Disclaimer: This is an AU of the Bleed Black (Runaway) AU, where Nina isn't around because this is a Blackinnon fic by request… So it's, canon-compliant(ish), I guess? Everything else, bar a few key elements, is the same as in the other fics, though.

Dedication: This little one-shot is for Ziksua on ffnet for her birthday. She wanted a Blackinnon fic set in the First War with James and Sirius bonding and picked the ominous ending over the happyish one, so I sort of squished in both of them. Zik, I hope this ticks all the boxes and that you like it! Happy birthday to youuuuu!

Summary: Sirius has Dementor troubles, James has paperwork and a rather short fuse, Marlene and her family are being singled out for extermination, and who in their right minds keeps an uncooked lasagna around for a month?

AU of the Runaway AU, so kind of canon-compliant. One-Shot for Ziksua's birthday.

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Pyrenees

By

DracoNunquamDormiens

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Paperwork turns out to be every bit as boring as James makes it look when Sirius peers in on him at the Aurors' half of Headquarters, reluctant to obey Shacklebolt's orders and go home for a week. What, he wonders, is he supposed to do at home for seven days? It's not as if he's dying or anything— all he feels is cold, and that typically corrects itself in a few hours. No need to go home for that. Besides, what is he supposed to do at home, when the people he cares and worries about the most are here all the time?

Thankfully, his bestest friend and brother would never in a million years send him away, and graciously invites Sirius to keep him company while he follows up on his latest adventure and jots it down to the last detail, to become another crime statistic, get stacked into dossiers and legal files and cabinets.

Sirius watches James at work. He dissects the Memory Orb and starts jotting down the events in it, making copies and diagrams and putting little red or blue or black "x" marks and numbering them to show where Sirius or the Death Eaters or the Aurors were at any given point in time during the duel. It starts looking like a very flat, boring series of Quidditch strategy diagrams, and though it looks a bit better when James puts all the sheets in order and turns it into a single moving picture, it still lacks something.

After an hour, Sirius decides it lacks heart. By then, he is feeling much better from his morning ordeal, especially now he commandeered the swivelling chair from his absent better half's desk. It smells vaguely of her perfume, and he wonders where she is, just now. "Field work" is such a nondescript term, but nobody will tell him where she is, not even James.

All James does, is give him a square of chocolate every five minutes, despite Sirius's assurances that he feels better and he's tired of Honeydukes Fudge. Honest, the bloke is worse than his Healer wife. He's even acquiring the same look she fixes him with, when he can be arsed to waste an afternoon in St. Mungo's Casualty Ward.

It doesn't help his argument that his hands are still trembling and he's still cold to the touch despite the heat of the August afternoon, so, Sirius is stuck munching on chocolate and waiting for Marlene to come back while watching James turn a perfectly thrilling duel against five Death Eaters into the most monotonous account ever to be slapped on a sheaf of parchment, thrice over.

"I have to say, you lot do know how to take all the excitement out of the job," Sirius says, whistling through his teeth as he reads the first page of James's report in triplicate, a very unflattering sketch of Alastor Moody taking shape on top of his brother's loopy script. Should he make it move?

"If anyone had told me you had the ability to make my last duel sound like a snoozefest, I'd have laughed in their face, but now…" He trails off, watches James' furrowed brow for a moment. Auror Potter is valiantly trying to concentrate, and it's such a strange sight, Sirius can't but feel a bit of morbid fascination.

He hasn't seen him this desperately focused since he learned he had to have at least an Exceeds Expectations in his Arithmancy NEWT to hope to become an Auror… the night before the exam. Of course, Sirius made sure he got an "Outstanding", like him, but James had still fretted over it like he was about to have a litter of kittens.

"Prongs, really, this is mind-numbing." James crumples up another sheaf of parchment with a sigh, snatches back his report to double-check his facts.

"You doodled on this one!" He exclaims, exasperated. "I want to finish before Lily's shift lets out and you're not helping."

"I'm bored," Sirius complains, turning round and round in Marlene's chair. "Don't you lot ever do anything that's not work?"

"No, Pads. The Auror Division is nothing but work. If you want fun and games, you'll want to peer in on your own Division over there. I think there's a ping-pong competition going on. Better yet, go home. Mum will make you dinner. You'll feel better after you've had a full night's sleep."

"I feel better. And I'm not in the mood for ping-pong," Sirius mutters. That, and Shacklebolt will send him home the instant he sets foot in his half of the department. He's been hiding from his dark overlord. A bit. Just until Monday, when he's allowed back after his Ministry-appointed rest period. "I don't want to go home, either." He's in the mood for someone else, but she hasn't come back yet. "I'm just bored."

