"His gloom seeped through the house, oozing under doorways like some noxious gas, so that all of them became infected by it."
- J. K. Rowling, The Order of the Phoenix, Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter 13: All the Dark We Cannot See
Sirius was buried inside Kara.
His hand found her breast, and she arched into him, sighing in his ear. He shifted to move his thumb over the tip, and the sigh became a moan. He slid his hand to her hip, hooking her around him further, his own erratic breathing interrupting him as he kissed her, right where her neck met her shoulder.
"Sirius..." she breathed, and he groaned in response. He increased their rhythm, just a little, and she followed him, sliding down along his length, and then up again, where he met her, sheathed to the hilt.
"Sirius..."
He might have muttered her name. Or it might have been a prayer of gratitude, he didn't know...
"Sirius!"
His hands pulled her tight, their reach no longer strategic now. He just wanted her against him...
"SIRIUS! SIRIUS! NOOOO!"
He jolted awake. Kara was sitting upright in the bed, screaming his name over and over. He smelled sweat and fear.
He shook the last of the dream off of him, his heart pounding.
"No, he's not - SIRIUS!"
"Kara! Kara!" he shouted over her panicked cries. Very, very carefully, he put a hand on her back. Her shirt was soaked through with sweat. "Kara, I'm right here! I'm right here, love!" Slowly, he lowered his voice. Even more slowly. He moved his hands, grasping her by her upper arms, gently. "I'm right here. You are having a dream. Kara..." He leaned his head against the back of her neck. "Kara, come back to me."
Her screams subsided, though she continued to breath heavily. She turned around to look at him, bewildered.
"I'm right here. It was just a dream."
It seemed that was the wrong thing to say, because she shot up suddenly, out of his hands, out of the bed, and out of the room, flying past a worried looking Remus and Harry, who had appeared in the doorway.
Sirius sighed, getting up. "Nightmare," he told them.
Harry looked terrified. "She was screaming your name..."
Sirius walked over to place a hand on his godson's shoulder. He hoped it was comforting, but he felt quite shaken himself. "I know. I'll have it out of her, and she'll be alright. It was just a dream."
Remus met his eye.
"Go back to bed, Harry. Get some rest. I'll take care of Kara."
After a moment, Remus left too. Sirius set about cleaning. He changed the sheets, opened the window to let the night air in.
When Kara returned, her hair was wet, and she was wrapped in a towel. She set about finding some clothes, and with an uncharacteristic disregard for privacy, changed into them right in front of him.
And then she stood there, seemingly uncertain what to do with herself. She hadn't looked at him once.
Well, he wasn't having any of that.
He crossed the room and pulled her in a rough hug. She stiffened, and that hurt, so he held her a bit tighter, until she finally let go enough to embrace him back.
As they climbed back into bed, and he surveyed her, he noticed her eyes were damp. She'd been crying as well then. She didn't look like she'd quite stopped.
Settled in, he pulled her flush against him, trying to remind himself that they were both fully clothed and not think about the dream he'd been having. The one that had morphed into her nightmare.
When was the last time he had had a sex dream? Before Azkaban, surely. He supposed it was a good sign.
Once he was certain he had calmed down - from both dreams - he asked her, plainly and quietly, "Will you tell me about it?"
"No."
Kara could match him for stubbornness if she chose, and he sensed, from the quiet sniff he heard, that this was not the time to push her on that.
"You should, you know," he said, trying to sound light. "You owe me. You interrupted a very good dream."
She snuffled a little closer to him, her face against the pulse point in his neck. He felt her smile a little. "I'm sorry. But go to sleep, Sirius. Hopefully she's still there.
She wasn't.
*HP*HP*HP*HP*
Their meeting with Dumbledore was the next night. Kara wondered privately if it was the anticipation that had set her off. It wasn't her first nightmare about it, of course, even since the graveyard, but it had been the hardest. She'd spent most of the remainder of the night awake, aware that Sirius was as well, and had failed, come morning, to pull her scattered thoughts together.
Sirius had made her a very large, very dark cup of tea.
When they first got to the school, they were interrupted by Madame Pomfrey, who told Sirius in no uncertain terms that he would be meeting her in the hospital wing immediately following his meeting with Dumbledore, as he hadn't bother to keep their last appointment, and told Kara that if he didn't show, she would be holding her responsible.
Dumbledore offered them each a large glass of brandy, seating them in the two chairs he kept permanently in front of his desk. For a moment, Kara felt as if she were in detention again.
