Chapter 21
Sira sat at the kitchen table, her right index finger tracing the lip of her steaming mug of tea. Her eyes fixed on a napkin in front of her as if it were about to spring to life at any moment. She sighed. It was not as sad sigh, nor a tense one, but a relaxed one, one filled with peace and content. She hadn't felt so relaxed in ages, even though thoughts of Fenrir picked at her from the back of her mind. No matter what she did, they wouldn't go away, haunting her with the possibilities and forcing her to be uneasy at times.

"Are you alright?" Scabior asked as he walked into the room, leaning slightly against the doorway.

"Hmm?" she hummed, snapping out of her trace as her eyes flashed to him. He looked at her tenderly.

"Are you doing okay?"

"Oh, yeah. I'm alright." Her voice was cool as she flashed him a little smile and she stood from her seat.

"And you're still willing to 'ave this party?" he questioned, watching her slow, careful movements as she made her way to the sink. She set her mug down lightly on the counter.

"It's just Cal and Lark and I'm just sore. It's not like we're having a hundred guests over or anything like that." Her smile was light, trying to reassure him that everything was alright but his blue-grey eyes stayed dull, unconvinced that she was as well as she said she was.

"But what if you're-," he insisted but she raised her hand, silencing him, as she shook her head.

"I'm not."

"But what if you are?" he asked firmly, causing her to grip the edge of the counter. As she took a long breath, she closed her blue eyes. "Sira, you can't deny the possibility."

"I'll deny the possibility until I know for certain that it is true, and only then I'll accept it. I don't want it to be true anymore than you do," she said calmly, placing a hand on her stomach, "but if it is, I'll raise the child with love like it was our own and, once he or she is old enough, I'll tell them the truth and hope that they won't hate me for what happened." Tears welled up in her eyes, streaming down her face. "Don't think I don't think about it, Scabior, because I do. I just try hard not to."

He walked up behind her slowly, putting an arm around her waist, and rested his head against hers, sighing deeply. He put his hand on hers, intertwining his fingers with hers. "I promise to be there for you through this, if it is true, and I promise to support you and the baby. I promise to treat the child as if it were my own child and be the father it deserves. I love you with all of my 'eart, beautiful, and I won't leave you for something that wasn't your fault." She relaxed as she moved back, into him. The tears stopped rolling down her cheeks.

"You mean it?" she asked on a shaky breath.

"Yes, I mean it."

"I'm just trying to be strong; I'm trying to make the best of the situation."

"I know you are."

"I just don't want to mess up."

"You won't," he stressed. "I won't let you fall." She smiled, a faint shadow of a smile but a smile no matter what, as he kissed her neck gently. She leaned against him, her nerves calming with his closeness and the promise of his support.

"I'm weak without you," she murmured on a sweet breath. He shook his head slowly.

"No, you're not. You're strong without me, but I 'elp you to be a little stronger," he stated warmly. "You 'ave never been weak."

"Merry Christmas," Sira said kindly with a grin on her face to Cal and Lark, who both stood on her doorstep. "I'm glad to finally see you two again." Cal smiled wide, her smile was infectious.

"It's good to see you again too, Sira," Cal responded sweetly. Her belly was bulging a little but, not much bigger than the last time they seen each other, but she still seemed to glow with her joy and warmth. Her ice blue eyes weren't harsh or sharp, but soft and tender. The sight cause Sira's grin to soften. "And Merry Christmas to you too."

Sira nodded and ushered them into the house, closing the door gently behind them. "Let's head into the living room," she said quickly, started her cautious walk into the next room, trying to act like she was in no pain at all. Actually, every movement was agonizing. Cal and Lark watched her carefully, their gazes turning heavy with concern. She tried not to notice them as they followed her slowly, and all of them eventually took a seat. But they continued to study her, causing her heart to beat a little faster. "So, how has everything been with you, Cal?"

"Pretty good," she responded as Lark put his arm around her shoulders. "You?"

