A/N: I know, I'm awful for skipping last week's update, I do humbly apologize for my lateness! Next chapter will be posted on time. Anyway things are starting to take a bit of a turn now...hope you all enjoy :)

Chapter Thirty Three | In aqua scribis

[You are writing on water]

In the words of Jane Austen, angry people are not always wise. Vivian supposes that any emotion which stirs the mind into a frenzy would impart a similar affect. It might even make a person believe something that is unforgivably false, and play upon the shadows of the mind until there is no telling what is true and what is merely a figment bred from panic.

As the days march forward, this panic is impossible to ignore. With a war rising on the horizon and the Dark Lord's forces growing more and more powerful, it cannot be understated. Nor can the consequences of yet another Order member falling victim to the growing darkness. This time, however, the news strikes closer to home.

An emergency meeting is called the day after the news breaks. It sends the Ministry of Magic into a chaotic frenzy, not only due to the deaths of its two victims but also because of the public nature of its occurrence. Several muggles had born witness to the brutal event. The resulting damage control had taken days to complete. The muggles had talked, spreading the word to their law enforcement. Memory charms had to be used, not only on the witnesses, but also on their families, the teams of investigators they'd spoken to, and the muggle reporters who were preparing the break the news. The only silver lining had been the fact that the Ministry task force had gotten to the reporters before they could send the story to print.

The Order, too, seems to have fallen into a frenzy, following the general panic that flourishes throughout the Wizarding world. The moment the Daily Prophet picks up the story and sends it far and wide, it is almost as if an explosion is triggered within the minds of the people. This is not altogether strange. Before now, the Dark Lord and his Death Eaters have done their work in a more clandestine manner. The few public attacks that have taken place within the last few years have not ended with such visible calamity. They have largely kept away from the public eye and avoided any circumstance that might hinder them from acting, such as a crowd of people who might alert the Auror department of their presence.

Not so, this time. Such blatant danger had altered the public consciousness with a swiftness that almost feels superficial. Suddenly, no one seems to want to leave their homes. The streets become empty. Some shops are forced to close their doors on account of the slow business. Fear begins to pluck at the air with palatable force. The question of who might become the next victim is a heavy thought. Heavier still is what it all means to the Order of the Phoenix…and to one Vivian Blair.

"Gideon and Fabian were some of our best fighters," Moody had grumbled at the emergency meeting.

They certainly hadn't gone down without a fight. According to Moody, who had been the first on the scene with his team of Aurors, it had taken five Death Eaters to take the twins down. Had they not been taken by surprise, they might have survived the attack.

"And they were purebloods," Marlene had added, speaking up from the back of the room.

Moody had promptly jumped onto those words with a vengeance that had left the rest of them reeling, spiraling into a rant about how their blood status should have given them some modicum of immunity from Voldemort's brutality. The Dark Lord prizes witches and wizards with pure blood over all others. He wouldn't have issued an attack on the Prewetts unless he had reason to believe that they had taken a stand against him and therefore needed to be dealt with. The question is why would he reach such a conclusion, and who might have given him reason to suspect such a thing…

Which leads to several unfortunate looks spared in Vivian's direction, rife with hesitance and uncertainty, tainted with the dull sheen of trust being slowly dismantled piece by piece.

"You could have said something," she says once the meeting is wrapped up.

Sirius shoots her a sidelong glance as they walk through Muggle London, searching for a place to apparate.

"About what?" he asks, sounding clueless.

Her eyes take on an impatient gleam. "About the way everyone kept looking at me, as if they thought I was responsible for the twins' deaths."

Even saying the words aloud sends a bolt of sadness through her. She may not have known the Prewetts that well, but she has grown rather accustomed to their presence at meetings. Their banter had been an amusing anecdote to what would have otherwise been dismal gatherings.

"No one thinks that," Sirius tells her, his expression drawn and pale. He doesn't sound very convincing, and he seems to know it, because he adds, "Moody's suspicious of everyone, Viv."

