Chapter Text
Ooh, she’s a little runaway
Daddy’s girl learned fast
All those things he couldn’t say
- “Runaway,” Bon Jovi
Saturday, 14th March, 1987
“Potter?”
Sirius whispers, keeping his voice low. The alley is a few streets over from the apparation point and appears empty; still, he can’t stop himself from glancing over his shoulder obsessively, sure that at any moment the red robes of aurors will pour down the street behind him, blood from an open wound.
The street remains empty. The sky remains dark. In the shadows of the alley, he has to squint to see.
When he turns, there’s a strange ripple in the air, like summer heat emanating off pavement. In the next second, Potter appears before him, dragging back silky material just enough to show his head floating, absurdly, in the air.
“I’m here,” he whispers back, “You alright?”
Sirius nods. His heart has taken up a frantic rhythm, staccato, flooding adrenaline into his veins. The pixie dust likely isn’t helping—though he only took a small hit. Just enough to keep him sharp, on edge.
“Let’s just get this over with.”
If Potter notices the dilated pupils, the slight trembling in his hands, he doesn’t mention it. Instead, he nods once, firmly, and disappears back under the cloak.
Sirius takes a deep breath, then begins to move purposefully back down the alley. He strides into the street, head held high, pasting on the arrogant confidence that he used to don with practiced comfort. He curls his fingers loosely to the palms of his hands, hiding the trembling. When he steps into the employee entrance, he can feel Potter pressed close to his back, hitching a ride through the floo before the wards can shut.
The pressure nearly makes Sirius stumble as he steps out into the Ministry atrium, but he manages to keep his balance. The building is dark, empty, hollow. Normally, the atrium is filled with the chatter of witches and wizards, the shuffling sounds of feet and swishing robes, the flare of fire in the floos. Now, it’s so quiet that the water pouring from the fountain in the centre makes Sirius want to wince; it crashes, heavily, a waterfall flooding from the outstretched wand of a proud, broad-shouldered wizard, face turned upward, away from the cowering muggles below.
There have been security aurors stationed twenty-fours hours a day, seven days a week in the Ministry atrium since the Order’s last break-in, though on a Saturday evening all but one of the usual checkpoints are closed. The two aurors stationed there aren’t anyone Sirius recognises—rookies, likely, saddled with the worst hours for their shifts. They’re both young, no more than boys, fresh out of Hogwarts. One glances nervously at Sirius as he approaches, while the other puffs up his chest, trying to appear bigger.
Sirius allows a condescending sneer to twist his face, drawing up to his full height to stare down the bridge of his nose at them. He sniffs as he hands his wand over, acting as though it’s a matter of course that he’s coming into the Ministry after hours. The bristly auror frowns at him, narrowing his eyes.
“Name?” he asks, a note of challenge in his voice. Bored, Sirius thinks, and looking for excitement. He wonders how many uneventful weekend shifts these two have had to sit through, manning an empty checkpoint in a dark room.
He raises a brow, as though to say, You honestly don’t know who I am? The nervous auror flushes, looking down at his feet.
“Sirius Black.”
“Position?”
“Member of the Wizengamot.”
“Reason for visiting?”
Sirius allows his expression to go cold, voice flat as he drawls,
“I work here.”
The posturing one crosses his arms, jutting his chin forward stubbornly.
“What work’ve you got on a weekend?”
Sirius sets his features into the expression he might wear upon the discovery of a particularly nasty insect which he intends to crush beneath his shoe.
“Do you honestly think,” he says, dropping his voice into something low, dangerous, “That you have the clearance to be privy to that sort of information?”
The young auror turns bright red, fuming, and his partner hastily steps in.
“It’s just policy,” he says, conciliatory, “We have to ask everyone that.”
Sirius doesn’t respond, only turns his icy glare from one auror to the other. The poor man nearly drops Sirius’s wand in his haste to cast the required verification charms, then hurries to pass it back.
“Here you are,” he says, doing a funny little gesture that’s halfway between a nod and a bow, “Have a nice evening, Mr. Black.”
