February 9th, 1983: Sirius Black

The prison's protective enchantments are down, and Sirius doesn't like it one bit. Sure, he gets that it's necessary: Narcissa needs to be able to get here if they want to capture any of the Death Eaters, and she can't do that if it's impossible to penetrate the boundaries of the place. The anti-Apparition spells are still in place, at least, but they've taken down some of the protections so that Narcissa can Apparate everybody to a clearing nearby and levitate the bodies over from there.

He wishes Narcissa could have been less conflicted—could have agreed to just poison everybody's dinner at the next Death Eater meeting to take place. This shit would be a lot easier if all the Death Eaters could just die already.

But Sirius made a promise that he'd take and keep them alive, and he intends to keep that promise, at least for now. He owes that much to Narcissa for taking their side at all in spite of the loyalties of her family—you know, the family that kicked Sirius to the curb when he ran away at the age of sixteen.

He doesn't want to waste his time being bitter now, though. He has more important things to worry about, like figuring out what the hell the Order's going to do when it gets a shitload of incoming Death Eaters to house.

Narcissa is due to bring the Death Eaters tomorrow, and there's more than enough to do to keep everybody occupied until that time comes, like updating the kidnapped British Ministry officials on what exactly is going on. Right now, Sirius is assuring a few Hit Wizards, "We'll have you all out of here as soon as we can, all right? As soon as we get our hands on all the Death Eaters, we've got no reason to keep you here any longer, and you'll have no reason to keep going after the Canadians like Malfoy's administration was making you. We're expecting Narcissa to bring them all over tomorrow morning."

Two of the Hit Wizards—Eberly and McMullen, he thinks their names are—look at each other dubiously. Sirius sighs and adds, "Look, I know you don't trust us—I know we've got no legitimacy left—but I'm telling the truth. I'll tell you anything if it'll help you understand why it's all gone down the way it has."

McMullen demands, "If you're only keeping us here because you want to protect us from having to do Malfoy's bidding, then why take our wands?"

He twists his lips. "We're pretty sure that no actual Death Eaters are sending themselves out into the line of fire in Canada—it's probably much more entertaining for them to go after innocent, wandless Muggles—but on the off chance that there are any of them in the building, we couldn't take that chance."

"How can you know for sure that Malfoy and his people really are Death Eaters?" adds Eberly.

"Severus Snape, who used to be a Death Eater too, confirmed it for us when he switched sides. He's locked up in indefinite detention by the Canadians right now, but if we ever manage to get him out, his head is chock full of memories of Malfoy and other Death Eaters without their masks on that he'd probably be happy to toss in a Pensieve for you."

A third Hit Wizard, Adrian, pipes up, "Is You-Know-Who really dead?"

Sirius can't contain himself at this: he snorts. "Most definitely. My friend Lily killed him personally."

Eberly says, "Can we have, like—some kind of meeting or something with all of us before you let us out of here? I mean, what you're about to try to do is going to overthrow all of the most essential people in the Ministry; the least you can do is tell somebody what the hell happened and why."

Sirius considers it. "Actually, that's a really good idea. Let me run it by Lily and Reg and see what we can do."

McMullen opens his mouth to ask something else, probably, but Sirius never gets a chance to hear it because at that instant he hears a cry from the corridor of "What the ever-loving f—" followed by a series of screams and thuds.

He furrows his eyebrows. "I'll be right back. Stay here."

"Not like we have any other option," Eberly reminds him as Sirius ducks out of the room to find—

It takes a second for the image of wizards in masks to sink into Sirius's brain. Death Eaters are here—here—a day early and most certainly not unconscious. Narcissa sold them out. He actually thought he could trust her, and she sold them out.

He barely has a chance to process this before he has to dodge a jet of white light—a Cruciatus Curse, he assumes. This is okay, he tells himself. This is fine. Crucio has never killed anybody, and if the Death Eaters aren't using lethal force—

That's when the offending Death Eater aims straight at Sirius with green light that can only mean one thing—but it doesn't hit him. It doesn't hit him because Arabella Figg leaps right in front of it, getting knocked straight in the chest and collapsing to the floor. Fury and fear surge up in equal parts inside Sirius as he whips out his wand and bellows, "Avada Kedavra!"

It's no good—the Death Eater dodges the curse and actually does manage to get Sirius with a Cruciatus this time around. He loses track of all reality for a moment as he registers nothing but pain pain pain searing up all around him, but as soon as it starts to fade, terror creeps back in, terror that Alice—that Lily—that Remus—

"AVADA KEDAVRA!"

The Death Eater drops like a fly. All the others in this corridor are already occupied fighting Arthur, Molly, Dirk, and Sturgis; Sirius affords himself a precious few seconds to rush forward and rip off the bloke's mask. He recognizes the wizard: it's Pyrites, whom the Order's liaisons says has been running the Auror Office.

One down.

He still wants more than anything to find Remus and his friends, but it suddenly occurs to him that there's a whole host of Aurors and Hit Wizards and Obliviators who are sitting ducks in their locked rooms right now—and that at least some of those people could become assets if only they had access to their wands. Shit—where have they been keeping the wands? Lily lost her wand to the Canadian Ministry right before everybody went into hiding, and when she and Reg made it back here, they grabbed a spare one for her out of the—

Sirius has to dodge three more rays of light—one white and two green—en route to the room allocated for Reg, Kingsley, Sturgis, and Mundungus. He doesn't dare fire any curses over his shoulder for fear of hitting somebody in the Order by mistake. Inside the bedroom, he lunges for the sealed wooden box underneath Reg's bed, points his wand at it, and mutters, "Diffindo."

