On the last day of May, Auror Rufus Scrimgeour led the raid that successfully apprehended the final member of Voldemort's Inner Circle still at large.

Sirius heard about it before the news hit the papers, because Moody showed up in the wee hours of the morning with an unexpected request. Apparently, Antonin Dolohov wanted to talk to him. He had made promises to cooperate with the aurors and not to reveal anything damaging to Sirius and the Ministry in a public trial, so long as he was given the chance to meet with Sirius alone for a few minutes. Curious, and feeling somewhat obligated to face the man again considering how their last few encounters went, Sirius agreed. Moody escorted him to the Ministry, but on the way to Dolohov's cell, he said, "While you're here, off-hours without the reporters and other leeches following you, would you mind having words with that dementor? We had to bring it back from Azkaban."

"Yeah, sure," Sirius said absently. He had completely forgotten his promise to help wrangle it with everything else going on, and he kept having intrusive thoughts of everything he'd ever done to Dolohov, from causing his friend Karkaroff's death, to spiking his vodka with hair-raising potion, to provoking the Dark Lord into torturing everyone in search of traitors, to besieging him with a superpowered dementor. He was glad the doors of the cell block down here didn't have windows in them. He didn't particularly want to see all the other people he'd had a hand in having arrested at the moment; he was on-edge enough as it was. "What happened at Azkaban?"

"Well, we had it here first, but it kept trying to eat the prisoners in the holding cells. When we moved it to Azkaban last month, picture releasing a member of a rival colony into an anthill. I've never seen dementors fight eachother like that, but the ones native to Azkaban repeatedly abandoned their posts to swarm around it. They hated it, hissing at it and ripping at its cloak. I doubled the auror detail to keep the peace, which sort of worked for a few weeks. Things came to a head last week though when two Azkaban dementors lowered their hoods as if to Kiss the interloper and became even more agitated than usual when no soul was forthcoming. The, er, your dementor fought back viciously, managing to rend its attackers apart. Since dementor fragments only grow into even more of the things with time, the aurors on duty saw fit to separate your dementor and bring it back to mainland at that point."

"Right."

"It's useless for patrolling the corridor or escorting prisoners anywhere - keeps trying to feed on them again now there's no competition. Doesn't matter what its handlers do. We're just keeping it in the warded chamber at the end of the hall behind all the cells."

Oh, so that's what Sirius had been feeling ever since they got out of the lift. It wasn't the usual external dementor chill and despair; that was mercifully blocked with the wards, mostly. No, what Sirius belatedly recognized was the latent sense of connection, and an entirely alien desire to get out. He strengthened his Occlumency shields against the feeling as he followed Moody down the corridor.

Dolohov was chained to a narrow bunk in a private cell. He looked terrible, not surprising since he'd been on the run for a month and sent five aurors to St. Mungo's in the fight to bring him in, according to Moody. Pale, pinched features. Torn and blood-stained robes. A burn on the left side of the head had taken half his hair and blackened one ear, though it was covered in burn paste and would probably heal well enough in time since it spared the eye. Other injuries were covered in bandages.

"Sirius? Ve alone?" he rasped when the door clanked shut behind Moody. He squinted at Sirius, sitting in the chair next to the bunk.

"Hi, Antonin. We're alone."

The Death Eater grinned and closed his eyes again. "Good."

"What did you want to talk about?"

Dolohov shrugged. "Is over. Only us left. Everyone else dead or caught." Sirius was silent. Dolohov opened one eye to look at him and weakly nudged his knee. "You do impressive job."

Sirius smiled faintly. "Is that what you think?"

"You use a magic I never see before. I did not think could happen, death of Dark Lord."

"Would it upset you to know I had no idea what I was getting into or even that the ritual was possible until that very day?"

Dolohov chuckled. "No. Is very you. Do not worry. You vill survive it. You are fearless like your cousin Bella. You vill do great things, as Dark Lord. You are vorthy successor to him."

"I think he would have disagreed."

Dolohov shrugged. "Of course. He vanted live forever, and you stopped him. If things vere different, I vould follow you now, your power, your fire. That is vat I loved in him."