Sira shrugged. "Its been as normal as it could be, I guess," she stated, lying through her teeth. "Nothing special has really happened." She brushed back some of her hair absentmindly, tucking it behind her ear and exposing a large bruise on the side of her neck, just under her jaw.

"What's that on your neck?" Lark asked, his tone curious as his wonder glinted in his eyes. She covered her neck quickly, her face going sheet-white.

"It's- it's nothing," she stammered, her eyes filling with dread.

"Sira, what's going on?" Cal asked softly. "Did Scabior do that to you? Did he give you that? Did he- did he beat you?" Her last words were no louder than a whisper.

"No, no, no," she rambled rapidly, "you've got it all wrong. Its not him."

"Then who did it? We saw how poorly you were walking and then you have that huge bruise... Do you have more bruises?" Sira nodded slowly as she stood, turning away from them as she raised the back of her shirt up to show the multiple bruises on ber back.

"Merlin's beard," Lark whispered as Sira pulled her shirt down, just before she took her seat again.

"Who did this to you?" Cal asked, her eyes looking at her friend urgently, searching for an answer on her face. "Did our Lord punish you again?" Sira kept her eyes down, refusing to look at her friends in fear that they'd see her shame.

"He's not my Lord anymore," she said without any emotion. "I belong to another now, and a much more dangerous one for sure." Confusion filled Cal's eyes as she glanced frantically to her husband.

"If it's not the Dark Lord, then who-?" She stopped abruptly, her eyes widening with realization. "Oh, Sira, not him. Please, not him" Sira nodded slowly, putting both of her hands on her head and her elbows on her knees. "Fenrir?" Another nod came from her friend.

"I- I couldn't do anything... He overpowered me."

"So are you-?"

"Pregnant? I don't know," she answered just as the front door opened and Scabior walked into the house, carrying a couple bags of food with him. His blue-grey eyes fixed on Cal and Lark, only flickering once or twice to Sira.

"She told you the news, didn't she?" He asked, pausing in the doorway. They answered with a slow nod.

"Sira," Lark said warmly, breaking a little bit of the tension, "we will gladly help you with this if it turns out that you are pregnant. Its the very least that we could do." A sweet smile formed on Cal's lips when she said, "Of course we will. Me and Sira are like sisters and sisters have to stick together." Sira laughed, a true laugh that hurt her sides, at her comment even though it wasn't funny. It made her feel important, and she liked that. "And if you are pregnant, our babies could play together. I'm sure they'd be best friends."

"What?" Scabior hissed slightly, his tone filled with shock as his eyes studied Cal in complete disbelief.

"She's pregnant. Didn't I tell you that?" Sira stated calmly as he shook his head. Her heart sank, she felt horrible for not telling him but then again, so much had happened during the last four months that something like this could slip her mind easily. She had a hairier and much scarier situation to deal with.

"Only five months to go," Cal said proudly. "I think we're going to have a little boy, or at least I want to have a boy, bht we're going to wait until the baby's born to know the gender, just so its a surprise."

Sira smiled tenderly. "How cute! What will you name him?"

"Jet Wolfe Blackwood."

"If it's a boy," Lark added. His wife rolled her eyes.

"It will be a boy, sweetheart. I know it." Her comment caused him to shake his head and smile. It was all he could do.

"Cal, how have things been with the Death Eaters?" Her friend looked down as she searched for the right words to say. She knew it would be bad. The Dark Lord simply wanted her to suffer as much as possible. But he didn't know that she didn't care about him anymore, she didn't care if he could kill her, she didn't care if he could make her life tortuous, and she especially didn't care about pleasing him or the Death Eaters. She just wanted all of that out of her life so she could finally live in peace. She only wanted to further her relationship with Scabior, she wanted to marry him, but she couldn't do it with the Death Eaters constant meddling in her life. She hated them for that.

"Do you really, really want to know?" Cal questioned just to be answered with a nod. "Let's just say its bad. Very, very bad."