The wood splinters to reveal the wands locked inside it. There are too many of them to fit in his fists alone, so he carries the whole box out of there and into the nearest cell, where one of the Aurors in there immediately demands, "What's going on out there? It sounds like a duel—"

"It is a duel. Death Eaters are here. Everybody grab a wand—any wand will do; we don't have time for you to dig through and look for your own—"

"What do you mean, Death Eaters are here?"

"I mean, we had a plan, and the plan got leaked. I understand if you want to break through the windows and run somewhere you can Disapparate, but if any of you is willing to stay and fight—"

There's silence for a moment, and then one of the Aurors—Proudfoot, he thinks—stiffens. "Death Eaters killed my sister's family. I'm staying."

"Me, too," mutters a second. The third and fourth both nod, looking terrified but resolute.

Sirius nods. "Okay. I—thank you. Can one of you take the wands into the rest of the rooms? We've got to get everybody armed before…"

"I'm on it," says Proudfoot, snatching up the box.

It's okay, he repeats to himself even though he doesn't believe it, not really. If enough Aurors stay, they're going to overwhelm the Death Eaters in terms of numbers alone, and if Remus and the others can just hold on long enough—

He leads the way out of the room but ducks alone around a corner in pursuit of—anyone, really. Sirius has been locked up living in fear for all too long, and now that he can finally channel all of that worry, all of that rage—

He gets lucky, really, when he walks straight in on a blond Death Eater dueling with Sturgis Podmore in the dining room. Both of them are on the ground, Sturgis hiding behind chair legs and aiming his wand in between them to try and get at the Death Eater—but he's not quick enough; the Death Eater gets him with green light before Sturgis even has a chance. Sirius hopes Sturgis was aiming to kill. He hopes that everyone here is aiming to kill.

Sirius is pretty sure he only knows one Death Eater as pale blonde as this one. Malfoy hasn't turned around, doesn't realize that Sirius is right behind him until Sirius has already hit him with a nonverbal Impedimenta.

Malfoy flies back, hits the wall behind him, and collapses back down to the ground. Sirius knows he only has a few seconds to spare, but he can't help himself: he rips off the mask, just to be sure.

"I don't know what your wife told you, but—"

"Narcissa is dead," spits Malfoy. This shocks Sirius right into silence, at least for a moment. "I poisoned her when I discovered her sister's latest letter to her."

So Narcissa didn't rat them out—and this is what she got for it. Sirius is too tired and angry and sad to sort out the emotions blazing inside him right now; he just leans in close and seizes Malfoy by the collar of his robes and hisses, "Was it you who killed Emmeline? For breaking out of your Imperius Curse?"

"Yes," sneers Malfoy with a sick grin. "Macdonald was one of mine, too, and so was Potter."

James—Sirius goes white-hot, so much so that he doesn't even realize he's aimed a Killing Curse at Malfoy until Malfoy slumps to the floor. He feels triumphant for a moment, but it doesn't last long before panicked adrenaline dwarfs it. Sirius kicks Malfoy's corpse out of his way and hurries back out to find somebody to defend—

But none of the voices filling the prison sound like incantations, and the sounds of screaming and thudding and breaking seem to have stopped. Is it over? It can't be over already, but then again, if enough Aurors intercepted enough duels in little enough time…

It takes entirely too little time to take stock of the dead: Malfoy and Bellatrix and a good two dozen more Death Eaters, yes, but also half a dozen Ministry prisoners and Arabella and Sturgis and Dirk and Hagrid and (Sirius's heart nearly stops at this one) the Tonks' daughter, Nymphadora. Time flies by too fast before he finds Remus white-faced but unharmed, and time hurtles right by as Sirius holds Remus up and rubs his back, Remus crying but Sirius unable to follow suit, staring blankly ahead as if they didn't just win the war; it's not enough time before Lily and Reg disappear and return an hour later, announcing that Canada won't continue to pursue them if they promise to go back to Britain where they belong.

"Including Snape and Peter?" asks Alice immediately.

Lily nods. "They might just get imprisoned all over again back in Britain, I don't know—maybe we all will—but—"

"The Wizengamot representative next in line if we really did kill all of Malfoy's people is Tiberius Ogden, and he was friends with Dumbledore," says Reg. "He'll probably be sympathetic. The court of public opinion, on the other hand…"

"It was worth it," says Sirius hollowly. It's the first thing he's said since killing Malfoy. Everyone looks. "Even if we all spend the rest of our lives in Azkaban, it was worth it if it means the Death Eaters are really gone—that Muggle-borns can feel safe in their beds at night again."

"We'd better get over to the British Ministry and explain all this," says Arthur, pushing his glasses up the bridge of his nose. "It's past business hours over there by now, but there should at least be minimal staff in place that we can ask to convene an emergency meeting of the Wizengamot."

Andy offers, "I'll go." Her voice shakes. "I can't stand to be here any longer and know that Dora's body is… is…"

Ted squeezes her hand. "We'll go together. Can you lot work on taking down the anti-Apparition charm and protections? We don't exactly need them anymore."

And it's not like Sirius wasn't more than ready for this war to be over, but now that it is, probably, he doesn't know how to feel. Surely winning ought to make him feel some sort of closure, but all that's happened is more death—more pain. Narcissa died for this. Sirius still hasn't recovered from Marlene, from Em, from James, and now…