never wither

"My idiot sister, who is too weak, actually believed what they said...that's her."

In the summer of [-], Sirius Black pointed to the family tree tapestry in Black's old house, and said in a calm tone to his godson Harry.In the dim light, Harry saw the name under his fingers—

Adhera Regulus Black

[-]-[-]

Harry had never known that Sirius had a sister before, no one had ever told him.When she died, she was probably not much older than Harry is now.

"I'm constantly being reminded that she's a much better kid than I am." Sirius was still staring at the name on the tapestry, fingers still on it.

"But she's dead - I'm sorry," said Harry hastily, noticing Sirius' expression.

"Yeah. Stupid idiot... she joined the ranks of the Death Eaters." Sirius couldn't help the sharpness in his tone.

"You're kidding!" Harry blurted out.It was difficult for him to associate the weak and silly sister in Sirius' mouth with the image of a female Death Eater similar to Bellatrix.Harry had met Bellatrix in Dumbledore's Pensieve, the only female Death Eater he knew.

Sirius didn't explain right away, he seemed to be attracted by something.He ran his fingers lightly over the torn tapestry, and perhaps he saw more than just the name.This made Harry look again at the tapestry: Adhera Regulus Black.She is named after a star like Sirius, following the Black family tradition.

"No, she did join the Death Eaters. She told me herself." Sirius withdrew his hand as if nothing had happened, and put it in his pocket. "I never thought she would do that."

"Are your—your parents were Death Eaters, too?"

"No, it's not. But believe me, they think Voldemort is right. They're all in favor of keeping wizarding blood pure, getting rid of Muggle-borns, and putting pure-bloods in power. Ann-Adhela, He immediately changed his words, "She must have been influenced by them, and her fiancé—" He laughed sarcastically.

"They're going to marry her to a respectable pure-blood wizard, a loyal Death Eater," said Sirius bitterly, "a ruthless lunatic. She accepted the marriage weakly, fell in love with It’s not unusual for the wrong person to end up like this.”

"Was she killed by an Auror?" Harry asked hesitantly.

"Oh, no. She was killed by Voldemort. Or, more likely, at Voldemort's orders, and her Death Eater fiancé was also involved. She's not that important, and Voldemort didn't need to do it himself. From what I've read since her death, she's gotten pretty deep and then she's terrified of what other people are asking her to do and wants to quit."

Sirius sighed.

"Well, you can't hand Voldemort a resignation letter and be done. It's either life or death. I suspect she didn't think that much about it when she joined. She was cheated, it's that simple."

Sirius left the tapestry and walked across the living room.

"I'm sorry," said Harry softly, "about your sister, Adhera."

"No need to apologize," Sirius muttered softly, sitting in a chair and wiping his face. "She's really stupid."

Harry noticed that Sirius was not impatient when he said this.Staring at the hole in the carpet, he seemed to be sucked into the vortex of the past.

"Sirius and Adhara are two stars in the constellation Canis Major, and they will always be together." Under the bright summer starry sky, 14-year-old Adhara said childishly, longing for an affirmative answer.How childish, how silly.

He still remembered that there seemed to be stars dancing in her eyes looking at him.Since when did things change?

Sirius had never thought about it in the past, so now he had to work harder to turn the pages of the memory-heavy book.What did he say afterwards?

"Dinner." Mrs. Weasley's voice interrupted Sirius' recollection.On the tip of her raised wand was a tray piled high with sandwiches and cakes.Everyone else surrounded her, scrambling to get something to eat.They were joined by Sirius and Harry.

"Sirius, are you okay?" Harry asked worriedly.Sirius gave him a forced smile, reached for a tuna sandwich, and took a big bite.

"It tastes good, Molly," he praised.

The cleanup of NO.12, Grimmauld Place is still going on.They seem to be waging an uphill battle against the old house, with the house-elf Kreacher leading a tenacious resistance against screw-shooting grandfather clocks and finger-biting snuffboxes.To be honest, Harry would rather fight a dragon than clean up an extra room.

This afternoon, Harry, Ron and Hermione were sent by Mrs. Weasley to tidy up the top-floor rooms.It was said that the top-floor rooms looked "okay", and Harry hoped that this was true.

"On the bright side, if we get strangled to death by our robes, we won't have to go back to school to see Snape's face," said Ron optimistically. Summer homework."

"We'll pack and send you homework," said Hermione curtly. "Look, there's a sign on the door."

"—please, Hermione. We'll have eyes to see for ourselves."

