Chapter Thirty-Nine

One glance at the sliver of window that showed through the thick velvet curtains said that it was still evening when Sirius stirred, though the lights in the room were still on. The clock on the wall said that they had not even been absent for Grimmauld Place for more than four hours - they had a good four or more hours left before the charm wore off and they had to go back. Good thing, Sirius mused with an absentminded grin, because he had no desire to move from his current place.

For the most part, Sirius Black had banished Grimmauld Place from his mind altogether. He glanced down at a sleeping Davina Maddux, laying on her side in his arms and hogging all of the blankets as she always had. If he let her sleep a bit longer, she would soon start snoring, and if he woke her while she was snoring, she would become irate and throw a pillow at him. That was the way it had always been, and even if only for now, it was that way again.

Sirius leaned over and kissed Davie's forehead, causing her to stir and look up at him, rubbing her eyes gently with the back of her wrist.

"Well…" she said hesitantly before a yawned escaped her lips. "This seems familiar."

"Yeah, it does," Sirius chuckled. "Especially that snoring of yours -"

"I don't snore, and I never have!" And just as expected, he was met with a small throw pillow directly in his face. Davie laughed, clutching the sheet over herself and staring at Sirius, a very strange expression on her face.

"Will you still love me when I'm thirty-five again?" she asked - even the question seemed like something a teenager would ask. "When I've got wrinkles and I don't look like this anymore?"

"After everything we've been through," Sirius chuckled, running a hand through his hair as he sat up and placed an arm around Davie's bare shoulders, "I'd still love you even if you weighed ninety kilograms and had a tail -"

"Don't jinx it!" she replied, swatting playfully at his shoulder. "I was only asking."

"Well, you don't need to ask anymore," Sirius said, leaning over and resting his forehead against Davie's. "Because rest assured, I'll not allow you to get away from me again. Even if I need to find a way to put the portrait of my mother on your door, or have Kreacher keep an eye on you at all times-"

"That elf spooks me," Davie said with a comically grave expression on her face. "If you so much as -"

CRACK!

Davie had no opportunity to finish her threat as a sound downstairs erupted - a sound somewhere between Apparating and an explosion. Sirius and Davie scrambled for their wands and magicked themselves into a more decent state of dress before bursting through the door of the bedchamber. Davie's expression steeled as at the bottom of the stairs, they sighted four figures. Deatheaters.

"How did they know?" Sirius growled with a sort of feral incredulity, immediately having to jump out of the way of an unidentifiable hex. Davie, of course, did not know but had no time to say so as she apparated to the lower floor before Sirius.

Sirius felt rushed to return to Davie's side - this, too, was all to familiar for him. Davie, young and reckless, had always made a habit of rushing into a confrontation without help, and Sirius was quick to realize this had not changed in all of their years apart. Now, however, his heart skipped a beat every time she ducked and barely escaped being hit by the numerous blazes that appeared to be coming at them from all directions. She'd at least been more hesitant when they were children; she was still more child than Auror back then and had some sense of fear, which gave Sirius time to react. He was getting too old for this.

"EXPELLIARMUS!"

Sirius felt his heart arguably stop for a moment when a shriek followed a male voice casting the spell, followed by a clatter. Sirius whirled around to find that Davie had been disarmed - she looked visibly distraught at the fact, as it was something she had made a living of avoiding for many years now. Sirius, in his distraction, felt a spell hit him square between the shoulder blades, sending him lurching forward. His wand skittered across the floor to somewhere near wherever Davie's had landed. One of the hooded figures had yanked Davie by her hair, holding a wand to her throat. Another figure stepped with a polished shoe onto Sirius' wand, giving a condescending chuckle.

"So kind of you to crawl out of your hiding place," said one of them. "You've made our job so much -"

But before they could take any action, the large wooden front doors burst open in a gust of hot wind, and Davie shielded her eyes as what seemed like a giant beam of flame shot through the door and began circling the room, causing the Death Eaters to immediately disperse. They Disapparated one by one after the surprise of being seen, but Davie collapse onto the floor, covering her face with her arms at the sight of the flames. It brought back memories - or, rather, pieces of fiction, images of her parents' last moments in the burning mansion they were raiding. The thought of her mother and father invaded her mind, the question of whether they had died separately or side by side. Was history repeating itself? Would she die here in the fire as well with Sirius?

It was not until she felt a harsh yank on her arm that she realized nothing was burning - the flames had all disappeared, and she was looking into the eyes of an enraged Severus Snape, who said nothing. He simply yanked a hold onto Sirius' arm in disgust and Apparated them back to the trees across the street from Grimmauld Place - it was so sudden and unexpected that Davie, who very rarely felt unsettled by anything in past years, felt as though she would vomit the entire contents of her stomach. Snape yanked both of them like disobedient children across the road, through the threshold, and shoved them into the receiving room, where Remus, and Molly and Arthur Weasley were waiting.