"Yeah, and I'm the perfect scapegoat for that suspicion," she returns, uncomfortable with the thought.

Sirius unhelpfully replies, "Well you do go to an unhealthy number of pureblood gatherings. Can you blame him?"

This somewhat offhanded remark has her stopping in the middle of the sidewalk to stare at him. Sirius keeps walking a few paces before he realizes that she's no longer beside him, and turns to face her. The moment he sees the look on her face, he sighs, "Look, all I'm saying is that there's someone passing information to Voldemort, and – "

"And I'm the most likely candidate," Vivian finishes, narrowing her eyes at him.

Sirius purses his mouth at her. A beat of silence drops between them.

"We've been over this," he finally says, "you know I don't think you're a traitor – "

"Well then you should have defended me when Moody started interrogating me about what happened at the last gathering!" Vivian growls, her impatience now boiling over into anger.

Sirius appears to be making a stellar attempt at remaining calm in the face of it, but he's never been known to let anyone walk all over him, not even her.

Crossing his arms, he tells her, "He needed to get it out of his system."

Vivian raises her eyebrows. He grits his teeth at the incredulous look she's sending him and curtly says, "You know how he is. I reckon he was born suspicious. Letting him interrogate you was a good thing."

She releases a scoffing laugh. "I fail to see how it's a good thing, Sirius. It only made the other members more distrustful of me."

Sirius runs a hand through his hair and scoffs back, "Well maybe if you'd stop going to so many pureblood parties, they wouldn't be inclined to distrust you."

His words make her anger increase. She glowers at him, her eyes gleaming with aggravation.

"Someone needs to be on the inside," she fires at him. "I thought you were okay with it."

He barks out a humorless laugh at this and incredulously responds, "Okay with it? I agreed to it because I knew you'd go ahead and do it no matter what I said, but I'm not okay with you traipsing around with bloody Death Eaters in your spare time – "

"You know what? You're absolutely right. I would have done it no matter what you said, because – and I know this is going to be a shock to you – your opinion isn't the most important thing in the fucking world!" she snarls.

"Well I'm glad to see where we stand!" he exclaims, lifting his arms up in a rush of impatient irritation.

"So am I," she hisses back.

For a brief moment, they stand there in the middle of the sidewalk glaring at each other while muggles weave around them, shooting them wary glances. Then Vivian turns on her heel and Sirius quickly follows suit, marching down the street by himself while Vivian angrily walks in the opposite direction.

Sirius does not come home that evening. Though a piece of her is concerned about his vanishing act, the rest of her is relieved. She's still bristling with anger when she prepares for bed, though it isn't directed at Sirius anymore. It has instead turned to the Order as a whole, and though she is still upset that Sirius had let Moody interrogate her like he had, she's more upset that Moody had thought it necessary to do so at all. He had been the one to push for her to rejoin pureblood society, after all. He had witnessed her hesitation to return to that world, too, and yet here he is, suspicious of the very thing he had himself initiated.

She lies in bed for a while before falling asleep, fluctuating between her concern over Sirius' absence and her relief to be alone. She hasn't realized until now just how little time she's had to herself since graduating Hogwarts. For someone accustomed to solitude, it's nice to have a few hours of blissful peace and quiet. Still, the longer she lies in bed trying to fall asleep, the more her thoughts begin to churn, and regret pulls at her. She argues with Sirius at least a dozen times a day, but this time it's different. There had been no edge of teasing to their banter as there usually is, and he has never disappeared like this without warning.

Her mind is still churning as she finally falls asleep. Perhaps that is why, when she is pulled under into the crease of unconsciousness, she finds herself drawn to cold stone and the familiar press of darkness.

It's been some time since she had last had this dream. The few Occlumency lessons she's had so far seem to have done something to help her block it out. The stress that has been building up inside of her must draw it forth. She falls into it the very moment she slips into her dreamworld, and finds herself standing in the damp, rocky darkness once more.