Harry saw that it was a rather grand little sign, with neatly handwritten letters.Hermione ignored Ron's complaints and read to herself:

without my express permission

No Entry

Adhera Regulus Black

"Looks like something Percy would put on his door," Ron muttered, making sure no fourth person heard Percy's name.Not long ago, Ron, the brother loyal to the Ministry of Magic, moved out of the house and refused Mrs. Weasley with a strong attitude.Everyone was mad.

"Sirius and I mentioned her," said Harry, suddenly recalling the conversation from a few days earlier, "Adhera Black was Sirius' sister, she—she was a Death Eater, dead. "That was the first thing he thought of.

"Excellent." Ron said in the opposite tone, and pushed open the bedroom door as if dying.

To their surprise, Adhera Black's bedroom could be called tidy, and it didn't even seem like a part of the gloomy old house.The room is dominated by Slytherin's green, with the crest of the Black family and the motto of "Forever Pure" carefully painted on the head of the bed, and some irregularly shaped newspaper clippings are pasted below.Soft light came in through the milky white curtains embroidered with golden flowers, and the faint sunlight fell right under their feet.

A gust of wind blows.The fluttering curtains lightly touched the books on the desk, and there was a neat stack of letter paper and a quill in the inkpot beside it, as if the owner of the room had just left.Harry was sure that the elf had cleaned the place on time, and Hermione had thought he was too old to be useful.

"How long has she been dead?" Hermione asked quietly.

"About 15 years."

They walked in a little bit, and dispersed after confirming that there were no traps.Ron went to check the cupboard, and Hermione noticed the newspaper clippings on the wall.

"She seems to have become a Death Eater after being an admirer for a while..." Hermione sat down to read a newspaper clipping, the bed sunken in a piece.Harry was attracted by a group photo of the Quidditch team on the wall.He spotted Adhera right away, sitting in the middle of the front row: dark hair, slightly reserved, and slightly smaller than Sirius.

"...The Dark Lord has pushed magic to unprecedented heights through constant experiments. Any attempt to defeat us will be detected in time, and anyone who conspires against us will be mercilessly eliminated."

"She's Seeker," said Harry suddenly.

"What?" asked Hermione blankly, still absorbed in the clippings.Harry pointed to the smiling dark-haired girl in the photo, who sat in the middle of the front row, where the Seekers were.

"She's a Seeker," Harry repeated, "like me." Sirius hadn't mentioned this to him.

"——The wise and great Dark Lord will never perish. With his immortal body, he will lead us step by step to regain the glory of pure blood..." Hermione continued to read, frowning in disgust.She didn't seem to understand why anyone would want to stick something like that over a bed.

"Hey," Ron picked up an old "History of Magic" textbook, "she took notes for a textbook!" he exclaimed.

"She just did what a student should do," said Hermione dryly.

"Maybe Harry and I should drop out of school and go home?" Ron asked back, and Hermione gave him a hard look-Harry was going to the Ministry of Magic for trial in a few days, which would determine whether he could return to Hogg Watts.Both Ron and Hermione watched Harry carefully, which annoyed Harry a little.

"There's something under this floor." Harry squatted down self-consciously, and began to grope around the edge of the floor under the puzzled eyes of Ron and Hermione. "I've done this kind of thing, so I know. I once put The food you send me is hidden under the floorboards."

That was what Harry had survived while the Dursleys were helping Dudley lose weight, otherwise he would have had to eat carrot sticks.People always remember the memory of being hungry.

"Thank you, man," said Ron sympathetically.

Harry finally pried open the floor and pulled out two books and a large box.He handed the two books to Ron and Hermione respectively, and they flipped through them, only to find that they were written in languages ​​they couldn't understand.

"Let's put it aside first, we should take it down and let others check it later." Hermione suggested quite professionally, and Harry and Ron had no objection to this.Hermione picked up the box carefully and shook it.

The reassuring sound of paper rubbing against each other.Hermione opened the box and found a neat box of letters inside.

"Maybe it's a letter from her and her boyfriend." Ron shrugged, obviously not interested.

"You understand very well," said Hermione without looking up as she opened the letter.

"I hid your letters to me under the floor too," said Harry honestly, and Ron had that "Thank you, man" look again on his face.

Hermione read the letter for a while, getting more and more excited.She suddenly looked up excitedly: "Maybe Ron is right. It really looks like a letter from Adhera and her boyfriend."

"What, did they say 'I love you' countless times in their letters?" Ron asked unhappy.

