Disclaimer: I don't own anything.
A/N: Last one! Thanks for the reviews everybody and don't forget to wait for the sequel. Read to the end for the answer to the question you've all been asking. Thanks for reading and thanks to my beta MissBubbles.
Summary: Lost and sick in the middle of nowhere, Sirius falls into the hands of a woman whose secrets will tie inextricably into the fate of his godson. Sirius/OC.
The Complexities of the Heart
By katemary77
Chapter Twenty-Two
Though lovers be lost love shall not
And death shall have no dominion.
Dylan Thomas
"Three… two… one!"
Anna felt that familiar tug under her navel as the Portkey activated. They were spinning and spinning, her shoulders were bumping into Sirius and Remus on either side of them and then, with a jolt, they landed in the glinting atrium of the Ministry of Magic.
Anna, wand tightly grasped in her hand, looked around at the golden statues of the grand room.
"Can you hear that?" Tonks asked and soon they were racing off to the Department of Mysteries; over to the lifts, down the elevator, through a long corridor and through a plain black door into a circular room.
"Don't shut that door!" Moody yelled and Remus spelled it open.
"Quick, open as many doors as you can, we need to find them!"
Anna and Sirius both reached for doors beside each other and both let out yells when they were opened. She was looking into an almost empty room, but for the tank of green liquid and the bodies slumped against it.
"I found them!" she yelled, as did Sirius, who had opened his door to find Harry and Neville fighting off a group of approaching Death Eaters.
"Go!" Anna yelled, "I need to take care of these four, they're in a bad way."
Just before he raced into the Death Room, Sirius shared a fleeting look with Anna that said all it needed to. Be careful, I love you, don't leave me.
Then, he was gone. Shaking herself, Anna tightened her grip on her wand and rushed into the Brain Room, looking over her charges. They were all in a bad state and Anna briefly thanked Merlin (and Madame Pomfrey) that she had played in the Infirmary as a child and thus knew a bit of medical magic.
Ron was the first that Anna rushed to. He was awake and was scrambling around, long tentacles of a brain – a brain! – coiling up his limbs and torso.
"H-help!" he moaned when she came into his vision. "They won't get off me, get them off!"
Eyes wide in fear for what was happening, Anna pointed her wand directly at the brain and cast the strongest and most accurate Blasting Charm she knew. It worked. The brain exploded into fragments and the tight coils wrapped around him eased, having lost their life.
"Th-thanks." He passed out cold. Running a Diagnostic Spell, she saw he had been hit with a Brain Addler, a nasty Dark spell that compressed your brain, making it hard to think straight, converse or control your body. Anna swore. Beyond a 'Finite Incantatem' there was nothing she could do to help him, so she cast the spell and moved on to Ginny.
Ginny's ankle was wickedly broken and Anna cast a splint for her hurriedly but left her Stupefied so she didn't have to deal with the pain. Anna quickly hurried over to the pale-haired girl she didn't know, who received much the same treatment; a check over to see if she had any serious hurts, beside the knock on her head (she didn't), a spell to staunch the blood from her wound and a quick succession of spells to place her and the others onto stretchers.
Then came Hermione, who posed a significant problem; a Diagnostic Spell told her that Hermione was out cold, but not which spell had caused it. Leaning closer, Anna saw that there were muted slashes of light across her chest, forming an X. She reached down to touch the purple flames but they burnt her hand and she snatched it away. Anna had no idea what this was.
She was just Levitating Hermione onto a stretcher when a scream ripped the air.
"SIRIUS! SIRIUS!"
Anna froze. Her breath caught in her throat and her heart gave a mighty wrench.
Lowering Hermione onto the empty stretcher, she had taken only one step when she heard Harry's anguished cry again.
"SIRIUS! SIRIUS!"
He's just been hurt, she convinced herself. Badly hurt, maybe, but he'll be fine.
"HE-IS-NOT-DEAD!"
A strangled cry escaped her throat and her legs shook as she moved towards the doorway.
"SHE KILLED SIRIUS! I'LL KILL HER!"
Anna, at the door, saw a dark blur race through the circular room;Bellatrix Lestrange, her mind supplied, and Harry was close on her tail. Dumbledore followed a moment later, moving impressively fast for someone his age.
She grasped tightly at the door frame. Her eyes were wide and blurred with tears when Remus emerged into the circular room. His ashen face betrayed him and he was just close enough to catch Anna when her knees gave out and she fell.
"No, he's not. He can't be," she whispered to him, his hands on her arms keeping her standing.
"He is."
"No… no, you're wrong. He's not…"
"He is," Remus repeated and the words seemed to cause him physical pain. "He's gone, he's dead. He fell into the Veil."
A sob escaped her and she put her fingers over her lips, as if to force herself into silence.
"We need to help the kids," Anna said eventually, pushing away the ache in her chest to deal with later, "Hermione and Ron… they need Madame Pomfrey right away, I can't help them anymore than I have."
