who had pulled out his wand. Before she could say anything, he leaned down and kissed her fiercely. It was a lingering sort of kiss, and there was a kind of desperation in it that scared her. Then hurriedly he pulled himself away from her and without a word ran off toward the main street.

Adrienne stood frozen for a minute, trying to understand what was going on. The conclusion she came to filled her with both a great fear but also a strange hope. She ran into the main street just in time to see Sirius and Peter standing in the street full of Muggles, wands out and aimed at each other.

A bright flash of light, and then darkness.

***

Note: Sorry that this chapter is so short, but it was where it made sense to break it up. More soon : )