As always, it is pitch black. She can hear the roar of waves somewhere nearby, crashing against stone. She can smell salt in the air and another cloying scent, faint and almost sulfuric. Her heart gives a small lurch in her chest as she looks around, trying to find some hint of light that might tell her where she is, but as usual, she sees nothing but the vague outline of the jagged stone wall that rises up behind her, and the mouth of a dark tunnel ahead. A thrill of fear spirals through her at the thought of the Inferi that will come rambling through that tunnel. So far, in every dream she's had of this place, it always ends the same. Her foot slips back into the loose stone beneath her shoes, that fear instinctively driving her towards the rock wall.

"Control," a voice sounds through her mind, and she stops in the midst of her retreat.

Some semblance of her waking memories crops up in lieu of it. Regulus's face flashes across her mind, and Vivian recalls, with the faint mentality that comes with dreaming, of the way he had said –

"Have you ever had a lucid dream before, Vivian?"

They had spoken about this dream, didn't they? She cannot recall precisely how that conversation had gone, or even pinpoint with exact precision why they had spoken of it to begin with. Her thoughts are foggy and dense like the heavy scent of salt that hangs upon the air, laden with an almost murky quality that accompanies a dream. It feels almost as though she is standing in a pool of molasses, each movement painfully slow, stuck in place where she stands. She focuses on Regulus, and on the thick salt in the air, inhaling deeply as if she hopes that it will return some sense to her scattered thoughts.

The sound of a lurching footstep has her abandoning the attempt.

Her eyes, which she had unknowingly closed, fly open. The jagged rock wall presses against her back as she slams herself into it, blindly scanning the gaping mouth of the tunnel for burning orange eyes, lit with their eternal, undying flame. As another footstep scrapes against stone and echoes through the tunnel, Vivian pats down her robe in search of her wand, but as always, it is not where it usually is, and she is defenseless.

Control, she hears, ricocheting through her mind.

The orange eyes appear, boring into hers. She releases a sound in the back of her throat and searches through her pockets again, faster this time. She wants her wand. This is her dream and she will control it.

"I need my wand," she mutters, scrabbling now through her pockets as the Inferi lurches through the opening of the tunnel towards where she's standing. She grits her teeth and says in a louder voice, "I need my wand."

There is a piece of her that doubts whether she really is in control of this dream or not, for the next few moments are spent uselessly turning out her pockets in search of the wand that is not there. It is only when she slams back against the rock wall, hard enough to feel each jagged stone press painfully against her, that she feels something in the back pocket of her trousers. She nearly laughs aloud when she slips her fingers around the handle of her wand and all but rips it out.

One determined gesture is all it takes to send the Inferi flying across the room. The creature slams into the opposite wall and crumbles to the ground. It promptly begins to right itself, limbs unfolding as it pushes back up, but Vivian is already rushing forward towards the tunnel and leaving it behind.

She does not know why she is running into the darkness rather than away from it. Her thoughts are still foggy with the heavy sensation of her dream, but she no longer feels stuck. Instead, it is as if she is as light as air. She knocks into the tunnel walls as she runs forward, but the impact does not hurt and the darkness does not sway her. All she can think of is that she wants to know what is beyond the darkness. What lies on the other side of it, in this cold, damp place that makes her so afraid. But it is the strangest thing, because she feels no trace of that fear now. It is as though she had left it back at that jagged rock wall, and now she is free of it, its shackles broken.

The loose gravel beneath her feet causes her to slip forward as the tunnel comes to an abrupt end. Her hand reaches out to grasp onto the stone before she can tumble down a steep incline that rises up suddenly in front of her. She feels some of her adrenaline calm as she turns her eyes to the sight of a large underground lake, its murky water rippling with a faint pulse of light that beams from a small island in its center.

All is calm and deathly quiet.