Sirius' breath caught in surprise. He realized who must have been sending some of the anonymous letters; he never had given that last one to Moody, either. "What do you want, Antonin?"

"I vanted you to know that. But it cannot be. I liability to you. My fault for being caught. But since I am caught, now... I vant you kill me."

Sirius raised an eyebrow. Dolohov was never so crazy as Bella. He looked around the cell and saw no sign of particular mistreatment as of yet, no reason the Death Eater should fear the Ministry enough to be suicidal. The dementor was muffled behind enough wards and patronuses the yet-to-be-sentenced prisoners down here shouldn't be able to feel it much at all, not like Sirius could. "You probably should have contacted me before getting yourself arrested, if that's what you wanted."

"Yes, but vas helping you," Antonin insisted. "The false assassins and false attacks."

Sirius fixed him with a look. "I don't think I need your help."

Dolohov laughed again, but there was new tension in it. "No. You do not. It vas pleasant pretend, vunce I realized I could not return to my country. I fucked up, getting caught but not killed. I am sorry. But you not like him. You can show mercy to vun who vould have followed you." He gestured vaguely to his chest. "I am already injured. Vun more cut vill not be noticed, if you stay long enough. Please."

Sirius hesitated. "There are things you know, things the Ministry... I can use."

Dolohov shook his head. "You not need me. Anything I knew that you did not, I have told to others who vill report only to you. And I took care of Greyback."

"You did? When?" Remus hadn't heard about it yet.

"Yesterday. Please, Sirius." He shuddered at Sirius' carefully blank expression. "I know I have not... I should have bowed to your victory immediately. Should not have tried to return to Russia. I tried to make it up to you. You must believe me."

"Why?" Sirius was puzzled, both at Antonin's request and where the avowed loyalty had come from. They had been perfectly cordial, even friendly at times in the last months of the war, but they were far from close. Sirius had always put Antonin in the same box as Evan and Sullivan - dedicated to the cause, hard working, dangerous, but also invested in surviving.

"I cannot to see another dementor," Antonin burst out. His mild, joking manner was suddenly replaced by a fierce, raw demeanor and a tone begging to be heeded. "I... I took Dark Lord's Mark for magic only. I do not care about blood like you English or great Russian families, only magic. I never thought I vould tire of it or- or see something I did not vant to know. But ven your dementor came... it turned my own fire to ash. I felt not my power, not my passion, not my faith in magic. Gavnah! I could think only of mistakes, or dead comrades, my weakness, how I should never have left my Russia. How meaningless the fight. Meaningless his defeat. Meaningless my death. I have never thought such things before! Vsegda vpered! Always forwards. No more."

He took a deep, bracing breath before he continued. "I could have relit again, I think. If I by you to see your vision. I am follower. I need someone else to lead..." He rambled a bit longer, going on about the bizarre fantasy he had constructed of what he assumed Sirius to be up to: namely hiding a secret, great purpose behind his seeming Light acts to take over the Ministry through stealth and bring about a new golden age of magical unity and freedom. He dreamed of becoming to Sirius what Abraxas and later Rodolphus had been to the Dark Lord: a trusted advisor with no other loyalties. A weapon in the dark. A companion in the exploration of rare and forgotten magicks. The speech was regularly punctuated with fearful comments about dementors though.

After a couple minutes of this, Sirius understood.

Antonin had been rather severely affected by the dementor. Though he hadn't fallen into catatonia like some, he had lost sense of self and had tried to reconstruct it around a delusion of new purpose and redemption through Sirius, the very person who had destroyed him. If he had been captured earlier, he would probably have been temporarily admitted to St. Mungo's for stabilization. He wondered if Dolohov would have asked to see him if he'd been brought somewhere else, somewhere farther away from the very object of his fear, hidden though it was.