"Portkey to Hogwarts, then," Remus concluded and they both dug around in their robes for the pendants all Order of the Phoenix members carried. It was both a device for communication and an emergency Portkey to either Headquarters or Hogwarts. They both tapped their pendants with their wands and murmured the latter.
"You need to carry Hermione," Anna told him numbly, "She shouldn't be jostled around too much. I'll take the other three."
Remus nodded, lifted the young Gryffindor and Portkeyed out.
Anna moved between the others. Making sure she was holding on to all three, she muttered "Activate!" and sped away to Hogwarts.
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Hours later, Anna was curled on the bed she had shared with Sirius, crying. She was clutching to her chest one of Sirius' shirts. It was soft on her cheek and smelt of him; cinnamon, aftershave and something that was just him.
She was short of breath, wrenching sobs ripping from her throat and ithurt. It hurt in her heart, which made her angry because logically she knew that the pain was coming from her head and it made no sense, this ache, but there it was, coursing through her. It felt as if someone had taken a part of her away; the part that loved, that laughed, thatlived. How was she going to keep breathing, with Sirius gone? She felt lost and alone but then she felt guilty, because how dare she feel that way when Remus had lost his brother, after only just getting him back, and when Harry had lost the only parent he'd ever known.
Anna tried to imagine a life without Sirius and found she couldn't. How had she gotten so attached to this man, in the short time they'd had together? She tried to imagine getting up each morning, eating, showering, reading, doing all those normal things without Sirius, and failed. How could she do anything without Sirius' warmth beside her, without his hand to hold, without someone to kiss her goodnight and good morning?
She didn't know.
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"Harry!"
The hiss drew Harry's attention away from the bubbling crowd at Platform 9 and ¾ to a dark, shadowy corner of the station. Feeling for his wand in his pocket, he slunk over there under the watchful eye of the Order members who had come to meet them at the station.
"Who's there?"
"It's Anna. I'm under Moody's Invisibility Cloak."
He heard her mutter a Notice-Me-Not Charm around the area before peeling the cloak back. They stood for a moment, just looking at each other. She was paler and thinner than before. Like Remus (and he suspected himself) she had dark smudges under both eyes.
"How are you?" she asked eventually.
"Fine," he answered automatically but something in her eyes made him reconsider. "Terrible, actually," he said, defeated, "But managing. And you?"
She gave a weak smile.
"Much the same."
"You look thin."
She nodded; "Stomach bug. I can't seem to keep anything down." She looked over at the others. "I better get to the point, Moody is glaring at me. I'm going to speak to Dumbledore, Harry," she told him earnestly, "I promise you, you won't be at the Dursleys for more than a fortnight. Earlier, if I can manage it."
"Dumbledore won't like that."
"I don't care," she returned fiercely, "You shouldn't have to go there in the first place."
Harry frowned. Anna and he weren't really very close, why did she care, anyway? He didn't ask this, though, choosing to ask instead, "Where will I go?"
She sighed; "I wish I could say the Burrow, but I'm afraid Grimmauld Place will be safest, for everyone. I know you'd like to be with the Weasleys and they might come too, but, for a while, it might just be you, me and Remus. Is that alright?"
She was nervous, he could tell, very unsure of what he would reply. He thought for a moment that no, he didn't want to go back to the house that Sirius had hated so much, that would remind Harry only of him, but then he thought of Remus' weary, lonely eyes and Anna's nervous, hesitant smile and said instead, "I think I'd like that."
He smiled briefly and had taken four steps towards the others when she called his name.
"Harry?"
He turned back.
"I know – I know I'm not Sirius and we aren't very close but if you ever need anyone to talk to, I'll always be ready to listen."
"Okay."
"Goodbye, Harry."
"See you soon, Anna."
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Darkness…
He was floating down… down… down… into a pit of utter black. Putting his hand in front of his face seemed to take an awful amount of effort. Was the air thicker than normal? He didn't know, but when he finally forced his hand out he couldn't even see the white of his fingers.
Am I dying?
Maybe he was. Gazing around him, all he could see was an endless ocean of black, no pinprick of light anywhere, at all. It pressed down on him and for a moment he thought he would suffocate, the air was so tight, so thick, was he even breathing anymore?
Suddenly, he was speeding up, spinning blindly through the endless cavern of black. His vision was clouding, the ache in his body was numbing, he felt his mind slowly begin to fog.
He tried desperately to cling to any memory… a woman with warm brown eyes was flicking soap suds from her bath at him, her tongue poking out between her teeth… a boy with raven black hair was smiling at him uncertainly, lowering a wand… a weary looking man was embracing him like a brother, when all other hope was lost. But too quickly, memories were floating away from him, like quicksilver in his hand and the air was too thick for him to reach out and grab them.
He was left in that cavern of everlasting darkness, all alone.
What seemed a lifetime later, though, his body convulsed in shock as it collided with solid ground. There was light piercing his eyes and in the air was a faint scent of jasmine.
A/N: What do you think!? There weren't many reviews for the last chapter so let me know that you're still reading... And don't forget, I'll post the sequel soon.