Sirius sniffs and strides forward, internally cringing as he waits for some sort of alarm to sound. When there’s nothing, he makes his way to the lifts, keeping his severe posture until he’s sure he’s out of sight of the checkpoint. The clatter of the lift doors opening is ominous, unnerving; it sounds like the clatter of bones. Sirius takes another breath, waiting a moment to ensure that Potter’s had time to step inside before he presses the button for floor nine.
The doors shut.
There are wards, he knows. In the lift, throughout the building. He’s not entirely sure what Potter’s done to slip past them—whether the invisibility cloak helps, or whether there’s some form of magic he’s finagled that the aurors don’t know about. Either way, Sirius finds himself holding his breath for the entire ride, unable to stop waiting for an alarm to sound.
It doesn’t happen. Instead, the lift doors slide open, and he steps through, and they shut behind him. He walks down the hallway of floor nine, and stops when he reaches a plain black door. He turns the handle, and allows it to swing open. He steps through.
He’s inside the Department of Mysteries.
Sirius stands, just inside the doorway, aware of the thick layer of magic buzzing just behind him. His hair stands on end as he turns and looks back.
“Potter?” he whispers.
“Still here.”
The voice comes from the other side of the door, low and hurried.
“Go on, then—we haven’t got much time.”
Sirius nods. The key to the wards is just beside the door, inside the department. It’s a small compartment, set into the wall, similar to a letter slot. When Sirius pushes his hand inside, there’s a sharp pain—the magic processes his identity before allowing the wards to fall, abruptly, opening for his guest. When he withdraws his hand, a trickle of blood runs from the centre of his palm down to his wrist.
The failsafe is intended for use by Unpseakables or Wizengamot members when they need to bring outsiders into the Department. If the wards aren’t restored within two minutes, an alarm will sound. The moment Potter steps through, Sirius lifts his bloodied hand to the open doorway, placing his palm flat against the empty space. There’s a fizzy, electric current that runs like a shock all the way to his elbow; immediately after, the wards flare back to life. The black door swings shut against his palm, clicking into place.
There will be a record, now, that Sirius Black has allowed someone into the Department of Mysteries. Of course, if all goes according to plan, he’ll be far away and in hiding with the Order by the time anyone realises there’s been a break-in.
But then, there’s no telling if all will go according to plan.
The entryway to the Department of Mysteries seems carved from black glass; the floors and wall are monolithic sheets of darkness, reflecting the flickering blue candle flames that lie at intervals around the room. Plain black doors, identical to the one they just stepped through, circle the space. Sirius has only had to enter the Department of Mysteries once before, to retrieve some of the more sensitive documents left behind by his father; the prior experience did very little to familiarise him with the space, or to make it any less unnerving. He honestly doesn’t understand how the Unspeakables work down here, day after day, without going completely bonkers.
Beside him, there’s a rustle of fabric as Potter removes the cloak. Sirius stares, unable to help himself, as the man’s body appears from thin air, silvery fabric materialising in his hands. It looks almost like the rushing water of a river, mesmerising; Sirius watches as Potter opens the magically extended pouch on his belt and folds the cloth carefully inside. Immediately after, he begins to rummage about, pawing through the pouch as though they aren’t both living, for the moment, on borrowed time.
Sirius clears his throat.
“You said you know where Nagini is?” He prompts, anxious to get away from the Department of Mysteries—from the entire damned Ministry—as quickly as possible. Potter nods, distracted.
“Kind of—just hang on a moment…”
Sirius blanches.
“‘Kind of?’” he repeats, “What d’you mean, ‘kind of’? If we can’t find the snake—”
“Here!”
Potter lifts his hand, brandishing something triumphantly—at first, Sirius thinks it’s a scrap of fabric. Then it catches the flickering candlelight, and he sucks in a breath.
“We lost some very good people trying to get a hold of this,” Potter says, solemnly. Strangely, rather than echoing, the cavernous room seems to swallow sound, muting their voices. “Very good people.”
“Is that…?”
“Scales,” Potter confirms, “From the snake itself.”
“How did you—”
“Don’t worry about that now.” Potter lifts his hand, preparing to cast. “No time.”
Sirius falls silent, allowing Potter to cast the tracking charm. The shed scales begin to glow, dimly. When Potter steps to the right, the light fades; when he moves left, it grows brighter.
“This way,” he commands.