Sirius looked into Dolohov's bloodshot, trusting eyes, thinking. What would James do? Probably not this. James had told him not to kill again, that murder was never the right answer, at least not now the war was over. But... slowly, Sirius nodded. Dolohov only wanted to be spared the dementors. Sirius understood that; he remembered Dolohov's look of terror when he was facing Sirius' dementor head-on. It was the thing that had finally pushed Dolohov away from the Dark Lord, the thing that had finally driven him mad as Bella. Or at least brought his madness to the surface, for surely it was crazy for the man to be so drawn to that which had the power to crush him, first the Dark Lord, now Sirius. Ministry justice was cruel. It was arguable whether anyone really deserved life in Azkaban, even a man like Dolohov. The system persisted mostly because the Ministry didn't have other ways to contain Ekrizdis' creation.

This wasn't murder. It was mercy, as Dolohov had already said.

Moody had his wand, so options were limited, but that didn't mean he had nothing to offer Dolohov, who asked for so little.

He slipped a hand under the Death Eater's back, to make it believable that he didn't realize what was happening when Moody came back. He whispered a cutting charm. The rush of magic and Dolohov's grunt of pain told him it worked. He pulled his hand back and found Dolohov's, who clutched at him weakly. His hand was unexpectedly warm.

"Spacibo, my friend. Can you tell me how vas it like? The ritual to destroy him? How you overcome the fear of that creature? How you mastered it? I spent many hours trying to imagining it. I went to coast to look into North Sea, close as I could get to Azkaban. Even so many miles away I felt chill and horror. I feel same now. Tell me, please, how can you look at doom and - and make it part of you without being lost?" He shuddered. "I can be braver for death, if you tell me."

Sirius looked at him a moment, then shook his head. He wasn't what Dolohov believed he was. He didn't have the grand, courageous words the dying wizard was asking for. Dolohov forced a smile again, shakily. "I ask too much. Ask vat I have not earned. I am sorry."

That's not what you have to feel guilty about. "Who was your second-in-command, Antonin?"

"Ebenezer Malkin," he answered.

Sirius shook his head again. "Malkin was caught in the raid with you. He's dead."

"Qvist then."

The Swede Sirius had worked with on the Inferi operation. Antonin must have picked his lieutenants based on who could resist the Imperius rather than operational talent. "And someone will still be at the rendezvous points you sent me?"

"Da."

He tightened his grip. "Goodbye, Antonin."

"Goodbye, Sirius."

Sirius waited for Dolohov's grip to slacken, then felt for a pulse, taking his time. He didn't want to make a mistake now. When he was sure it was gone, he shouted for Moody.


At Sirius' alarmed call, Alastor slammed the door to the cell open. He bounded in, wand drawn, but caught himself soon enough as he took in the scene. No sign of a struggle. Sirius was still sitting on the chair where Alastor had left him. Dolohov was still lying on the bunk. The difference was in Dolohov's stillness. A quick look inside his chest with Alastor's magical eye confirmed no heartbeat.

"Bloody hell," he muttered. He closed the door behind him before turning back to Sirius. "So. He's dead... Why?"

Sirius shrugged, too calm. "I dunno. We were talking. He was pretty loopy, started fading in and out of consciousness, then eventually stopped breathing. I didn't realize he was dying until it was rather too late."

"I'm pretty damn sure he wasn't dying just a few minutes ago," Alastor said pointedly.

Sirius met his gaze steadily. "What do you want me to tell you, Moody? I mean, it's not like he was in great shape. The healers must have missed something."

Alastor stared at him a moment, then looked at the corpse. It was of course plausible what Sirius said, just as the story about the Death Eater incursion at Grimmauld Place was plausible, but Alastor's every instinct was screaming at him that there was more to it. That for whatever reason, Sirius had killed Dolohov, even without a wand. Wandless killing certainly wasn't beyond the young man's capabilities. The question was why? Sirius didn't kill without reason, even if the reasons were not particularly well thought-out. No, every evil deed he'd done in the war had either been carefully premeditated or committed in the height of passion. He looked back at Sirius. Such a young face to wear such a cold, stubborn expression. It was the stubbornness that gave away the lie, Alastor decided. If he had something to be obstinate about, defensive about, then either he had just done something he knew Alastor wouldn't like, or he was feeling threatened in some other way.