"No, they've been discussing the history of goblins," said Hermione, in a tone of excitement that Harry couldn't understand, "and then he's been telling her not to be obsessive, not to join the Death Eaters."

"Well," Harry felt obliged to remind Hermione, "Sirius told me she was engaged to a Death Eater. And—" He racked his brains to remember what Sirius had said that day. "She loves him," he said awkwardly to Hermione, who didn't seem to hear.

"Hey, Harry, have you got all your stuff out?" Ron looked like he was about to lose his patience.Neither the history of goblins nor the love story of Adhera the Death Eater interested him in the slightest.But Hermione was still flipping through the letters with interest.

"I'm going to ask Sirius if he can keep these," she seemed to have completely forgotten what she was doing here, "their discussion was so exciting. You see here—"

"Sirius will definitely agree," Ron interrupted quickly, and winked at Harry, "won't you, Harry?"

"Well, of course," Harry replied absent-mindedly, reaching for the hole under the floor, trying to find every corner, "what is this?" He took out a ball of paper and unfolded it.It looked like a page torn from a diary.Hermione volunteered to read:

"What will it be like when the dream is broken? I thought there would be violent storms, lightning and thunder, as if the whole world would be torn apart. But when this moment really came, nothing happened. It was a quiet afternoon. I sat in the darkest corner of the three broomsticks in Hogsmeade, holding a glass of butterbeer in my hand, watching the ray of sunshine with greedy, fearful and longing eyes. .”

Something is about to come out.Adhera Black came from a time that didn't exist for them, which made it hard for them to imagine that she actually existed, that she had ever had a full soul.They looked at each other in front of the trail she left behind.

A moment of silence.

"Sirius said she wanted to quit later," Harry found an explanation, "so she was killed by Voldemort."

"Then she's quite brave," Ron said rationally. "It takes courage to refuse, let alone the mysterious person. Don't forget what she used to do—I said, let's pack up and go to the next room? Here Looks like there's nothing to do."

Harry agreed.He got up from the ground and found that the robe was not stained with dust, and the strange feeling in his heart was magnified.He couldn't figure out why Kreacher would treat Adhera Black's room differently.

"Hermione?" Standing at the door of the bedroom, Ron saw Hermione sitting motionless on the ground, holding a pile of yellowed letters in his arms.Her eyes were slack, as if she was trying to think about something.

"What year did you say she died?" she asked Harry.

"Nineteen seventy-nine. What's the matter?"

Hermione unfolded the crumpled piece of paper, and the date was written on the upper right, probably April [-].

"She regretted it at this point," said Hermione, "so the question arises. Did she become a Death Eater before or after?"

"Death Eaters don't recruit minors," Harry said subconsciously, "she might have been an adult at that time."

"What else did Sirius say, Harry?" Hermione urged, and Ron glared at her, and Harry stumbled.

"Well, he said she was stupid and weak," Harry became uncertain, "and she told Sirius herself that she was already a Death Eater."

"Merlin's beard, isn't my brain worthy of Hogwarts?" Ron pretended to complain, he must have remembered the "History of Magic" filled with notes just now, "Does anyone remember what we are here for?" of?"

"Clean up," said Harry.

"Sirius had a deep misunderstanding of Adhera." Hermione continued, ignoring Ron who was standing at the door. "At least we know that she's not stupid at all," she waved the letter in her hand, "and she's not weak—since she wants to quit. Like his misunderstanding of Kreacher—"

Both Harry and Ron had a premonition that Hermione was about to give another tirade about her "vomit".

"Maybe she just broke up with her boyfriend and got engaged to that Death Eater? How can you be sure what she's regretting?" Ron quickly put forward a different point of view, "Why don't you ask Sirius? He must know more than you," he sarcastically said.

"We girls don't usually behave like this when we break up." Hermione said coldly, without even raising her head.Ron, who was standing at the door holding a dirty bucket, shrugged.

"You understand well." Ron returned the sentence to Hermione, who ignored him.

"I read the letters. This—Felix M., wrote from August [-] to November [-] urging Adhera to return."

Harry stared at Hermione, who was immersed in it, in bewilderment, seeing her jump up excitedly from the ground grabbing a letter.She walked quickly to those newspaper clippings, quickly searched for something, and muttered something.Harry exchanged helpless glances with Ron, who was also puzzled.

"Seven or seven at the latest," Hermione announced, a little impatient to see Harry and Ron still glaring at him together. "Geez, she can't wait to repent and stick newspaper clippings on the wall, can she?" ?”