Furrowing her brow, Vivian stares at the island, if it can even be called such a thing. It is little more than a small rocky outcrop that rises up from the water, only a few meters in diameter. In the middle of it stands a strange object that looks like a pedestal, though she is too far away to know for certain. It is made of white stone, marble perhaps, and it radiates with a dull light that catches onto the water surrounding the island and scatters it across the lake.

She needs to know what it is, so she lifts her wand and summons an orb of light that follows her down to the edge of the water. Or it would have, at least, had she been able to make it that far. As it is, she only takes a few cautious steps before the water begins to ripple. The smooth, glassy surface breaks, shattering as figures begin to rise up from its depths. Figures that all bear bright orange eyes.

The fear hits her hard in the chest once more. This time, it sends her reeling backwards, and she feels her shoe catch onto a stone. She trips, her palm slicing against one of the jagged rocks as she attempts to break her fall. Like before, she does not feel the pain even as she looks down to see blood dripping down her fingers.

The horde of Inferi all turn towards the light of the orb that hangs above her just as she lifts her head to face them. As one, their orange eyes lower to stare at her, and then –

Vivian shuffles backward, scrambling towards the tunnel entrance. The Inferi begin to move through the water, marching towards her, unaffected by the tall, lapping water that they wade through. Their pale, dead faces are sickly white beneath the brightness of the orb.

She doesn't know how she reaches the entrance of the tunnel. All she knows is that suddenly, she is running back through the darkness, her heart hammering loudly in her chest, her eyes sightlessly scouring the tunnel as she ducks past rocks that jut out in her path. A mass of footsteps sounds behind her, echoing through the tunnel in tandem with her heartbeat, which pulses through her so loudly that it is nearly all she can hear. Fear coils through each limb. She is not in control.

The other Inferi, which she had sent flying into the wall, is nowhere to be found when she flies out of the tunnel. She does not spare a thought to where it might be. There are hands grasping at the walls just behind her. Pale fingers with dark, broken nails that reach out to trap her in this sliver of hell. She forces herself to run faster, feeling no hint of exhaustion around the hammering spike of adrenaline that douses through her veins, now returned in full force.

She runs past the jagged stone wall that she had pressed herself against before. The sound of crashing waves draws her forth. She scrambles up a small incline, she shoes sliding erratically against the gravel. For a brief moment, she fears she might lose her footing and fall back into the grasping arms of the Inferi that follow her, but she manages to regain herself – just in time, in fact, because she very nearly flies right off a cliff face and into the roaring waves that suddenly rise up beneath her.

She throws herself against the wall just before she falls, her fingers scrambling for a hold. The momentum of her stop nearly sends her over the edge. She just barely catches herself before she can fall to her death. But this is a dream, isn't it? She heard that you can't die in your own dreams…

She doesn't want to put that to the test.

The sound of lurching, manic footsteps have her looking over her shoulder. Her heart slams into her at the sight of tangled limbs and orange eyes scrabbling up the incline towards her. This isn't a dream. Not a normal one, at least. She isn't going to die at the hands of this undead horde. No, she's not going to die at all. What she needs to do is to wake up.

The decision comes to her within the edge of a second. Before her brain can catch up to her body, she is already vaulting herself off the cliff towards the churning waters below. Another bolt of fear propels through her at the sight of the crashing waves, but it lasts a mere moment before she is diving into the frigid depths, gasping against the wall of cold that slams into her as she's pulled beneath the brine…

And falling hard upon the floor, her legs tangled in the blankets of her bed.

For a few seconds, she is still diving head-first into the water even as she throws herself up and shoves the blankets off, shivering like a leaf. But then she recognizes the familiar walls of her bedroom, and Vivian releases a pent-up breath as she tumbles back down onto the floor and presses her face against it with a heaving sigh. She stays there, curled against the floor, until her heart stops trying to beat out of her chest. Only when it calms to the point where she has stopped shivering so mightily does she sit up again, leaning against the frame of the bed and taking deep, even breaths.

It is then that she realizes she is alone. The clock on the bedside table reads 3:18, and from the looks of it, Sirius has not yet returned.