Well. He'd covered up so many other of Sirius' crimes in the past year, now was hardly the time to withdraw his support. Not if he wanted the broken boy to actually pull through and have a chance to return to normal life. Although the kid was practically begging for the other aurors to wise up this time, doing something like this right under their noses. Thank Merlin no one else was standing in the hall at present. He stowed his wand. He walked forwards slowly, careful not to startle the lad. He knelt down, as he had in St. Mungo's to deliver the news of Fleamont's death. Sirius tensed in obvious confusion, but Alastor still reached out and set a hand on each shoulder. "Are you alright?" he asked.

Wordlessly, Sirius swallowed and nodded.

"Don't lie to me."

"I'm fine."

"You just watched a man die."

Sirius looked down. "He wasn't a nice man," he muttered.

"No. He wasn't... But you're still lying to me. You're not fine, and he wasn't dying when I brought you here. Why did you kill him?"

"I didn't."

"There are no listening spells in here, believe it or not, and I'm pretty sure the only thing that could possibly make me decide to arrest you right now would be if you said you acted out of pure impulse to kill someone, nothing to do with him."

A strange laugh escaped the lad. "Yeah, apparently nothing I do will make anyone but James want to fucking stop me."

"Do you need to be stopped?"

Sirius glared at him. "You of all people know what I've done."

"I do. I wrote the charge lists at your arraignment. I've been with you every step of the way since your initial meeting with Bellatrix Lestrange last year, as much as I could be, anyway. You're not a simple murderer, even if you're feeling that way right now. Do you want to be punished for your sins?" Sirius' eyes jerked away again, a silent admission. Alastor squeezed his shoulders and let go, resting his hands on his knees instead. "Then talk. Making you confront what you're feeling is probably the most painful thing I can do to you anyway." Sirius laughed again, a little hysterically this time. "Did you kill him?" Sirius nodded. Alastor breathed out slowly. "Why?"

"Because he asked me to. He was afraid of Azkaban. Exhausted by what we've all been through. He couldn't take it anymore. And I'm the only one left who could understand." His eyes became distant.

"You... were trying to be kind," Alastor said faintly. Somehow, that seemed worse than Sirius flying into a rage as he had when he killed Rabastan Lestrange or Lord Greengrass.

"He knew I wouldn't help him escape," he said instead of agreeing. He sounded guilty about that.

Alastor closed his eyes for a moment, thinking. Sirius' picking and choosing of who he would and wouldn't consent to implicate was endlessly frustrating for Crouch and to a lesser degree Alastor and Albus Dumbledore, but perhaps it wasn't all politically motivated. In retrospect, Alastor suspected that Sirius was actually quite conflicted about what he was doing, now that his original goal of destroying Voldemort was so handily accomplished. Now that the Death Eaters were on the run, it must be harder for Sirius to see them all as villains and not to some extent comrades-in-arms, at least the ones he knew better. Or perhaps comrades-in-trauma would be more accurate. Certainly, Sirius wouldn't find very many people on the Light side who had experienced the Dark Lord's Cruciatus and lived to tell about it. He opened his eyes to find Sirius watching him guardedly.

He shifted a little so he wasn't looking Sirius straight in the face anymore and glanced back at Dolohov's motionless form. He gestured. "Do you want to tell me about him?"

"Like?"

"Who he was. The only family he still has on the continent disowned him when the ICW issued the warrant for his arrest, and Magical Russia went so far as to exile him about a month ago. I don't think anyone is going to request his body for formal burial. Unless you were planning on it."

Sirius sighed again. "He said I was the only one left. Guess he was right." He was silent for a time. "I'm not going to request the body. He wouldn't want me to, anyway. He was a Dark wizard through and through, liked the sensation of magical power, didn't care about much else. He didn't like the political side of things, even though he was slotted into the role of diplomat on the continent by virtue of being a foreigner. We had that in common... Actually we used to spend a lot of the meetings drinking and smoking together while everyone else put forth opinions. We didn't talk about it, just did it." His expression darkened. "He was cruel, but in a pragmatic way. I think... the excesses of some of the other Death Eaters, like Bella, they annoyed him. Or at least he could see the irony in how 'well-bred' people like Bella and Nott, and me probably, could have such... base interests. He was impressed by powerful magic, not by blood and gore." His lips quirked. "Can't say whether that made him better or worse than the others. He still killed plenty, he just didn't seem to get personal satisfaction out of the act itself... He said he was a follower and needed someone else to lead, and wished that could have been me." He laughed bitterly. "Hell, I don't know what to say, Moody."