"Maybe it'll help us get rid of that pile of junk on the wall?" Ron asked.

"I speculate that she joined the Death Eaters in [-], and repented in [-]. Later, as we know, she was killed in [-]." Hermione said a long string like a cannonball, The look on his face was that of Crookshanks discovering Scabbers.

"Oh, that's great," Harry said, looking carefully at Hermione, "if you're really interested, we can ask Sirius—"

"—She had enough time to think about what to do next. Why did she choose to die in the end? For example, why didn't she choose to join the Order of the Phoenix? Sirius is in the Order."

Harry couldn't answer that question, and I'm afraid Sirius couldn't either.Suddenly Harry wondered how that Adhera Black would feel if his house became the headquarters of the Order of the Phoenix.

"Do you think this house seems to have joined us voluntarily?" Ron, who was almost strangled to death by his robe, asked angrily.

good question.At the same time, the three thought of the hysterical portrait hidden behind the curtain downstairs.

"Bastard! Bitch! Dirty and sinful bastard! Bastard, freak, ugly bastard, get out of here! How dare you defile my ancestor's house—"

Mrs. Black's voice seemed to come from downstairs again, straight to the roof.I don't know if Tonks knocked over the umbrella stand again, or some unlucky person rang the doorbell. "Let's go," Harry whispered.

While packing up the opened letter, Hermione continued to say, "I always feel that she knew something before she died."

"Hermione, do you know?" Ron leaned on the door frame and looked at her, with the discarded dirty bucket and broom at his feet, "I think you're looking more and more like Rita Skeeter."

Rita Skeeter, a reporter for the Daily Prophet, spent the last school year compiling a bunch of nonsense about Harry.

"I'm making an educated guess!" said Hermione angrily.

"Uh huh, she's talking nonsense with reason," said Ron. "It doesn't look any different. Maybe you remember, we're just here to clean?" he asked disapprovingly.

"Maybe you still remember how Skeeter shut up?" Hermione was not to be outdone.Skeeter was an unregistered Animagus, and Hermione found out about it, making her finally shut up. "Justified nonsense, isn't it?"

They were arguing again, and it was giving Harry a headache.Harry rubbed the scar on his forehead habitually, and was startled when he tilted his head.A pair of cloudy eyes were staring at him maliciously.Kreacher, the elf in a worn pillowcase, slowly came out of the darkness.

"Mudbloods, pure-blood traitors. These people will not spare Miss Adhera's room now..." The old house-elf muttered in a low voice, "If Miss Adhera saw it, what would she say? Woolen cloth?"

When Kreacher saw Hermione kneeling on the floor sorting out the letters, his eyes froze for a moment.

"Hello, Kreacher," Hermione said timidly to him.

"The Mudblood is greeting Kreacher...she still has the letters from Miss Adhera and Master Felix in her hand. Hmph, how is she worthy? A bunch of shameless bastards..."

"Shut up, Kreacher!" Harry ordered in disgust.

"The Boy Who Lived was talking to Kreacher, and he seemed to think he could order Kreacher. He and his scum friends: mudbloods, pure-blood traitors, werewolves... oh, how on earth did he defeat the Dark Lord? "

"Hey, listen up. I don't mind sweeping you down the stairs," Ron said threateningly, picking up the broom.Kreacher glanced maliciously at him and the broom in his hand, and turned to leave.

"Kreacher! Did you know that it was the Dark Lord who killed Adhera?" Hermione cried suddenly, and both Harry and Ron looked at her in amazement.The elf turned around slowly.

"The Dark Lord did not kill Miss Adhera," Kreacher said haughtily.That doesn't sound right.

"Sirius told us." Hermione stood up slowly, acting very determined, "he told us that the mysterious man killed Adhera. Adhera regretted it and wanted to quit, so he killed him gone."

"The Dark Lord didn't kill Miss Adhera!" Kreacher hissed, throwing back his head, fists clenched.

"Sirius is a member of the Order of the Phoenix and Adhera's brother, how could he be wrong?" Hermione approached him a little bit, "The Dark Lord doesn't need a weak and stupid subordinate."

"The Dark Lord didn't kill Miss Adhera!" screamed the elf, nearly shattering Harry's eardrums.

"You must know something, don't you?" Hermione knelt down slowly in front of him, trying to reach out a hand, "tell us how Adhera died, okay?" she begged softly .

Hermione's hand touched Kreacher's thin arm, and the elf immediately stepped back to avoid it, with obvious disgust on his face.