This thought has her frowning, but the memory of the dream is too pressing to linger upon it for now. She needs to write everything down lest she forget it, which is why she finds herself in the living room with several sheets of parchment and a quill, furiously writing everything that had occurred in the dream. By the time she is finished, her hand is cramping and exhaustion has returned to her at full force. She barely manages to track Typhon down to send the contents of the dream off to Regulus before she collapses on the couch. Her intention of waiting for Sirius to return home is short-lived, though, before she ends up falling asleep once more, this time into a dreamless sleep.

"Vivian."

"Vivian, wake up."

A hand runs through her hair, and Vivian feels herself frown as she presses her face into something rough and uncomfortable. It takes her a moment to realize that it's the woven pillow on the couch.

"Hey, what are you doing out here?" Sirius's voice sounds. She feels his hand rest upon her shoulder as she opens her eyes.

Somewhere between the moment she had fallen asleep waiting for him and now, dawn seems to have slowly crept up on her. The living room is bright with the pale light of early morning, its soft rays pooling over each surface. She spares a glance towards the window before turning her bleary eyes to Sirius, who is crouching in front of her with a worried look on his face.

"You're back," she hears herself say. He grimaces.

"…Look," he murmurs, "I'm sorry about yesterday. I should've told Moody off for questioning you like that."

For a moment, she's got no idea what he's talking about. Her exhaustion has caught up with her, and her thoughts are even now filled with the memory of the dream, which comes roiling back into her mercilessly as she sits up. When she remembers the argument they'd had, she reaches up to rub her temples where a headache is forming.

"I shouldn't have gotten angry at you," she mumbles. "Let's just forget it happened."

Sirius's hand moves down to rest on her leg. He nods.

"Though I do want to know where you've been," she adds after a moment as her sleepiness begins to fade.

He hesitates, then moves to sit down on the couch beside her as he mutters, "I went out for a few drinks with James."

Vivian grunts. "Of course you did."

Despite himself, Sirius feels his mouth quirk up into a small smirk. It fades quickly, though, when he says, "I ended up crashing at his house. James got a bit carried away."

There's a strange touch of excitement in his voice when he says this, along with a an almost wistful sound that colors the edges of his words. She purses her eyebrows in confusion, honing in on the gleam that catches through Sirius' eyes. His mouth curves up into a wider smile.

"…What are you not telling me?" she wonders, narrowing her eyes a smidgen. When Sirius's smile turns into a full-blown grin, she straightens up expectantly.

He slings an arm over the back of the couch and angles closer to her to eagerly announce, "Lily's pregnant."

Of all the things Vivian was expecting to hear, this isn't one of them.

Eyes widening, she blusters, "Pregnant? But – but they've only just – pregnant?"

Sirius beams. "Yeah. I'm sure they'll tell the others at the next Order meeting." He pauses for half a beat, then catches her eye with a huge grin and adds, "James asked me to be the godfather."

Vivian, still reeling from the news of the pregnancy, feels her eyebrows jolt up. Not that she's surprised to learn that James would ask Sirius to take on such a role – those two are thick as thieves, closer than even the other Marauders – but to hear about all of this right now, after the events of yesterday and the dream…

She feels almost as though she's just sidestepped into another reality entirely. Some strange, jarring parallel universe that doesn't make any sense to her rattling thoughts, still clouded with the memory of those pale, grasping fingers.

Sirius keeps talking, seeming to take her surprise at face value.

"I reckon him and Lily will want to talk to you soon, too," he's saying, and around her murky thoughts, she finds that she had no idea what he's talking about.

"Why?" she vaguely asks, too muddled to connect the obvious dots laid out in front of her.

Sirius shoots her a raised brow. "Well, it's sort of tradition to ask the godfather's partner to be the godmother."

Raw surprise flickers through her. She jerks her eyes from where they'd been burning a hole through the carpet. Soft gray clashes with wildfire brown.

Godmother.

Surely not.