"You don't have to. Was he your friend?"

"No."

Thank Merlin. "Well... sounds like he was strong in his own way, and respected, and that that was what he wanted." He carefully kept any color of his own opinions about the corpse out of his tone - he would cheerfully admit to despising Dolohov under other circumstances. The Death Eater had killed far too many aurors and hit wizards for Alastor to willingly consider any positive traits he might have had. It wasn't Alastor's place to invalidate Sirius' emotions in this delicate moment, though.

"Yeah, I guess."

After some more pensive silence, Alastor stood up, tapped the chains on the bunk to release them, and rearranged Dolohov's limbs to something a little more peaceful-looking. He flicked his wand to straighten the robes.

"Zemlya ym bookhom." Alastor didn't know much Russian, but he'd learned to say some vague blessing for the dead in twelve languages since he'd become an auror (also "hello," "you're safe," "get down," "stop," and "I'm law enforcement"). Crouch's idea. The man wasn't particularly warm, but he knew the value of speaking to someone in their own language and thought the front lines of the DMLE should be able to say something useful in whatever dire circumstances they found themselves. "Come on. I'm not arresting you, but I need to let whoever's on duty down here know the prisoner died so they can get the body moved. They're stationed to guard the dementor too, so it's on our way."

Sirius nodded and got up to follow him out, casting one last, lingering look at the body, followed by an even longer look down the hall towards the dementor's chamber.

"You... can still feel it, can't you?" Alastor asked, a sudden chill running down his spine.

"Yeah," he said quietly. "I think Dolohov could too, a little."

Damned dementor. It suddenly made a lot more sense how Sirius' head could get so twisted around as to kill a man inside the Ministry. Alastor hesitated in the hall, watching Sirius with his normal eye and the distant dementor with his magical one. The creature had harkened to Sirius' presence, cowled head following his uneasy shifting. There was definitely a lingering connection between the two of them, and it was far stronger than what Orion Black had had. Alastor would have noticed sooner if he'd thought to look for it.

Although the fact boded well for Sirius' ability to help Alastor with the dementor, it also made Alastor feel distinctly guilty. Like he was abusing the young man's trust and sense of responsibility. Even though Alastor thought the dementor would almost certainly be subservient to Sirius, that didn't mean it was healthy for Sirius to be here. "You know, you can say no," he ventured.

Sirius startled. "Huh?"

"You don't have to talk to it, if you don't want to."

Sirius raised an eyebrow. "You're the one who asked me," he pointed out.

"Yes, I know, but... even though it's been difficult for the department, this thing is not your problem any more. It's mine. It's not your job to wrangle Dark creatures and keep them away from the public. It's mine."

"It's just talking," Sirius said, although more to himself than to Alastor.

"It's just talking, but to a dementor I will completely understand if you'd rather not confront again. Not to mention Orion already told it to follow our instructions the day of the battle - no way I was going to just let him take it back. For all we know, there's nothing more for you to do. If you think that's the case more likely than not, you shouldn't take another step closer to it."

Sirius stared down the dark hallway and shrugged. "I won't know until I try. I really should do this. I'm the one that set it loose. I could see what it did that day to... everyone. I'm pretty sure it has to listen to me. I know it won't deliberately hurt me. Might even behave. If it still won't... I could put it back in its dungeon in Grimmauld - I know how to keep my father away from it."

"For how long?" Alastor asked skeptically.

"Ten years," Sirius answered dully.

Alastor eyed him. There was a story there, he was sure. But then, Sirius had told him before he didn't want to know how the Blacks kept it loyal for so long. Probably shouldn't press right now. "Hmm. Before we go in there, rest assured I am not going to ask you to do anything more against your conscience just for my own convenience."

Sirius' tense shoulders slackened slightly. "Okay."