The door they approach looks just like all the others—but when they enter, Sirius is struck with a sudden sense of déjà vu. At first, he thinks they’ve somehow been transferred into the courtroom where the Wizengamot holds trials; though the space is dark, cast in shadows, it seems to be ringed by identical stone benches, descending like the steps of an amphitheatre. Sirius quickly realises, however, that this isn’t a room he’s seen before—rather than a podium or stand for testimony, the platform in the sunken centre of the room holds a tall, stone archway, within which hangs a tattered veil. As Sirius watches, it flutters gently, as though moved by a gentle breeze—but the room is airless, stifled.
“There,” Potter breathes.
Just beyond the veil, there’s the snake—held aloft in a strange, shimmering bubble, some sort of warded tank. It twists, sinuously, in place, lazily flicking its tongue out to scent the air.
“Wait,” Sirius hisses.
The snake isn’t alone. There’s a death eater—a man he recognises, short and unassuming, with mousy brown hair. Peter Pettigrew is positioned between the snake and the veil, holding one of his runic tomes, squinting down at the text. But it’s too late—Potter moves forward; Pettigrew looks up, eyes widening in surprise, and—
“Stupefy!”
The curse hits Peter before Sirius can blink, before he can speak, before he can move forward to grasp Potter’s arm. The force of it sends Pettigrew hurtling backwards, flung off his feet—as they watch, his body collides with the veil, and—
He disappears.
Sirius blinks, shocked. Potter has come to a halt as well, staring in stunned silence at the veil. It’s impossible; they can see both sides of the archway, the curtain covering nothing. Yet it’s as though Peter has fallen through, into some space beyond. Sirius waits for him to re-emerge, wand brandished.
The veil flutters, gently.
“What…” Sirius breathes. Potter shakes his head, as though refocusing himself.
“No time,” he grunts, “Come on—there could be others. Just…don’t get too close to that veil.”
Potter’s moving quickly, now, already halfway down the steps. Sirius follows, heart pounding, waiting for the army of death eaters to pour out of the shadows. It doesn’t happen—there’s no one. But why Peter? He wonders, mind spinning, adrenaline flooding his veins, Why would he be here, all alone?
The instant the thought connects, he calls out,
“Wait—”
In the same instant, the runes flare to life.
Potter slams to a halt as though he’s hit an invisible wall, standing just where Peter was—halfway between the snake and the veil. The runes crawl along the archway, down to the floor beneath Potter’s feet, twisting into a tangled spiral, a gently glowing net. Potter’s body jerks, an aborted movement. His feet remain planted, firmly, atop the runes.
“Sirius,” he says, voice frantic, “The snake—”
“Yes, Sirius,” another voice interrupts, cutting smooth as glass across the room, “You’d better hurry if you want to kill the snake.”
Sirius stands, frozen, blood turning rapidly to ice. On the opposite side of the room, at the top of the steps, Lord Voldemort emerges from the shadows.
His smile is cold, triumphant. It’s an expression that Sirius has seen him wear many times before, sadistic and self-satisfied, gloating and handsome and horrible. Usually, this particular smile is followed by the sorts of commands that feature in Sirius’s nightmares, crafting memories that he needs dreamless sleep to escape.
“Sirius,” James says, again, urgently. Lord Voldemort laughs.
“Did you honestly think,” he asks, “That I would fall for your silly little trap?”
He moves slowly, leisurely, like he has all the time in the world. Sirius doesn’t think he could run, even if he wanted to. It’s like staring into the eyes of a basilisk; every muscle has turned to stone.
“My missing death eater,” Voldemort continues, “All trussed up and delivered to my doorstep, with no memory and the Order’s fingerprints left all over him? Did you honestly think that I would ever believe you had just accidentally allowed him to escape?”
It’s over, Sirius thinks, We’re dead. We’re going to die. All of it—all of it was for nothing.
“Really,” Voldemort’s voice curls with amusement, a cat toying with a mouse, “You’d practically announced your little plot: you needed to get inside the Department of Mysteries. To destroy my dear Nagini, isn’t that right?”