She'd only been in detention once, and it had been because she wasn't fast enough getting away after James let off two dozen Dungbombs right outside of Filch's door. She hadn't been in on it, but she had been in the blast zone, which was enough to convict her in Filch's eyes.
She shook her head slightly. Her brain was ambling.
The headmaster was smiling softly at her. "You look tired, my dear. You both do. I'd hoped you'd have some rest after all of your adventures."
"We have," Sirius explained, "but it hasn't really been that long."
"True," said Dumbledore. "Well, Miss Thrace, what have you to tell us."
She straightened herself in her chair. "You still have Tom Riddle's diary."
He nodded, though it wasn't a question, and retrieved it from his desk drawer. Sirius stretched out a hand, and Dumbledore gave it to him to examine. "Harry told me about this. Voldemort left...a memory? An imprint of some sort?"
Kara shook her head. "Not a memory. A piece of his soul."
Sirius went rigid.
"It's called a Horcrux," she told them.
"I'm familiar with the term," said Dumbledore. "A witch or wizard splits their soul in two, encasing one part within a magical object. It would make them very hard to kill."
"This is how Voldemort survived the rebounded Killing Curse then," Sirius said, interested. "This explains a lot, but...it's destroyed, right? Harry destroyed it. So why do we need to worry about it now?"
"I'll wager," said Dumbledore heavily, "that Voldemort made more than one."
Kara nodded. "He made seven."
Sirius voice was low with horror, "What."
"You know what they are?" Dumbledore asked.
"Yes."
"You know where they are?"
"Yes."
A short silence.
"Do you know how to destroy them?"
"All but one."
It was Dumbledore she was looking at, hoping he'd get the point, but it was Sirius who said, out loud, having got there himself, "Harry's scar."
She nodded again.
Sirius buried his face in his hands.
Dumbledore got up, began pacing behind his desk. It reminded her of Remus, pacing their kitchen, and made her feel an unusual surge of affection for the headmaster, whom she'd always had mixed feelings about.
Finally, after a time, Dumbledore said, "Sirius."
Sirius looked up at him, and Kara noted the affection with which Dumbledore looked back at him. She wondered if Sirius was aware of it. She rather thought not.
This is what drove him to keep him locked up, she thought. He wasn't just keeping him safe for Harry's sake. He wanted him alive because he cared about him himself.
It was a thought that would probably never occur to Sirius.
"It is not harming him," Dumbledore was saying. "He has lived with it nearly all his life, and it has had no worse affect than the occasional painful nightmare. Voldemort is currently very far away, and though he may be feeling murderous most of the time, he has precious little stimuli to provoke such strong emotions." He looked at Kara. "So, in essence, we have time."
Sirius was now studying Kara. "There must have been a way...In the story..."
She stopped him. "Not that one. Not now. In the story..." She pushed through the words in a rush, she couldn't bear how much they would hurt him. "In the story, Harry had to let Voldemort kill him. He survived - again, but only a miracle of chances."
Her friend's face was deathly pale. The ghosts of Azkaban were back, crowding around him. He must have felt helpless, she thought. She wanted to touch him, to comfort him, but she suspected it would not be welcome just then.
She looked at Dumbledore instead. "There has to be another way."
He sighed, sat down. "I don't know. We are dabbling in magical theory only. No one has ever attempted something such as this. We will have no guidance, save our own wits."
She raised her eyebrows, suddenly annoyed. "No one has ever broken out of Azkaban either. Or traveled between worlds to change the ending of a well-known tale. Or dueled against the Elder Wand and won."
Neither of them responded to this.
She sighed. "The Diadem of Raveclaw is here, at Hogwarts. The Goblet of Hufflepuff is in the Lestrange vault at Gringott's. The snake and the diary are gone. The locket, which belonged to Salazar Slytherin, is at Number 12, Grimmauld Place." She returned her attention to Sirius, whose eyes were wide.
"How in seven hells did it get there?"
"That is a story you will want to hear in full from Kreacher, I think. He's still alive. Salazar Slytherin also had a ring. It's at the Gaunt House."
"I know where that is," Dumbledore said, nodding.
"Do not go yourself. We can go, and we should take Mad-Eye. It's booby-trapped."
"And why in particular should I send you, rather than going myself?" Dumbledore asked her. The words were harsh, but the tone merely curious.
"Because we will not be tempted to use it."
The room was silent for several minutes.
"I believe, Miss Thrace," said Dumbledore, "that you have just saved my life."