"And obedience or not, if it looks like you're being adversely affected, I'm taking you out of there."

Sirius nodded. Alastor gestured for Sirius to stay close to him. They passed down the hall and into the anteroom where the three aurors on duty were gathered. It felt cold in here despite the rabbit patronus guarding the door to the dementor's chamber. "The healers missed something when we brought Dolohov in. He's dead. Take care of it. I'll mind the gate for a few minutes." Alastor ordered. "Expecto Patronum!"

"He - What?" the youngest of the lot, Dawlish, sputtered. Rufus scowled and strode out with only a muttered curse. He was clearly vexed his quarry had died, doubly so since someone had apparently made a mistake on his watch to allow it to happen.

"The prisoner is dead," Alastor said tersely. "And looked pretty recent. The three of you can do forensics and incident reporting faster than I can. Mr. Black here has already had the displeasure of viewing a surprise corpse at four in the morning. He does not need to stand around while I deal with it, nor am I going to leave him unescorted after the attacks on him and his family, so trot along and do your jobs. Quick like."

"Yessir."

Once they were gone and the door closed behind them, Alastor gingerly opened the warded gate on the other end of the room. It was utterly black to Alastor's normal eye, nearly impenetrate to the patronus light, though his magical vision could pick up the outline of the waiting dementor as well as the lines of the wards.

Sirius approached beside him. His face was pale, but his jaw was set in determination. He took a deep breath and stepped past Alastor's patronus. The dementor surged to meet him but stopped far enough away as for Sirius to remain out of arm's reach. For a minute, the two just stared at eachother. Then Alastor realized from the subtle shifting in both the dementor's and Sirius' shoulders that somehow, the two were communicating. It was unsettling. Dementors did not speak. Nor did they have human-like minds for Legilimency to work, not that anyone in Alastor's department was mad enough to try something like that. You only knew they understood an order when they followed it. Not so with Sirius and the dementor he had so closely bound to.

Suddenly out of the silence, Sirius spoke in a harsh tone, "I am Lord of the House of Black. You accept souls from no hand but mine." A final few seconds of staring, and the dementor's head dipped slightly. Sirius spun on his heel and stalked back through the gate. "Shut it."

Alastor complied. When he turned around, Sirius was leaning heavily against the break table, supporting himself on shaking arms. Alastor rushed to him and put a hand on his shoulder; it was cold as if he'd been walking outside in a blizzard for the past hour. "It shouldn't try to Kiss anyone without my permission. Not for ten years. I think. Unless I die before then... It wants to go home. Do you want me to take it?" He didn't look up from the table. He sounded almost as tired as he had been the week the Potters rescued him from Grimmauld. Alastor stared at his hunched back, thinking.

"No," he said after a long moment. "Keeping it from eating anyone is good enough for me to work with until we find a more permanent means to deal with it." He knew he made the right call when Sirius managed to straighten up a little, still not looking at him. It wasn't a perfect solution by any measure. Perhaps, eventually, the Ministry would be left with no choice but to surrender custody of the dementor back to the Blacks. Or hire someone with Black blood as a permanent dementor-wrangler. But right now, it just wasn't fair to force the responsibility back on Sirius. He was second-guessing a number of plans Albus and Barty were relying on Sirius to help them with, actually. He was a nineteen-year-old boy, for Merlin's sake! He shouldn't be responsible for solving problems older than he was. Alastor waved a warming charm over Sirius' shoulders. "As soon as Dawlish gets back, let's go get you some hot chocolate. And breakfast. Shouldn't take more than a few minutes, then we'll be out of here."

"Yeah. That's fine."

Sirius sank into a chair, still shivering slightly and staring at nothing. Alastor sat next to him.

"Are you alright?"

"Fine."

"Are you thinking about the dementor or about Dolohov? Or something else?"

Sirius glanced at him. "Dolohov," he said after a moment. "He refused to believe I'd been lying for the past year and wanted me to be the next Dark Lord. He was... trusting me to save him. And when I didn't, all that was left was to ask me to help him die."

Bugger. That was where the guilt came from, then. A thought occurred to him. "Is that what happened to your cousin, too?"