She's…she's not one of them. Not really. She might consider them to be…friends, now, but James Potter would never ask her to become his child's godparent. She releases a laugh as if she thinks Sirius is joking, but he just lifts his eyebrow higher.

"Oh come on," she snorts when he doesn't laugh along with the incredulity of his supposed joke. "Me? A godmother? You're just…jumping to conclusions."

She blinks, and flickering orange eyes stare back at her from behind her eyelids.

"I s'pose I might be," he shrugs as she shoves the memory away. "They might decide not to follow tradition." Then, studying her with a knowing gleam in his eyes that makes her uncomfortable, he slowly adds, "I think you'd be a good choice, though."

With an unnerving jolt, she realizes that he can see the undercurrent beneath her scoffing words. The feeling of…of inadequacy. Incompetence. The flaws in her all rise to the surface. The tangle of them brushes back the shadowy remnants of her dream, only to replace those harrowing memories with an equally daunting walk through all the shortcomings she knows she has. Godmother? No.

No, surely not.

Some piece of her wonders why the notion feels like such a strange, heavy weight, but the wondering doesn't linger for more than a moment before the answer arrives. After all, they are in the middle of a war, and godparents are usually the ones who step in when the child's parents…when they…

Anyway, considering the current climate, this is not a role to be handed away lightly, not when there is a very real possibility that the responsibility of taking care of the child could very well be passed to Sirius and her.

"Viv, are you…why d'you look so horrified at the idea of being a godmother?" Sirius asks. His beaming smile has faded down to a pinched look of confusion. In fact, there's even a slighted shard lingering just behind his eyes, as if he finds her reaction to be a tad bit insulting.

Like any true Slytherin would, she latches onto it and rearranges her expression as she mutters, "It's just…Potter." Her lip curls with an exaggerated dose of distaste.

Thankfully, it's enough to make Sirius bark out a short laugh. He shakes his head at her and sighs, "Oh, right. You're innate disdain of my best mate. I nearly forgot."

She huffs at the sarcastic edge in his voice but doesn't say anything to deny the words. She also doesn't look at him for longer than a second, not wanting to see the understanding blazing through his eyes. They both know it has nothing to do with rivalries long buried. That he doesn't remark on the real reason – those tangled, inadequate thoughts – nearly has her sighing in relief.

A brief silence falls, before Sirius is dragging a hand through his hair and murmuring, "…Anyway, I didn't stay out so late because I was…angry with you or anything."

She glances over at him, another war beginning to bluster through her mind. Should she tell him about her dream? She'd have to tell him about all the other dreams, too. And about Regulus. And about the Occlumency lessons. When did these secrets start piling up like this? She never intended for this to happen…

"Let me cook you some breakfast to make up for yesterday, yeah? I'll try not to burn anything," he jokes, breaking her thoughts.

The dream, and Regulus, and the lessons all fade away when she looks over at his face and sees the gentle way he's studying her.

"…Alright," she accepts.

Sirius sends her a small smile and leans over to press a kiss to the side of her head. He seems eager to make up for their argument as he makes his way into the kitchen. She watches him as he strides over to the threshold of the kitchen, his hand resting upon the doorway as he glances back at her. There's something in his eyes, that quiet knowing, that has her holding her breath.

"…Just so you know," he quietly tells her, "I think you'd be a brilliant godmother."

He pauses as if he's thinking about saying more, but ends up swallowing back the words and merely sends her a warm look before disappearing through the doorway.

Vivian leans into the couch, biting her lip as the war in her mind settles, his soft words a balm that mutes the restless thoughts.

She will tell him, but surely it can wait another day. They have time, don't they? Time enough to figure all of this out.

But a disquieted feeling shreds through her as she closes her eyes, seeing those burning eyes flash at her behind her lids. And when she rips them open and lowers her gaze to her hands, she swallows thickly at the sight of a pale white scar splitting across her palm.

A ghostly reminder that the dream she'd just had had not been a dream at all.