"WHAT WERE YOU THINKING?" He hissed angrily, eyes narrowed into menacing slits as he rounded on them - everyone else was silent. "You could have gotten yourselves killed - and while that would have been little sacrifice to me -"

"Severus -"

"Davie, don't -"

"DON'T YOU TELL ME WHAT NOT TO DO!" Davie yelled, wheeling around to point a finger in Sirius' face. "Don't you dare, Sirius Black! I didn't want to do this, I told you it was -"

"Are you a child, Maddux?" Snape interrupted, ignoring the pained expression on her face and snarling through bared teeth, his anger directed at Davie more than Sirius at this moment - Sirius, after all, everyone would have expected this from. "Are you -"

"Severus, shut up-"

"- back to your old propensity of -"

"Severus - AUGH!"

Davie let out a cry, falling to her knees as she was unprepared to transform back to her thirty-five year old self. Everyone stood by in a hushed, astonished silence as she and Sirius aged in front of their eyes until they were back to normal, back to the state they had been in when they had left the pair earlier that evening. If the circumstances had not been so grave, it would have been a most impressive piece of magic on Davie's part indeed.

Davie looked up at Snape, panting breathlessly, and he had his teeth bared in a cruel-looking smile, and it took Davie only a split second to realize how he planned to get back at her for her indiscretions. There was only one thing that would hurt Davie enough to be appropriate revenge.

"This does seem familiar," he snarled, though the expression on his face was now something akin to a very nasty smile. "You have a brilliant plan because of your beloved Sirius Black, and only one person is able to clean up the mess you've made -"

"What?" Sirius interrupted, and the single word caused Davie to feel that her heart had dropped into the pit of her stomach. "What are you -"

"Didn't she tell you, Black?" Snape continued with a dark chuckle, turning to Black as though he were a cat in front of whom he was dangling a tasty piece of bait. Now, even after all these years, the fact that he was standing at the edge of a precipice, teetering on the edge of crushing Sirius Black's entire universe was tantalizing. "I do hope I haven't -"

"Severus, don't you -"

"Did you ever happen to find a moment," Snape continued smoothly, rounding on Davie and standing to his full-height, sneering down at her, "to share with him why you changed your mind about joining him in Azkaban?"

"That was a lifetime ago, none of us need to -"

"Davie." Sirius interrupted in a grave, final tone that caused everyone to turn and face him - Remus, Molly, and Arthur glanced almost apologetically at Davie. "For once in his pathetic life, I want to hear what Snivellus has to say."

"I'm afraid I must oblige," Snape said, gesturing toward Sirius and shooting Davie a dark grin, and she glanced around at the others for help, only to find that there was nothing they could do. Snape reached into his pocket and pulled out a brass object that looked like an oversized locket and shoved it into Sirius' hands. "Open it."

Sirius hesitated, narrowing his eyes in suspicion, but did as directed - the locket contained a strange, milky substance that seemed to go deeper than the bauble ought to have been capable of containing. A pocket Pensieve.

"Sirius, don't -"

But before Davie could stop him he had raised the object up to his face and appeared to be hypnotized as he was submerged into one of Snape's memories. Davie did not need to ask a single question in order to know which.

A Davina Maddux of twenty or so years was standing in a dark alleyway, though she was hardly recognizable. Her eyes were ringed with dark circles, her hair was limp and lifeless, her skin was pale - she looked almost corpse-like. She had been standing in this same spot muttering to herself for a good while, hand quivering as she stared down to her wand.

"You want to kill," Davie said to herself in a hoarse voice, staring down at her wand intensely. One of the first things she learned about the Unforgivable Curses was that one needed to have a genuine desire to cause pain in order to cast them properly. It had to be unmistakable. "This is all for Sirius. All for - all for -"

She hated herself for hesitating.

Steeling her gaze on a Muggle in the street - it would be best if it was a complete stranger - she raised her wand arm and narrowing her eyes. If she could only imagine that this unsuspecting Muggle had wronged her, that he possessed the blame for all that had happened, she could kill him. She had to kill him. But - kill, kill, kill - the word echoed in Davie's head and kept her guilt right at the surface of her thoughts. Over and over, she justified the event to herself, mumbling to herself that when so much had been taken from her, she had every right to take something away.

This was enough to steel her resolve for the moment. Her vice grip on her wand tightened as she stood in the darkness of the alleyway, pointing her wand at the unsuspecting passerby. Her eyes narrowed, and through gritted teeth, she muttered, "Avada -"

"Expelliarmus."

