Chapter 14
Unfortunately, when she arrived home about a week later, Sirius wasn’t there. It took Ellie all her restrained not to panic. He’d probably just taken a safe route, tried to make sure he wasn’t captured. Which was good. Safe was good. And he had evaded capture for almost a year now, he knew how to be safe. But still, the lump in her throat remained. And so, the next day, still anxious, Ellie decided to keep herself busy and take on her garden. She had, mostly in an attempt to make the house seem occupied, hired a gardener, but right now she felt like getting her hands dirty.
She had gotten halfway through digging a hole that she wasn’t sure would actually ever end up being a pond, there was a rustling in the bushes behind her and when she turned around, a large, black dog sat there, head slightly turned, looking at her curiously.
“Don’t give me that look, love. That’s what happens when I’m anxious. You should know that.”
Ellie could have sworn the dog gave her a small smile, before getting up and coming towards her, gently bumping his nose into her leg.
“I’m really glad you’re safe, love. Lets go inside, shall we?”
Following her through the terrace door, Sirius turned back into a human, not even waiting until Ellie had fully turned around before pulling her into a hug. He smelled horridly, the stench making her eyes water, but right then and there, Ellie couldn’t care less. Resting her head on his shoulder, she closed her eyes, still unable to believe he was really here. Next to her hear, she could hear Sirius muttering her name.
“I thought I’d lost you… thought you were dead…”
“I know, my love, I am so sorry… I wish… I wish I could have let you know.”
Sirius pulled back a little to be able to look at her, his sunken eyes full of love, as he caressed her cheek, unable to find any words. His fingers were bony and callused, but his touch was soft.
“Now, Si, why don’t we get you cleaned up?”
“Oh please, I can’t remember when I was last even remotely clean.”
Chuckling a little, Ellie laced her fingers with his, leading him up the stairs, “Come on, then.”
“This is a nice house you’ve got here. Definitely an upgrade from our shabby apartment.”, but he sounded sad, like he was wishing they were there rather than here.
“It’s still there, you know.”
Sirius’ eyes widened, not sure how to react.
“It is? I thought… well…”
“That the ministry cleaned it out? I would have thought that, too, but Remus was the only one who really knew about it. And he just left it the way it was. It’s pretty much the way it was when you got arrested.”
“I miss home…”
“We can go there some time, if you want. After we cleaned you up, that is.”
With his long, wild hair and the torn, dirty clothes, Sirius looked utterly out of place, standing in the middle of a clean bathroom. The first thing Ellie did was cut his hair above his shoulders. As tangled as it was, she should probably have cut it shorter, but Sirius had always loved having long hair and she didn’t want to take that from him Then she started peeling off his clothes, throwing them in the bin as she went along. Sirius let it happen, a little overwhelmed by the feeling of being taken care of. Once she had gotten rid of all of his old clothes, she led him into the shower. Hesitation for a moment, Ellie stripped of her own clothes, getting in after him. To her amusement, she could see a little more light return to his eyes as he watched her. The way his eyes were fixed on her made her heart flutter. Even after all these years, after everything they had been through, he still was attracted to her. Smiling warmly, she turned on the shower, making sure the water was warm enough before letting it make contact with Sirius’ skin. Not that he would have cared much, entirely enticed as he was with looking at her.
“Have I ever told you that you are easily the most beautiful woman I have ever seen?”
“I doubt you have seen a great many women recently to compare me to, Si. Lean you head back, please.”
“I’ve seen enough, and even if I had seen a hundred, they couldn’t keep up with you.”
“Still a charmer, I see.”
Back when they had been in school, Sirius had been everyone’s favourite, the teachers all liked him, despite the constant mischief, the other boys thought he was hilarious, and the girls simply adored him. It had felt like a small miracle when Ellie had realised that Sirius liked her.
Washing his hair turned out much more difficult than excepted, even with the help of her wand, because not only was he taller than her, the hair was tangled and incredibly dirty and had clumps of dried mud in it. Eventually, the worst was out of it and his body, too, was clean, so Ellie turned off the water, which earned her a displeased growl form Sirius, who had his eyes closed and was leaning against her.
“No need to complain, love, we’re just moving to the bathtub.”
That she didn’t need to tell him twice and soon they were both emerged in hot, foamy water, Sirius leaning against Ellie, sighing contently. After a while he lifted his head a little, apparently now ready to have a conversation.
“So, who was that woman?”
“What woman? … Oh, that woman. No idea, really. She’s just who I turned into when I was desperately trying to morph myself into someone Dumbledore would accept as a teacher. And Holly is what I came up with.”
“Wait… Holly? That’s… that’s your name?”
“Yeah. Holly McIntosh. Why?”, Sirius tensed, then sat up, turning to face her, his set with disbelieve. “What’s wrong, Si?”