"Why don't you go somewhere less boring, then?" James suggests. "Honestly, you're worse than a child. Go on, go duel some Munchers or something. Go pester McKinnon. Shoo."

Sirius doesn't need telling twice.

All it takes is a quick peek at the roster, a glance at the Aurors' current open cases, and a quick chat with starry-eyed intern, whom he tells Auror Potter has ordered him to go in as Auror McKinnon's backup, and he's given a location where he can get a hold of the one person who will hopefully not turn him away when he barges in on her work.

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Well, Sirius thinks wryly a few minutes later, perched on a fire escape and opening a bag of red liquorice wands, the view has improved dramatically.

Marlene is kicking arse in the alleyway below. Sirius chews on his snack while he watches her, convinced James's suggestion was spot on. This isn't boring by half— she never lets him stare at her for long, does she, but right now she is otherwise occupied, and he is free to gawk his little grey eyes out.

So, he does just that, and isn't it a refreshing sight.

He's always liked her, ever since they were kids on opposing Quidditch teams, but he has to admit she's come a long way from the stick-thin girl in black pigtails who grinned at him and gave him the thumbs up after his record-breaking, forty-five minute long Sorting, when almost everyone else was about as frustrated as James earlier or — in the case of his cousins — ready to hex his head off. Marlene is pretty, anyone with eyes can admit to that, and she makes even a death-match look good — but it's not that what has him enthralled.

He can't but admire her focus, her choice of spells that leave the Dark Side constantly on their toes, never knowing what to expect. She is clever, and brave, and her furious duel against a white-blond Death Eater below has a fluidity to it that makes it look more like some sort of modern dance performance than an actual death-defying fight for her life.

Of course that's what it is, Sirius is aware of it— and he is glad he decided to pop by to see how her day was going. Somehow, he notes, she is amassing a growing number of foes, all of whom seem to be trying to…

Oh. They're trying to form a killing circle, Sirius realises, flicks his fingers to make a black-robed someone sneaking up her blind spot fly against the alley wall and get swallowed by one of the ever-present rubbish bins near the mouth of the alleyway. The next instant, he casts a silent Shocking Spell at another, before they can properly aim their Killing Curse; a moment later, when she's whirling around to cast a shield, one of his own spells keeps her head attached, and Sirius decides, he's stood by idly long enough. There's too many of them there, crowding the close quarters, and he'd like his better half in one piece, thank you very much.

Catlike, he climbs down the fire escape, his Disillusionment Charm making him blend in with his surroundings as he zaps whoever comes remotely close to hurting her, casts shields that bounce back the curses raining ever more thickly on her—

Until he can't possibly get away with playing the invisible bodyguard any longer.

"Ha!" That's Rookwood, he'd know that voice anywhere— and Sirius would be lying if he said it didn't give him the chills. "I've got you!" His triumphant expression morphs into confusion when Sirius' Anti-Apparition ward kicks into gear, and he freezes for a moment. Marlene is nothing but quick in the uptake. She kicks back, lands her heel in his groin, slams her head back into his face as he doubles over.

"Ouch," Sirius comments, hissing with sympathy pains out of reflex … and makes her — and the remaining six Death Eaters — give a startled jump. The next instant, she's whirling at him, and he barely dodges the tip of her wand, which comes dangerously close to chopping his head off. "Whoa! Whoa! It's just me!" he snaps his fingers to cancel his Disillusionment Charm, gives her the brightest grin in creation. "Hi, love!"

"SIRIUS!" Marlene exclaims, with a frustration similar to James's. What is it with Aurors and unresolved tension today?

Sirius smiles all the wider at her, but does manage to bite back a comment about how fetching she looks when she's cross at him. Instead, he makes a dozen columns sprout from the ground to catch the curses flying at them, takes the chance to wrap his arms around her and give her a kiss on the nose.

"I just wanted to see how your day was going," he says, drawing his wand at last. "Want me to help process all this lot?"

"I could've taken your head!" but she is laughing in defeat, her eyes bright as she looks into his.

"I don't know about my head—" he casts a Rebound Curse around them both, hears three yells and ensuing thuds. "An eye though, absolutely."

"You were watching." She sounds only mildly reproachful.

"Every minute I can spare," he confirms, notices the Death Eaters have mysteriously scrammed. By the time he lowers the columns into the ground, they're both quite alone in the alley. "You looked amazing, kickin' butt. What was that about?"

She laughs a little, but then shrugs.

"I don't know," she admits. "I was checking in on a report of biting bins in the area, but it's been the same all week. I've been in five duels the past five days. It's like…"

"They're following you around." She nods, while he returns the alley to its previous rubbish-covered state.