The snake hisses, as though recognising its name. Voldemort steps onto the dais, stretching out a hand that sinks into the charmed bubble with no resistance, allowing his fingers to stroke gently over his pet for just a moment. He’s hardly more than an arm’s length from James, but the other man doesn’t move. Whatever’s binding him, it’s more than fear—his muscles tense, tendon jumping in his neck, eyes burning with rage. Voldemort watches him, untroubled, entirely at ease.
“You’ve been quite busy, haven’t you, Mr. Potter?” he asks, conversationally, “Very irritating, your little escapades. Picking off my horcruxes, one by one—clever work, I’ll admit. But those were child’s play; trinkets made when I was little more than a boy. I think you’ll find that I’ve come a very, very long way since then.”
He withdraws his hand from the snake, sliding his wand out from his sleeve and allowing it to rest in his fingers instead.
“You wanted me to believe that Sirius Black was innocent; of course, I had to make it convincing. It would look strange if I didn’t have any suspicions. And I couldn’t pass up such an opportunity—control just the right information, and I could have you exactly where I wanted you, exactly when I wanted you. So I played your little game, Mr. Potter. It was amusing, I’ll admit.”
The smile hardens, calcifies.
“But the time for games is over,” Voldemort says, “Now I am going to destroy you, and your Order, and everyone you have ever loved.”
“If you’re going to kill me,” James grits out, “I could do without the monologue.”
Voldemort grins, all teeth.
“Kill you?” he laughs, “Mr. Potter, I’m not going to kill you. I’m going to use you.”
Sirius notices, now, that James’s breathing has grown heavy, that sweat has begun to bead along his brow. James opens his mouth as though to respond, but winces instead, flinching from some invisible pain. Voldemort’s smile cuts across his face like a wound.
“Yes,” he tuts, voice mockingly saccharine, “I suppose it must hurt, mustn’t it?”
“Stop,” Sirius croaks, automatically, throat so dry that it feels as though the word is scraped out over sandpaper. James is trembling, now, entire body shaking. Voldemort turns, and the smile becomes a sneer.
“Wait your turn, Black,” he says, coldly, “I haven’t forgotten you.”
Sirius steels himself, trying desperately to think of something—anything—that he might be able to do. Searching for a distraction, he asks,
“What are you doing to him?”
The shark smile returns.
“I doubt that you could understand,” Voldemort says, sounding far too pleased with himself, “The metaphysical nature of magic is not something that most wizards are able to fully grasp. So much of our understanding remains mired in myth, old wives’ tales…I suppose you could say that I’m draining him, as it were. Mr. Potter’s connection to the Veil will eventually strip him of all magical energy, unless broken by the one who created the connection. Unfortunately, Mr. Potter has ensured that will never happen. But no matter—I need him flayed entirely, for my purposes.”
“You…you’re turning him into a muggle?”
Voldemort shrugs, casually.
“In a sense,” he says, “No need to fear though, Mr. Potter—the change will only be temporary.”
“Fuck you,” James hisses. Sirius steps forward, trying to draw Voldemort’s attention back to himself. James is so powerful—surely, if Sirius can just distract the Dark Lord for long enough, Potter will find some way to get free.
He has to. He has to, or they’re both—
“Why?” Sirius asks. Voldemort sighs, indulgently, turning to him.
“You always were a curious one, Black,” he says, voice now approximating something like fondness, “It really was quite promising. Unfortunate, that you’ve turned out to be such a disappointment—but no matter. Tell me, what do you know about the creation of horcruxes?”
Sirius blinks, taken aback.
“I…I don’t…”
“Yes,” Voldemort smirks, “Most people don’t. It really is quite difficult, made even more so by the couched language, the misinformation. Many wizards will still tell you that it has to do with splitting souls—souls,” he laughs, “A muggle fairytale. In reality, to create a horcrux involves creating a copy; or, rather, a sort of code, the sort of code that can be triggered to create a copy, with the right magic. It’s a very complex bit of spell work, with quite nasty side effects that are very difficult to recover from. But if completed successfully, then in the event of death the spell can be triggered, and the horcrux can be used to create this double—of course, it will only be a copy of the wizard you were at the time of creation, which is why I’ve found it prudent to create…updated versions, shall we say?”