“You… you are Holly?”, his voice had turned into a growl, but Ellie could still hear the uncertainty in it, hear the pain.
“Si, what’s going on? Why are you…?”
“You can stop pretending, Ellie. I overhead Flitwick and some other teachers talk about it.”
What the hell was he talking about? Confused, she starred at him, trying to find the words to ask him, but she didn’t need to. Trying hard to keep the accusation and the growl out of his voice.
“Talking about how he saw Remus leave her… your… room one morning. Talking about how you two were together.”
Now the dime fell, and it was all Ellie could do not to outright laugh.
“And I get it, really. You thought I was a murder, thought I’d gotten you brother killed. I wouldn’t want anything to do with me after that either. And Remus… well, he’s Remus. He’s always been your type. So I get it. I really do…”
“Oh Si… no, you have no reason to be jealous of him, really. Or of anyone, for that matter.”
Misunderstanding her, Sirius’ face fell, his shoulders dropped. “Right. Because I’m not your boyfriend anymore. Because it’s been twelve years and you’ve moved an. Moved on with Remus.”
“Okay, first of all, no. That is utter and complete rubbish. I love you, I have always loved you. And for the record, I never believed you betrayed James. Ask Remus, we fought about it often enough. Si, you have no reason to be jealous of anyone because there is no one I’ve ever loved as much as you. I love Remus dearly, yes, he’s been pretty much my only friend since… since then. He was there for me when they found me, he was the one to tell me about James and Lily, about you. For a long time, he was the only friend I had left, but that’s all he’s ever been, my friend.”
“Then what, Flitwick was wrong?”, Ellie could see he wanted to believe her, wanted to believe that she still loved him the same way she had twelve years ago, but he was still hurting too much to allow himself to hope, still too messed up from everything to believe that anyone could possible love him that much.
“No. He did see Remus leave my room. And then he jumped to conclusions. He knew Remus and I got along well, and maybe it was wishful thinking. Minerva too, thought we would fit well together. Filius then went and told Minerva, Pomona overheard and, well, you know how these things go. We figured we’d let the rumours run their course, easier than trying to fight against them. The truth is, he was in my room because I had finally told him who I really was, finally come clean with him and we got to talk freely for the first time in… I don’t remember in how long. And then he fell asleep on my bed.”
Nodding, Sirius took the hand Ellie held out to him, leaning back into her arms.
“And to the other thing you said, about not being my boyfriend anymore, well, I have a pretty little ring box standing on my nightstand in London that very clearly calls me your fiancé.”
Turning in her arms, Sirius pulled her into a kiss, messy and passionate and full of emotion.
“So, you liked it?”
“I never looked at it. The box is still there, but I never opened it. It felt… wrong.”
“Then you should go and get it very soon, because I very much want to give it to you.”
A little later, after Sirius had finally gotten bored of sitting in the bathtub, Ellie had appeared the two of them into their London apartment, where Sirius was now sitting on the sofa, the little ring box in his hand, overwhelmed by pretty much everything.
“You really kept it untouched for twelve years.”
“Yeah, well, I could never get myself to let go of it, even if I couldn’t bring myself to come back here after…”
“They found you?”
Sitting down next to him, Ellie sighed. She knew she’d have to tell him at some point. But she also knew that it would hurt him.
“I guess you deserve to know…”
Wringing her hands, she searched for the right words, wondering if it would ever get easier to talk about it. To Sirius’ credit, he remained quiet, giving her both the time and space she needed.
“Remember the mission the order sent me on?”, huffing little amused, she answered that herself, “’Course you do. Until last week you thought I had died on that mission. Obviously, I didn’t. But… I got captured.”
Out of the corner of her eye, she could see Sirius swallow hard, probably imagining all the horrible things they might have done to her, but he didn’t interrupt her, only touching her when she reached out to him, taking her hand and holding it tightly.
“They locked me in a cell in some cellar... dungeon, I guess, would be the better word for it. I wasn’t the only one, I sometimes heard them bring in new people… but, from what Moody told me, none of them made it out again. Not really, not alive, at least. I think Marlene was one of them… Remus later told me they had killed her entire family… I could here her scream, saying that she’d never betray the Order…”
And she hadn’t. Marlene and the rest of the McKinnon family had been murdered, but they had taken the Order’s secrets to their grave. Ellie could still sometimes hear Marlene’s screams as they had dragged her from her cell for the last time, before she had fallen silent. And she wasn’t the only one Ellie had recognised by their screams as they had been tortured and killed.