She did not respond to this. "The Sword of Gryffindor will destroy all of them. It's laced with Basilisk venom. We may need Harry's help with the locket. It needs to be opened, and it only responds to Parseltongue."
Dumbledore stood again. "The vault at Gringotts will be a problem. Even my Ministry contacts could not get us in there. It's under Goblin control, and they will not budge from their rules for anything."
"We could find a way in," Sirius said.
"It's been done before, but it's extremely difficult."
"True," Kara noted, "but Sirius here is our leading expert on...getting around the rules."
Neither of them could help but smile at that, and she felt some relief at the release of tension.
"Very well," said Dumbledore. "If the two of you will set about retrieving the locket and the ring, and finding a way to get into Gringott's, we can reconvene and destroy them all at once. Yes, take Mad-Eye, by all means, and you might consult with Bill Weasley about the vault. He is a Gringott's cursebreaker, after all, and clever and sensible. Do not, however, tell either of them your mission. I do not think this information should go any further than the three of us, not if we can help it."
They agreed, having expected this, and shortly thereafter found themselves in the hospital wing, where Pomfrey fussed over Sirius, asking him about his diet, his sleep routine, and his general state of mind.
At one point, she dismissed Kara, stating that the questions she wanted to ask him next were a little more delicate.
Raising her eyebrows and noting privately that Pomfrey had handed Sirius a tin of salve meant to be rubbed rather intimately on her person, which seemed a bit of a double-standard, Kara left them.
*HP*HP*HP*HP*
"Now," said Madame Pomfrey, pulling a chair up to her desk and indicating he should sit in in it. She took her own seat and surveyed him quite frankly. "As most of my patients are students, I don't often get to ask questions like this. How well are you functioning?"
For moment, Sirius was at a complete loss. When he realized what she meant, he flushed.
"I've been on the run for the past two years," he told her stiffly. "I've hardly had a chance to find out."
She neither responded to this nor broke his stare.
Finally, he sighed, rubbed the back of his neck. "I had a dream last night. It was the first one since they took me to Azkaban."
She nodded at this. "Good. That's actually better progress than I would have expected."
"I'd thought it was a good sign."
"And you were right. Black, I'll be very, very straight with you. The way Dementors affect us inhibits all our natural functions. Things such as chocolate restore some of that positive energy to the brain, whereas a Patronus amplifies and protects what is already there. You have spent long in the Dementors' presence and come out of it intact. You're something of a miracle. But it won't be without its effects. Your mind will need time to heal, to restore itself. But there is no research on how to speed it along, not after all the time you were there. Chocolate will not be enough for such a prolonged exposure."
"Is there anything stronger than chocolate?"
She smiled. "To have that positive of an effect on the brain? Sex is the best thing."
*HP*HP*HP*HP*
Kara was tapping her foot against the hall floor when he emerged. At her raised eyebrows, he just shook his head. They were close, but he wasn't discussing this with her. Not with all the implications. Besides, he meant to have some information out of her tonight. After everything that had just happened in Dumbledore's office, he wasn't backing down.
They stopped to see Buckbeak on their way out. Sirius stood speaking to his hippogriff friend soothingly for some long moments. When they got back to the house, all was quiet. Harry and even Remus had already gone to bed.
Seeing no reason to sit up themselves, they went up to the room they shared, and once they were both inside Sirius magically locked the door and cast a silencing charm.
Kara looked round at him in some alarm.
"I'm not angry about the Horcrux," he told her, and she relaxed, but only slightly. "I want to know what would have happened to me."
Her face paled.
"That's what I thought," he told her, crossing the room to sit down on the bed. "Remus was trying to work it out too. It had to be one of us, or both."
She looked away, stared at the wall.
Both then, he thought. He raised his wand again, this time using it to open the window. Where Kara was standing, the night wind hit her straight in the face, and he watched her rally under its freshness.
"Kara," he said, "I'm not asking you this to accuse you, or hurt you, or even out of morbid curiosity...though I'll admit to some of that. I'm asking because I think it's going to continue to poison you if you don't tell someone what you were afraid of. You've been carrying these...memories of things that haven't even happened for so long...they are a part of you. But you don't have to be alone with them anymore."
She looked at him then, eyes full of a grief he knew he'd have felt himself, had the situation been reversed.
She sat beside him. "Yes," she said, "...yes, but...worse than...that moment, almost, is Harry's screaming after, and Remus trying to hold him back... trying to explain that it's too late."
Sirius let this latest on a long list of horrors wash over him, then put an arm about her shoulders. "Tell me the whole story," he said.