“What does that have to do with James?” Sirius asks, trying very hard to keep his voice from shaking. Voldemort twirls his wand between his fingers.
“Well,” he tilts his head, as though considering the question, “It’s quite a bit easier, you see, to actually implant a horcrux into an inanimate object. In fact, most wizards will tell you that it’s impossible to turn a living being into a horcrux. But with Nagini,” he reaches out, again, to stroke gently over the scales of the floating snake, “I determined that this was a lie. Living creatures can become horcruxes—it only requires a blank slate. Drained of magical energy, it’s entirely possible to cast the spell. Magic replenishes itself, of course, but it will grow around the new core…and though this is, for now, all theoretical, I suspect that the results would be far superior, were the spell to actually activate within a living creature. Much easier to build a new body when you’re beginning from flesh.”
Sirius feels sick. The picture Voldemort paints is all too vivid—the purpose of this trap, the spell, the veil…
“I can see that you’re beginning to understand,” Voldemort says, slyly, apparently amused by whatever nauseated expression he sees on Sirius’s face. “It’s quite perfect, isn’t it? All this preoccupation with a silly prophecy—this way, I win no matter the result. Mr. Potter can attempt to continue with the destruction of my horcruxes, once he’s recovered; perhaps he’ll even succeed. But then he’ll have a choice to make: kill himself, and destroy my final horcrux. Or kill me, only to become the very reason I am reborn.”
“I’d kill us…both…before letting…that happen!”
James’s breathing has grown more laboured; he forces the words out through gritted teeth. Voldemort tuts.
“I’m sure you’d like to believe that,” he croons, “But the lovely thing about horcruxes is that they’re designed to protect themselves. Surely you’ve realised, by now, that to become a horcrux requires an inherent change. It would be an interesting experiment, but I doubt you’ll be capable of killing yourself, once the spell is done. You won’t just be you anymore, you see—you’ll also be me.”
No, Sirius thinks, No—no, I can’t let that happen. I can’t let this happen.
He begins to raise his hand, moving on instinct—but with a flick of Voldemort’s wand, he’s bound, frozen to the spot not only by fear this time, but by magic. Voldemort shakes his head, patronising.
“Honestly, Sirius,” he says, “Do you think you stand a chance against me? You? Look at your leader—more power in his little finger than you have in your entire body, yet I didn’t have to lift a finger to defeat him! Truthfully, I’m a bit disappointed; I must say, I expected more. So many years, I’ve heard about the great power of The Chosen One; yet when I finally have my chance to meet him, he’s as harmless as a kitten.”
A tortured sound escapes from Potter’s mouth, a tangled snarl of pain and rage. He struggles, again, trying to move forward; it’s as though invisible hands are holding him back. Sirius watches, helplessly, as magic flickers and dissipates at James’s fingertips. This wasn’t how it was supposed to go—James Potter was meant to be a hero, unbreakable, unbeatable. Sirius so often scoffs at prophecy magic, but some part of him—some part of him still believed, somehow, that Potter could do it. That even if he couldn’t, the final battle would be triumphant, magic cracking like thunder, like lightning, brilliant and explosive. That they would go down in flames. Not this—a mouse in a glue trap, weakening slowly, staring up into the jaws of a hungry cat.
Sirius can’t stop himself from feeling utterly, abjectly foolish for having ever believed in James Potter.
He should have taken his brother and run.
“Look at him!” Voldemort laughs, delighted.
There are tears on Potter’s face, though whether they’re from pain or rage Sirius doesn’t know. What he does know is that they’re going to die. They are both going to die, and Voldemort is going to win, and Regulus is going to live the rest of his life in hiding, or die trying to finish what James Potter couldn’t. What Sirius couldn’t, either.
“Look at your beloved Chosen One!” Voldemort crows, relishing in his victory.
The voice rings out suddenly, abruptly, cool and clear as water. It’s strong, unwavering, and unmistakably familiar.
“He’s not the Chosen One.”
Sirius can’t turn his head, but he casts his eyes as far to the side as they can go, watching in his peripheral vision as his wife walks calmly down the steps.
“He’s not the Chosen One,” Dorcas repeats, stepping forward.
“I am.”
“Mrs. Black,” Voldemort eyes her, with a patronising smile.