She didn't want to tell her just how bad it was but she did, and Sira regretted even asking about it. She didn't want to know she was hated, she didn't want to know her name was discussed with disgust at every meeting. She could've never known those facts, they only weighed her down, but she did discover something shocking to her, someone she desperately needed to speak with.

The air around her was cold and crisp, pricking her skin like tiny needles. Snow blanketed her surroundings, covering everything in white. She treaded lightly through it, her eyes focused on the warm light that seeped out of the windows of the white mansion. Her mind drifted through her memories, wandering back to when she was young and living with her cruel uncle and aunt. Even though she hated her time there, there was someone she should've never forgotten.

She climbed the steps to the grand, wood door, which had a Christmas wreath hung upon it. It was Christmas Eve, she shouldn't be here, and yet, she couldn't stay away. Her hand knocked on the door loudly. She waited, just wanting the door to open.

Finally, it did.

"Hello?" the man with the well-muscled body of a Quidditch Beater said as he opened the door, gazing at Sira with puzzlement and confusion. She looked at him through the holes of her mask, noting his features. His hair was dark brown, so dark that it was almost black and his eyes were the same color. His jaw was angular but refined at the same time. He was handsome, much more so than she remembered him to be. His eyes studied her suspiciously.

"Ivan Volkov, I need to speak with you," Sira said firmly and Ivan allowed her into his home, but after a slight hesitation. He led her to a parlor room, white like the rest of the house, and took a seat on the sofa.

"What do you need to speak to me about, miss?" He asked quickly. "I haven't caused any problems, I haven't committed any crimes, so you can't arrest me and the Ministry already told me about the fates of my parents, that they were murdered by one of your own." She nodded.

"Ivan, you don't know the whole story, though," she said rapidly, her eyes fixed on him as she saw the hate bloom in his face. His jaw clenched, his gaze getting fiercer by the second. In a flash, she pulled out her wand and bound him to his seat, restraining him as he tried to get up. "The Ministry never told you the whole story."

"They told me enough!" he barked, his words harsh and clipped. "They told me my whole family is dead! That there is no more Volkovs!"

Her breath caught in her chest, causing her to gasp as her blue eyes closed. Her hands reached up to her hood as she threw it back, allowing her dark-brown curls to tumble down her back. "No, you are wrong," she said softly, her words coming out on a breath. Her fingers grasped her mask, slowly pulling it away from her face. Her eyes opened to see the look of pure terror on his face. "I, too, am a Volkov."

"Sira," he gasped, shaking his head a bit, "I- I thought you were dead."
"I'm not, as you can see," she stated carefully.

"But you're a Death Eater," he snarled, his rage rapidly returning. "You're one of them."

"I'm not only just one of them," she sighed, looking at him with shame in her eyes. No matter how much he hated her uncle and aunt, she felt sorry for him and his loss, the loss that she caused him to have. She remembered how they had played with each other as children, how he had given her brief flashed of sun in the cloudy days of her childhood, but yet she'd forgotten about him. She'd forgotten about her cousin. "I'm the one that murdered your parents."

His eyes fixed on her, filled with a mixture of anger and disbelief. "You did this?" His hands clenched into fists as a snarl formed on his lips. "How could you!?"

"Ivan," her eyes turned desperate, he need to understand, "no matter what your mother and father told you, they treated me horribly and they didn't care about me at all. I- I was filth in their eyes, and I'd never be anything better. Your father, he- he beat me, and he assigned the Death Eaters to murder my parents." The tears filled her eyes as she moved closer to him, kneeling down before him. "And I was really messed up for a while, and during that time, I murdered them. I'm sorry for taking them away from you, Ivan, but I'm better now and I've seen the error of my ways."

"I don't believe you. I don't believe that my parents were as horrible to you as you say they were," he said cruelly, snarling his words. "You're just a Death Eater." Her eyes dropped, his words stung.