"The Mudblood touched Kreacher! Kreacher won't allow it, what will the mistress say?"

"To shut up!"

Harry's godfather, Sirius Black, climbed up to the top floor and ordered the elf coldly.The house is now owned by Sirius, and Kreacher must obey Sirius' orders.So, with great reluctance, he bowed to Sirius.

"The young master broke the hearts of the hostess and the lady, why did he come back?" the elf said viciously in a volume that they could just hear, "The good Miss Adhera took it back from the hostess. Master Sirius' wand, and he let these little bastards mess up her room..."

"Go!" roared Sirius in extreme disgust.Kreacher bowed slightly to him, and something shiny fell out of his tattered pillowcase, right under their noses.Harry saw clearly that it was the locket they were going to throw away a few days ago.They took turns trying it, but none of them could open it.

"I told you," Sirius cried impatiently, "I won't let you pick up these bastards!" He stepped on the locket, and Kreacher watched sadly as the locket was trampled on. Live, actually shed tears.

"Master Sirius has always been a prodigal. If Miss Adhera was still alive, she would never do this to this old house..."

"Adhera is a cowardly coward! She was killed by Voldemort long ago!" Sirius roared.

"The Dark Lord did not kill Miss Adhera!"

After the blood-curdling scream, there was a deathly silence.

"How do you know?" Sirius asked suspiciously, squatting down for the first time to look at Kreacher, "How do you know how Adhera died?"

Kreacher closed his eyes, shaking slightly.

"I order you to tell me."

Kreacher's mouth was tightly shut, and his body shook even more.

"tell me!"

Harry heard the urgency in Sirius' words.All three of them stood there holding their breath, Hermione clutching a letter from Adhera's treasure.

"Kreacher can't tell Master Sirius, Kreacher can't say a word...Miss Adhera ordered Kreacher not to tell the family. Kreacher doesn't think Master Sirius is a member of this family, but Adhela Miss La always thought that Master Sirius was her brother..."

"That's because she's weak." Sirius said through gritted teeth. The elf opened his eyes and looked at his current master resentfully.

"Miss Adhera wrote letters all afternoon before she died, right there," Kreacher's eyes fell on the desk in front of the window, with fragile nostalgia in her eyes, "she wrote all afternoon... Yes, stop, write, stop. She was crying. Miss Adhera finished the letter in tears."

Harry's heart twitched as he actually saw a girl sitting there... From what I've learned since she died, she was deep down and terrified of what others wanted her to do , just want to quit...

"Miss Adhera put the letter in an envelope and ordered Kreacher to post it. Kreacher saw the name on the envelope. Miss Adhera's last letter was to be sent to Master Sirius."

"I haven't received any letters," said Sirius dryly.

"Master Sirius couldn't have received that letter. Kreacher said he didn't understand why Miss Adhera was still in touch with Master Sirius."

"Miss Adhera thought for a long time, and finally burned the letter with her own hands. No one knows what she wrote in the letter. She has always regarded Master Sirius as her family, but her kindness has never been reciprocated. Kreacher could tell she was devastated."

Sirius stared blankly ahead, his lips quivering.

"Is this related to Prince? Did he do it? Answer me!"

"Master William also asked Kreacher the same question, but Miss Adhera ordered Kreacher not to tell him a word. Master William thought that he killed Miss Adhera, and was so sad that he was going crazy." Kreacher said softly.

William Prince, he should be Adhera's "Death Eater fiancé" in Sirius' mouth.Sirius said that Adhera fell in love with the wrong person.

"And then he died, too."

The story is over.

There was a dead silence.Sirius sat on the ground with glazed eyes.There were no tears on his face, but the overflowing heavy sadness seemed to form an impenetrable circle, separating him from the outside world.

Harry walked softly over, looking at his godfather worriedly.

"We just found something in the room, Sirius," said Harry, "and we thought you might need some more."

Ron and Hermione put the two books, the box of letters and the crumpled paper beside Sirius.The locket that Sirius had just stepped on disappeared, and Sirius didn't seem to notice.

"Kreacher, I order you to go to Professor Dumbledore," Sirius said in a steady tone, "I order you to tell him everything related to Adhera's death. All the details." He emphasized .

The elf hesitated for a while, but finally bowed lightly, apparated away with a snap.Sirius picked up the pile and stood up.He wobbled a bit, and Harry reached out to help, but was rejected.

"I'm fine, Harry." Sirius gave a forced smile and left.