"I thought I was a goner when Rookwood grabbed me."

"Nonsense, you just ended his entire bloodline, right there." Sirius watches her cast a Tracking Spell, which returns zero results. The Death Eaters are indeed gone. "Tell me you can come home tonight."

"I don't know. Moody—"

"Is a one-eyed, one-legged, mutilated, cranky old coot with a mean streak a mile wide. Don't tell me you'll pick him over me."

Marlene raises a slender eyebrow at him, makes him grin all the wider.

"Honestly?" he asks, feigns shock. "You'd rather— Moody?"

"I'm working, Sirius! And I need to—"

"Don't tell me you'd rather spend your evening with him. The bloke has a stick shoved so far up his arse you can see it when he yawns!"

She laughs. Gods, but he loves that sound. He doesn't get to hear it as often, anymore.

"Put that way, why don't you come with me and tell him what you just said?"

"Don't think I won't," he assures her. "If it gets you home sooner, I'll poke the Lord Thingy himself in the thingy."

"And then you wouldn't make it home. You'd be a bunch of little bits across the landscape," is the flippant response he gets in return.

Sirius wraps his arms around her waist, nuzzles her neck. "I'd come back to haunt you."

"Not sure if I'd be overly fond of having a ghost that randomly breaks into pieces hovering around," Marlene tells him, but her arms are hooked around his neck and she is smiling back at him.

"You should. It would be a sad, lonely existence otherwise." It still might be, with this bloody war, he thinks, gives her a long look. "But not tonight," he says brightly. "Tonight, we're still us, y'know, mostly, and I can fry us something up. I think I still have that lasagna…"

"What? That thing's over a month old."

"Yeah. Haven't had time for grocery shopping. But there's a farmer's market over in Doggerton that should be opening around dawn. C'mon," he lets a whine seep into his voice, gives her his puppy dog look. "Ditch the bloody all-seeing eye and come with me."

"What is it with you and places that have dog in the name?" Marlene asks instead, checking the rubbish bins for spells. Sirius follows her, hands in his pockets.

"Dogs are social creatures."

"I'll pretend that made sense." She pulls him closer and gives him a kiss. Sirius's smile becomes genuine. "But dawn is ages away."

"What will we do with all that time?" Sirius gives her his favourite catchphrase — which usually precedes some insane suggestion or three — and his brightest smile — which usually precedes an epic snog. He'll make her work up an appetite, he decides.

"Alright, I'm sold."

"Yay!" Sirius turns her around, ready to start celebrating.

"But. Moody first."

He puts her down, certain she's taking the Mickey. Looks into her eyes, realises she's not. His grin becomes a groan.

"Aw, man."

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"So, what did you do today? Aside from watching me like a magical little perv?" Marlene asks him a little later, as they're rattling down to the Ministry atrium.

"I prefer the term admirer. I was admiring your mad skills."

"You were stalking me like a pervert." She's laughing as she says it, so he supposes he's still allowed to stalk her like a pervert in the future. He's alright with it. "Word on the grapevine is you bagged MacNair this morning."

"One of them, yeah," Sirius confirms, chin hooked over her shoulder now. "He got sloppy. James took him to Azkaban."

"Letting the Aurors take the credit for your heroics?" Marlene asks, smiling wryly.

"Always. You guys need the promotions and things."

"I thought you hated Aurors?"

"Lately I've found hate is too strong a word," he answers blithely. "I've warmed up to them a little now two of my favourite people dress in a very subtle, unobtrusive shade of cherry five to seven days a week."

She turns around and watches him in silence. The way her clear blue eyes bore into his make him want to shrink away from them; he can't ever hide anything from her, ever. She sees more than he'd like her to, sometimes.

The Dark Side has, of course, caught on to what the Potters call his "little allergy". If they know he'll be there, they make damn sure to have at least two or three Dementors on hand, and how many times will he get dragged out of a fray, unconscious because he can't fight them worth a damn?

It's happened twice now, and that's already twice too many. James says he doesn't mind dragging him out of a battle as often as it takes, but Sirius doesn't need to be a genius to realise this can be a deal-breaker, for him. It's too big of an Achilles heel to have. More like an Achilles' leg. He's been having nightmares over it, and what will happen when James can't get him out, or when James himself is in trouble and he is losing it over stuff that happened, that's over, but which he relives to the last detail whenever those things come near?

Just the thought of it is enough to become one of his worse memories.

So, he's been trying to keep it together. Tries to get closer to Azkaban, but even from ten miles away, he's useless. As evidenced by what happened this morning at the pier.

"How far did you make it, this time?" She asks, and Sirius' smile falters. "Before you passed out."