"I wasn't always a Death Eater, actually. I was originally assigned to be one in order to help the Order of the Phoenix," she explained gently, "and before that I was training to be an auror, and during my time with the Order, I fell in love. Only, after just a year of being together, he was taken from me." She cupped on of his hands in hers, uncurling his fingers tenderly as he watched her, utterly fascinated. "I haven't been the same since. I joined the Dark Lord's ranks completely and proudly served him on the need to feel anything but numbness. I took some risks and some lives during that time, which was stupid of me, but I found another love and he helped me to get back on track. Soon, I saw how awful the Dark Lord was and realized how much I just wanted to get away, how much I no longer wanted to serve him. He learned of this and forced me to be a Snatcher, where I met Fenrir Greyback who fancies me." She shuddered lightly at the thought. "So now, I've realized all the wrong that I've done and I have to suffer for it. So I came to you, thinking that maybe my own cousin wouldn't make me suffer and might actually forgive me. If I were you, I wouldn't forgive me but I'm not you and I decided to come here and try to let you understand my life and my reasons a little better." She looked up at him to see that there was no longer anger on his face, but something entirely different. It looked like pity.

"Sira," he said warmly, "please unbind me." she nodded and did as she was told, wiping her eyes as she did so. His eyes shone with a mixture of sorrow and of understanding. He touched her shoulder gently, she didn't look up. He slid off the sofa and kneeled with her on the floor, his brown eyes studying her carefully. "Do you remember when we'd play school together? Where I'd always be a Slytherin star-Quidditch player and you'd always be a Gryffindor student with hopes of making it big in the world someday?"

She nodded, still not looking at him. "We were just kids then. We didn't know how cruel the world would be. And- and that was before my parents died. Nothing was the same after that."

"But don't you see?" he stressed. "Don't you see that we actually became what we wanted?"

"You went to Durmstang, Ivan, not Hogwarts."

"Stilly, I became a beater for the Bulgarian Quidditch team and you made it big," he said with a little smile. She looked at him, her eyes wet with her tears.

"How?" her question was barely a whisper.

"Because you became an auror, you joined the Order of the Phoenix, and because you fell in love," he stated tenderly. "Now, you may be having a setback, but you'll make it through. I know you will… and after all of this, maybe we could start new and be cousins again, good cousin, like we were before." Sira smiled, shaking her head a little.

"You were always a dreamer, Ivan." He chuckled as he took one of her hands, rubbing it gently with his fingers.

"What's so bad about being a dreamer?" he asked, his eyes flickering to her face with the same child-like innocence she remembered him having.

"Nothing, I guess, but dreamers lack the view of the world realists have."

"You used to be a dreamer too, Sira," he stated as he made little circles on her palm with his index finger, tingling her skin.

"Yeah, I used to be," she whispered, "but losing the love of your life, killing five people, working for the Dark Lord, being tortured, being thrown in Azkaban, and being courted- more, more like being defiled- by the most savage werewolf in existence changes you." He held her hand tightly, looking at her with horror.

"What?" he asked in a hiss, his tone defensive. "You- you were-."

"It's not important." His jaw dropped.

"Of course it is important! He took advantage of you! He- he." She looked down, shutting her eyes rapidly, causing him to let out a long sigh. "Did he hurt you?" She nodded. "Are you pregnant?"

"I- I don't know," she breathed, "but I'm keeping it if I am. I've already decided that."

"Are you scared?"

"Yeah," she said lightly, opening her eyes again, "I fear what the baby will have to go through because of who its father is. I fear people won't like it and will treat it badly." She looked at him suddenly, a little smile forming on her lips. "Why are you alone on Christmas Eve?"

"Well, I- I." She smiled a warm, tender smile.

"You should come to my house. You can meet my fiancé." He opened his mouth to say something but she covered it with her hand. "No buts, you're coming over."

"Alright," he said with little smile. Like that, she vanished with him, back to her house.