Harry didn't think about it at the time.He traveled to the Ministry of Magic with Mr. Weasley a few days later and was interrogated in the underground interrogation room.Dumbledore defends him, the Wizengamot acquits him, and Minister for Magic Fudge is furious.

A year later, Harry led members of the "Dumbledore's Army" to the Ministry of Magic.Death Eaters and members of the Order of the Phoenix arrived one after another, Sirius was injured in the battle, and Voldemort's whereabouts were exposed to Fudge.The Ministry of Magic had to admit that You-Know-Who was resurrected.

Two years later, Professor Dumbledore told Harry about the Horcrux, and told him that the first person to discover the secret of the Horcrux was Sirius' sister Adhera Black.She found the locket as a Horcrux in a cave by the sea, drank a poisonous potion in order to get it, and finally died there.Her elf, Kreacher, witnessed her death.

On Christmas 12, Harry returned to NO.[-], Grimmauld Place.He wanted to talk to Sirius about his sister Adhera, but in the end he found he couldn't say anything.

Sirius seemed to guess what Harry wanted to ask, but he just sat silently by the kitchen fire, drinking Firewhiskey glass after glass.

"I don't know any more than you, Harry," Sirius said with a toothache-like grin after finishing the two bottles. "She's always so silly."

"She likes to eat the chocolate frogs I bought her."

"She wrote my summer homework."

"She likes to tell me that we are all stars in the sky and will never be apart."

Thirty-seven-year-old Sirius babbled about the bits and pieces of memories from the past. They were trivial things, but they were the first to pop up.Harry listened quietly, trying to piece them together into a complete image.It sounds like she is no different from girls of the same age. She likes beautiful clothes, desserts, and sleeping late. She is not a born hero.

Suddenly, Sirius cried.He leaned over the table, buried his head in his arms, his shoulders twitched, and he whimpered like a big dog.

"I love her, Harry. I love her..."

Therefore, in Harry's memory, there was always a figure crying by the fire at Christmas that year.It was his godfather, Sirius, weeping for his sister who died 17 years ago.He didn't know the truth about her death until many years after her death, that she was brave.He had not received her last letter.

He said he loved her.

In June [-], Albus Dumbledore died; in August, the Ministry of Magic collapsed.Harry and his partners embarked on a journey to find the Horcrux.They found Hufflepuff's gold cup in the Gringotts vault.In May [-], the Battle of Hogwarts broke out.

Kreacher the elf, with the destroyed locket on his chest, led the house-elves, knife-wielding and cleaver-wielding, toward the Death Eaters.

"Fight! Fight! Fight for my master, defender of the house-elves! In the name of brave Adhera, against the Dark Lord! Fight!"

Even amidst the din, Kreacher's bullfrog-like voice was clearly audible.Harry walked forward under the cloak, without seeing Sirius.

"Don't touch my daughter, you bitch!" was Mrs. Weasley's angry voice.

"I did what my mother did. You can't hurt them anymore," said Harry.

"Avada Kedavra!" Voldemort yelled his most fervent desire into the sky.

The invincible wand flew towards its true master, and Voldemort fell.Dazed and empty-handed, he died a mortal, just as Adhera Black had hoped 19 years earlier.

I'm willing to risk my life, but I hope that when you meet your opponent

can be killed.

ARB

The fake locket she made still lies in a cave by the sea, submerged in potion.No one dies, one of many, from drinking it anymore.

Exhausted, Harry hurriedly escaped from the cheering circle, anxiously looking for his godfather among the crowd.He eventually found Sirius on the ground, dying.His wound was bleeding and he had never been so weak.

"We won." Harry knelt beside Sirius, eagerly telling him the result.

Sirius smiled happily and grabbed Harry's hand with all his strength.Harry took his hand and watched sadly as his life slipped away.

"Well done, James," he said softly.

Sirius' hand dropped, and those out-of-focus gray eyes gave Harry no encouragement anymore.Not far away, Remus and Tonks held hands with closed eyes, Fred and Colin lay silently on the ground; there were fifty other people who gave their lives against Voldemort, and in this battle Dead Death Eaters.All spirits, good and evil, have gone to another world, seemingly taking a part of his heart with him forever.

The cheers of the crowd continued.

A week later, Harry returned to NO.12 Grimmauld Place to sort out Sirius' relics.He left him everything he had.Harry found two books in Sirius' room in a script he couldn't read, which he remembered after a while they had found under the floor of Adhera Black's room three years earlier.

A bookmark fell out of the loose pages.Harry picked it up, not sure for a moment