“Dorcas Meadowes,” Dorcas corrects.
“I must say, this is certainly amusing—”
She doesn’t let him finish that sentence. The power explodes out of her; a tsunami; a tidal wave. It crashes against the shield that Voldemort throws up with enough force that Sirius feels as though he’s just been punched in the face. He stumbles back, finding that the body bind has dissipated. Before he can move, though, the next wave of magic sends him stumbling again, nearly losing his balance. He lands awkwardly on one of the stone benches, ankle twisting painfully as he goes down, hip screaming where it hits with enough force to send a red-hot shock of pain racing up his body.
From there, he can do nothing but watch.
He always knew that Dorcas was powerful. Since their days at Hogwarts, before they were even really friends, he remembers how she was always top of their class—how magic seemed to come to her effortlessly, performing advanced transfiguration and complex charms with nothing more than an easy wave of her wand. She has the kind of magic you can feel, if you spend enough time close to her—like ozone in the air, warning of a storm. Sirius knew that. It’s the entire reason his parents agreed to their match.
Somehow, he still never realised how much she was holding back.
Voldemort’s wand is barely visible in his hand, moving with such speed that it becomes nothing more than a smudged blur, bursts of spellwork flashing forward like glittering scythes. Dorcas doesn’t use a wand. She doesn’t even use words. Sirius has never seen her cast like this before—like she’s dancing, moving with her entire body, fluid and graceful and terrifying. She scatters the magic that Voldemort sends towards her like embers from a fire, dying ash, and hurls back spells so powerful that Sirius can taste the magic in the air, iron on the back of his tongue. She dodges and weaves, ruthless, never faltering. The arrogant amusement quickly dissolves from Voldemort’s face, transforming to confusion, then irritation, and finally a visceral rage that twists his handsome features into something inhuman, monstrous. He snarls, shouts, dancing back across the dais, sending killing curse after killing curse hurtling towards Dorcas’s heart. She deflects them all, one by one, and sends back curses of her own.
There’s something happening, in Voldemort’s eyes, his face. Some transformation that Sirius doesn’t recognise, at first, because it feels so alien to the Dark Lord that he can barely comprehend it. But then one of Dorcas’s curses makes it past his shields, slicing across his shoulder when Voldemort doesn’t dodge quickly enough, blood spattering through the air, across the stone floor. And Sirius realises—he’s afraid.
Lord Voldemort is afraid.
In the next moment, Dorcas Meadowes disarms him.
Sirius watches, in stunned silence, as Voldemort’s wand flies across the room, landing with a clatter at Dorcas’s feet. Voldemort stares at it, for a moment, fingers twitching as though instinctively trying to continue their casting. Then he screams, voice ragged with rage,
“THIS ISN’T POSSIBLE!”
Dorcas doesn’t bother with an answer. Instead, she lifts her hands, and says, without raising her voice,
“Avada Kedavra.”
The entire room glows, washed in green light. And then—
Lord Voldemort’s lifeless body slumps to the ground.
For a moment, time seems suspended; Sirius feels as though he’s been trapped in amber, surrounded by silence, unable to hear anything but the sound of his own pounding heartbeat rushing in his ears. He can’t tear his eyes away, half expecting the body to rise—for Voldemort to stand, to laugh that cold, horrible laugh, and reveal that it was all another trick.
But that doesn’t happen.
Instead, the corpse remains on the floor.
It can’t be, Sirius thinks, numbly, It can’t really be over. It doesn’t seem possible.
But then—
James makes another noise, something twisted with pain, and time comes rushing back. There’s a horrible dull thud as the charmed bubble around Nagini disappears, and the snake falls heavily to the floor. There’s something happening to it—it’s writhing unnaturally, hissing, but there’s no time to think about that. James is still trapped, and Voldemort is dead, and Peter—Peter is dead, too. They need to do something about James. It’s over. Somehow, Dorcas is here. She’s killed Lord Voldemort. They need to help James.
“James—” Sirius says. He limps forward, hissing in pain, and Dorcas is at his side in an instant. She flicks her fingers towards the snake, and a glass tank materialises, muffling its dreadful hissing. She puts an arm around Sirius’s waist, helping him over to where Potter stands, face tear-stained and blanched.