Regardless of the fact that the spell was whispered, Davie just barely heard it, as she felt her wand leap from her hand and fly backwards over her head. The lack of a clatter meant that someone had caught it. Before she could turn around out of her own accord, however, she felt a hard, bony hand clasp itself onto her shoulder and turn her around so quickly that her neck very well may have snapped as she was wheeled around to face Severus Snape, who appeared so distraught and outraged at her that his pale face was alight, his nostrils flaring.

"Why did you come?" Davie asked through narrow eyes. "Because you're one of us now? Is that the story?"

"You're going to kill someone for Black?" Snape sneered. "You're going to throw everything away for a mangy, pathetic -"

"How did you know?" Davie hissed, grabbing Snape's wrist and throwing his hand off of her shoulder as though he were burning her.

"You've made a nasty habit of failing to lock your doors," Snape replied dismissively. "I was directed to make sure you hadn't hung yourself, being the melodramatic child that you are, and you mistakenly left your plans scribbled on your desk. You are, I must say, the most pathetic criminal I have ever met."

"Just as well," Davie retorted in a near-growl. "None of this would have happened if not for you. I'll kill you instead -"

"With your bare hands, Maddux?" Snape asked with a cold smile. "Two bare hands against two wands - you never struck me as stupid enough to try."

"What does it matter to you if I throw my life away?" Davie hissed, her gaze locked not on Snape's face, but on her wand in his left hand. "We established years ago, we do not consider one another worth any amount of friendship, so why? Because you're just as desperate, groping around for some sliver of something to hold onto to remind you of -"

"The how and the why are no longer relevant," Snape said, his jaw clearly clenched from the sudden shift in his tone. Davie had obviously struck a chord - they both knew why Snape was concerned for Davie's safety. "What matters is that you are no longer any different from me. You've lost everything. Everyone either distrusts you or thinks your insane -"

"Which gives me all the more reason to -"

"Try it." Snape sneered. "Try doing it without a wand and see -"

However, Snape was interrupted by Davie's thin, bony fist colliding with his face, directly at his cheekbone, temporarily stunning him so that he dropped both wands. Davie scooped hers up immediately and started off in the direction of the victim she had initially targeted, until Snape grabbed her by the wrist, yanked her harshly backward and without warning, pressed his lips mercilessly and abruptly to hers.

Davie struggled and yanked her arms away, only to have Snape pin her arms to her sides so that she was unable to get away - in her struggle, her wand fell to the ground yet again. Davie's mind was filled with fierce emotion - anger, hate, disgust toward Severus Snape. However, all of a sudden, without explanation, a glimmer of something else filled her mind…

Severus was right. As much as she hated to admit it, it could not be denied that no one thought any better of her than they did of him. Davina Maddux was an outcast. She was not the same well-loved girl that Sirius loved, and even if she managed to free him from Azkaban, all she could give him was a life in which they were constantly hiding, constantly running - a fugitive and a lunatic. Severus Snape, in all her distaste for him, was all that she deserved - and a part of Davie wanted so very much to feel like she deserved something. Her struggling ceased, and, though not at all wholeheartedly, she began to return the kiss.

Sirius Black had stood in the same odd, disconnected state that one remained in while observing memories from a pensieve, and suddenly, at the point of the kiss, he only vaguely registered the fact that Snape had pulled the Pocket Pensieve out of his hands.

Snape. It had been Snape.

All this time, Sirius had thought something had happened between Davie and Moony - but never Severus Snape. Never Snivellus. All he knew was what he had seen, he could not read minds - and what he had seen was that while he was in Azkaban, Davie had betrayed him in the worst possible way. His hands were clenched into fists at his sides, shaking with fury. His nostrils flared - he wanted nothing more to tell Davie to leave his home and never come back -

- but when he looked up, the front door was open. There was a loud crack, which meant someone had apparated, and Molly and Arthur Weasley returned through the door with defeated expressions on their faces. The only person in the room who did not appear distraught was Severus Snape who bore a victorious grin. He had taken everything Sirius Black had ever held dear now. He had bested him.

A/N's

I know! I'm sorry - I love Sirius too, but this is a necessary plot point! There will be more explanation of what happened after the memory Sirius just saw, but for now, please don't be too angry! Hopefully no one will be too angry to stop reading. Happier times are to come, stick with me!

Thanks to the following users for their feedback: amrawo, dragonboy456, T1Pa, Penelope Halliwell, and AGRIMLIKEDOG - I wish I could write more messages to you guys, but my real life schedule is getting really hectic as the summer draws to a close. I'll try not to delay much before the next chapter, in which we will see more memories, and learn more about life with the Order after Sirius' imprisonment. Also, we will have a brief glimpse at what became of an old acquaintance from earlier in the story - special shoutout to anyone who guesses who it is. Until then, cheers!