"Sort of," Sirius admitted.

"Do you know how aurors cope with deaths on the job, either suspects or colleagues?" Alastor ventured slowly.

Sirius shook his head.

"Same way everyone else does. We hold a memorial service, but one centered around the job, not one imposing on the deceased' family. No funerary rituals, just a remembrance of the person who died by whoever was involved in the incident, close coworkers, and superior officers. That kind of thing."

"...Yes?"

"I think we should have one."

"For Dolohov?" Sirius asked skeptically.

"For everyone you have lost," Alastor clarified. He was pretty sure if he stopped to think about it, the only funeral Sirius had actually been able to go to in the past year was for Rabastan Lestrange. All the rest happened when he was deathly ill or otherwise unable to attend.

"For everyone I've murdered."

"For everyone you killed in the line of duty," Alastor corrected gently. "The Order has had a few such meetings over the years." Mostly theirs had been for friends, but there were a few meetings held after what should have been non-lethal dueling spells did end up killing rather than merely neutralizing enemies. Edgar Bones had been especially devastated in '76 when one of his stunners caused a Death Eater fresh out of Hogwarts to fall down an embankment and land in a muggle motorway.

"Sounds great. Who all did you expect to come to the most miserable ceremony imaginable?"

"You. Me. Albus. Perhaps Arabella."

"Who?"

"She's the squib who's been helping us all year. Besides Albus and myself, she knows the most about what you've been doing. Well, Crouch also knows now, but he's not exactly a helpful presence at these kinds of events in my experience. Euphemia knows a lot, but not everything by her own request. She'd probably attend if you asked her to, but..." Sirius cringed before Alastor could complete the thought. "I'd advise against inviting your school friends for similar reasons. You could consider inviting Mr. Avery, I suppose, since he was the closest to you on the other side and I presume is fairly aware of most of the details by now. I leave that decision up to you, though, if you think it would help you or him or whether it would be too stressful."

"I killed Richard's cousin."

"Rosier?"

"Yeah."

"And you concealed that from him?" Alastor asked skeptically.

"No..."

No, but he felt bad about it now, no matter how eager he had been to "do something" at the time. Alastor decided not to point that out. "Well, regardless, I'll speak to Albus about joining us for a remembrance this weekend."

Sirius sighed. "I'll ask Richard. And Audrey. No one else."

"Alright." Alastor agreed.

The door opened, and Dawlish jogged back in. "Forensics are done, sir. There was a wound in his back that must have reopened that did it. We've called for the house elves to clear out the cell..."

"Thank you. You can take over here again, then. And I'll escort you back home, Mr. Black." He nodded curtly to Dawlish and tapped Sirius on the shoulder.

Once they were out of the room, Sirius leaned in to mutter, "You don't have to escort me. Dolohov was the one sending the assassins, and he told them to miss. He was 'helping.'"

"And maybe one day, I'll believe that sufficiently to let you wander around without a bodyguard."

Author's note: From Dolohov's perspective, Sirius didn't go nuts in a harebrained scheme to save his little brother. No, he led a successful coup from within the Death Eaters. That makes him Voldemort's heir by warlord logic. Dolohov was there for the Dark wizardry, not for the British politics.

As to why Sirius' dementor is so much more trouble than the ones at Azkaban, there's a couple reasons. Firstly, it was created by the Black family, who are notoriously impossible to control. Whereas all the other known dementors were created by Ekrizdis, who never felt much inclination to leave his island fortress. In this AU, dementors mimic the traits of their creators. Secondly, this dementor is still bound to serve the Black family, and it has no incentive or even ability to enter agreements with anyone besides a Black. Delegated authority doesn't count for much to a spirit that lacks true sentience. Thirdly, it has excessive vigor because it is so well fed. The Kiss is a rare punishment, and there's hundreds of dementors in Azkaban, so most of them won't have had a chance for a full meal in ages. Whereas the Black dementor gets a personal feast relatively often and of course just recently gorged itself on Voldie and some Death Eaters (and a bit on Sirius).

Sorry this update took longer than planned - real life intervened. Thanks for the reviews! Look for the next update in two weeks again.