“There were two others alive when the aurors came… they didn’t make it… I don’t know how I did… I was… I was weak, barely conscious when they came, raiding the house. I hardly remember anything. Just Moody. I remember the shock on his face when he saw me. I remember him telling me it was going to be alright. I didn’t believe him, I was… I was just glad that I wasn’t going to die alone, that there was a friend with me. I passed out after that, woke up more than a week later in St. Mungo’s, with Remus fast asleep by my side. He later told me that I almost didn’t make it either, the healers did their best, but… the Death Eaters had too…”
“The scars on your wrists and arms and on your back…”
“Yeah. The wrists are from the shackles… from me trying to break out of them. The one on the arms is Bellatrix’s handywork… and the one’s on the back…”, shrugging vaguely, Ellie tried to push the taste of bile down, that was rising in her throat. Tried not to think about all the times Bellatrix had dragged her from her cell, put a knife to her arms and cut until Ellie had passed out from the pain. Tried not to think about how the others had whipped her, time and again, to punish her for Voldemorts fall, punish her because she was a Potter. Focusing on Sirius in front of her, she took a deep breath, the pain and sorrow on his face tethering her to the presence, reminding her that those days were long gone, that she was safe.
“They kept me in St. Mungo’s for a while.”
Magic had healed her physical injuries fairly quickly, it couldn’t rid her of the scars she’d already had, but the rest it fixed. But her mind had been a different matter. What she had been through had put her in a vulnerable state, and when Remus had told her about James and Lily, and that Sirius had supposedly betrayed them, it had pushed her over the edge, shattered her already fragile mind. It had taken several months for her to recover. But at least she had recovered. Alice and Frank, whom she’d gotten to share a ward with, hadn’t. They were still there. She visited them every now and then. Not that they’d notice if she didn’t.
“I am so, so sorry, Elle. We should have gone looking for you.”
“No, Si… Don’t go there, please…”
“They said you were dead, we thought… If we had known...”
She’d had that conversation with Moody after she’d finally left St. Mungo’s. He had been the one to train her as an auror, had been the one to suggest her for the mission, too. So naturally, he had felt responsible for what had happened to her.
“It is what it is, Si. Let’s focus on the future, all right?”
“Future sounds great. And to start it, it’s time you finally took a look at your ring.”
Handing her the box, Ellie opened it, for once actually curious about what was inside. The ring was rather simple silver ring, with two small and one larger gem on it, nothing fancy, but still beautiful.
“Oh Si… I love it.”
“I was hoping you would. Especially since I don’t think they’d take it back after twelve years.”
“You might be right on that.”
Laughing, Sirius leaned over, pulling her into a kiss.
“So, what do we do now? Because I vote for going to bed.”
“Mhm, sure you do. I vote for feeding you a shitton of food. Which means I need to get groceries. Or at least hop back to Little Whinging to get the ones I’ve got there, since I’m getting the feeling you prefer being here.”
“Hell yeah I do.”
Yeah, she could understand that. Now that Sirius was back in her life, she couldn’t help but remember how much she’d loved this apartment. Sure, it was small, and not in the best part of town. But it was comfortable, full of memories and mementos, and it was home. It was the first home they’d had together. After Sirius had spent a year living with them when he’d run away from his family, which really meant he’d spent the summer with them, he’d gotten this apartment when they’d graduated, because he didn’t want to be a bother to her parents. Not that he possibly could have been. He had been James’ best friend and thus a regular guest in their home since they were eleven and, once she had found out how badly he was being treated by his own parents, her mom had practically adopted him as her second son. Ellie and Sirius getting together the summer he’d been living with them had only sealed the deal for her.
“I think we should managed putting a Fidelius on this place…”, Ellie thought out loud, “I mean, I did a lot of research into it for James, I think I can do it… but it would make you very depended on me… we can’t let Dumbledore know. Then again, he doesn’t know anything about what I’m doing…”
“What does he think you’re doing? Because surely he didn’t just forget about you?”
“Pretty sure he did. After he kept forbidding me from seeing Harry, threatening any interference, I told him to go to hell and we never spoke again. Maybe Moody told him that I was going to move somewhere desolate and forget the world ever existed, which is what I told Moody I was going to do. What I probably would have done if it hadn’t been for Harry. But he never tried to reach out to me after, so… yeah. Anyway, I think I can manage the spell, then you’ll be safe here.”
“I don’t like the idea of being couped up in here…”
“I know, my love, but it’s either that or being on the run. I mean, you could head to the Fijis if you wanted to, with Buckbeak… wait, where is Buckbeak?”
“Crap, I completely forgot about him! He’s (NO FECKING CLUE). Figured he’d be safe there for a bit.”
"We'll find a permanent hiding place for him soon, for now we should better go get him. He's less likely to be discovered in a magically hidden backyard than out there."
"Why am I not suprised you hid your house...?"
"Because you know me? You know what spells I put on our aparment."
"Merlin, I love you!"
"I love you to, Si", Ellie leaned over to him, pulling him into a kiss, still not entirely able to believe he was finally home. After all these years, they were together again. Now they only needed to figure out a way to get Harry. And they would. Somehow. But not now. Now, she was simply going to enjoy having the love of her life back.