“He’s trapped,” Sirius tries to explain, hurriedly, “It was a trap—he said only the one who cast the spell could break it, but he’s—James—”
“Okay,” Dorcas mutters, eyes flickering over the runes, “Okay, I don’t—I can try—”
She raises her hands, and once again, Sirius can feel the magic as she casts—it slams like a battering ram against whatever spell Peter’s designed with his runes, clashing horribly, setting Sirius’s teeth on edge. James groans in pain. Dorcas winces.
“Maybe if I—”
“Wait—”
Sirius grabs her arm, stopping her, eyes focused on James.
“He’s saying something.”
“…alive,” James pants, forcing the words out as though it hurts him to speak, “I…think…fuck…I think it’s—alive.”
Dorcas stares at him. Then her eyes move, slowly, to the veil.
“I don’t understand,” she says. Potter sucks in a breath.
“Felt something…like this…before. I…think it’s…feeding.”
Sirius feels sick. Behind Potter, the veil flutters, gently. Before, he thought it looked like wind, but now—
Now, it looks like breathing.
“Okay,” Dorcas says, after a moment. “Okay.”
She steps forward, keeping carefully outside the line of runes as she moves towards the Veil. Sirius resists the urge to reach out, to stop her—this close, he can hear whispering, as though there are murmured voices coming from the other side.
From inside?
Dorcas sets her jaw, reaching out to place her hands against the stone archway. She flinches when her skin makes contact, shivering like she’s just touched a block of ice.
“Dormus,” she whispers.
There’s a strange…shudder, as though the very air itself is shivering. The murmuring grows louder, for a moment. Sirius can feel his skin crawling, instinct screaming at him to run.
“Dormus,” Dorcas says, again, more firmly. The magic is so strong that Sirius finds himself blinking sleep from his eyes. For a moment, the runes flicker.
Dorcas presses her palms flat against the stone, leaning forward with her entire weight. She grits her teeth.
“Dormus!”
Miraculously, it works. The runes fall dark, all at once, and Potter tips forward, landing hard on his knees. The veil falls still. The whispering stops. Whatever it is—it’s asleep.
For now.
“James,” Sirius says, moving forward to help him stand, wincing at the weight it puts on his twisted ankle. Dorcas comes to join them, still carefully keeping away from the runes on the floor.
Potter’s still breathing heavily, but a bit of colour has returned to his face.
“Are you alright?” Sirius asks, urgently, “Can you walk?”
“Yeah,” James winces, then straightens, “Yeah, m’fine, I’m just…” he trails off, for a moment, flexing his hands. Then he laughs, hollowly.
“Drained,” he says.
Sirius swallows.
“Okay,” he nods, trying not to think about what that could mean, “Okay—we’ve got to go, now, before—”
“Wait,” Dorcas interrupts. Her voice is tense, stretched thin with exhaustion. “The snake.”
They all turn.
The tank she conjured has held fast, but the snake is still writhing inside it, body slamming against the glass walls. Its skin—Sirius realises, it’s shedding its skin. But it’s not…that’s not quite all. There’s something else happening; something else emerging. It’s turning into something new.
The horcrux, he thinks.
He’s going to be sick.
“What did you bring to kill it?” Dorcas asks. She’s not speaking to him. She’s speaking to Potter.
James reaches for the pouch on his belt, hands still trembling slightly as he opens it.
“Accio—”
He clears his throat.
“Accio basilisk fang.”
It takes him three tries to summon it.
In the tank, the snake has begun to move with more force, as though it knows what they’re doing. James hesitates, for a moment. Then he passes the fang to Dorcas.
“You should do it,” he says. Beneath the words, unspoken, lies another sentence.
I don’t know if I can.
Dorcas nods. She accepts the fang without question, and Sirius watches as she steps forward. The moment she vanishes the tank, the snake lunges forward, jaw unhinged—Dorcas throws up one hand to stop it, holding the fang in the other. She must use a body-bind, because the snake falls to the floor, unnaturally stiff, no longer writhing. Its eyes are yellow and hateful and not entirely animal.
Dorcas kneels. She lifts the fang with both hands, and plunges it down.
It’s over.