"The… the docks on the mainland," he admits, watching her expression morph into the same sort of concern he's seen on James's face all day. "I still can't so much as get on the damned boat."

"Are you all right?"

"Yeah," he assures her with a sigh. "Because I didn't get on the damned boat."

"Don't you think you're pushing yourself too hard?" is the next question, one he's heard often enough just today.

"How many bloody Hit Wizards do you know can't even put their prisoners in prison?" he asks redundantly.

"You're the best Hit Wizard to ever have set foot in the Ministry," Marlene tells him bracingly. She sounds exactly like James does when he feels Sirius is in need of a pep talk, it's uncanny. Sirius chuckles without humour.

"Yeah, as long as there aren't any Dementors around, I'm bloody golden." He can't help the bitter tone any more than he can help breathing.

"How many Hit Wizards do you know who catch as many Death Eaters as you have?" she retorts. "Who cares if you can't sign them in, Sirius?"

"You sound exactly like James did, earlier. I care."

"You know what? Let's get you home," she decides, pulling the emergency stop on the lift, which grinds to a halt and then suddenly starts going back up, to his surprise. "You're still shivering, and I have some Swiss chocolate at home. You'll love it."

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They go to her London flat, a small three-piece studio near Marble Arch that overlooks a whole lot of Victorian-style rooftops and disused chimneys. Sirius likes it there, but he'd rather they'd gone to his own house— he can't ever sleep in the city.

"Who said we were going to be sleeping?" Marlene asks him mischievously, when he offers going to his place instead to get some quality rest. "Besides, you don't get delivery in your secluded corner of the world. And all you have is a month-old lasagna which you haven't even cooked yet."

"You had me at "who said"," Sirius replies, laughing when she shoves him into the bedroom and tosses him onto the bed.

He resolves to leave James to his paperwork and come straight to find her in the future; Marlene decides he's overdressed for the occasion and proceeds to remedy that with her customary precision. This is definitely as far removed from boring as anything could be, and, as she points out a little later, it's the best remedy for post-Dementor chills and a thoroughly bad day.

He can't disagree.

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They must have fallen asleep, after all, Sirius realises hours later, when he starts awake in a tangle of limbs and sheets. An instant later, he's aware of what woke him, and he shakes Marlene, his nose filled with the acrid smell of farts that characterises Dark Magic in the dog's mind.

"Wha…" she asks groggily, and gods she looks adorable all half-asleep like that— but there's no time to admire anything just now. He's just caught voices in the corridor outside the flat.

"Get up. Get dressed. I'll hold them off." He's out of bed the next instant, peering out the bedroom door. Marlene charms his trousers on before he can begin to hunt for them, and he bites back a startled yelp.

He flashes her a grin despite it all.

"Careful, woman," he admonishes, then inches out of the bedroom, wand at the ready.

"I'm right behind you," she whispers, hunting for her own clothes—

And then the building rocks sharply as the front door is blasted to pieces.

The next few moments are a blur of spells and yells and screaming — mostly courtesy of the five Death Eaters barging in through the hole that was once the entrance parlour, who once again, clearly hadn't accounted for Sirius being there, because two of them start to scramble away at the sight of him.

Marlene's little flat gets wrecked— Sirius propels the fridge, a heavy, lead-lined affair from the 60s, at their unwelcome visitors for a greeting, then has to leap away from three Killing Curses that smash into the stove and light it on fire— which he happily turns into a projectile. Marlene barely has time to seal off the gas valve before another one of their masked assailants aims a Shattering Curse at her. Sirius moves the bookshelves in front of her— and makes the floor tiles hold the five Death Eaters fast even as bits of books and wood and decorations rain upon them all.

"Ah, shit!" Sirius exclaims a moment later— he had opened his mouth to mock the trapped Death Eaters, but stepped on a porcelain shard instead. He hops up and down on one foot, slams one of the Death Eaters against the far wall. Marlene then blasts the lot of them out into the corridor.

The next moment, they're all gone. The whole thing didn't last more than five minutes. Sirius looks at Marlene, pulls out the offending bit of an Elvis doll from his foot with a wince.

"I told you we should've gone to my place," he tells her blankly. Something feels off. More off than usual. Death Eaters never go after one person like that— unless it's him, and they have left him alone for over a year. Lately all they do is run at the sight of him.

"Month-old lasagna is starting to sound more appealing by the minute," she agrees, stops the bleeding on his foot and summons his boots and socks.

"I have some surprise tins with no labels on them, too. We'll go to the farmer's market in the morning," he promises, looks her over. She looks shaken, but is thankfully unhurt. "Take whatever is important with you. You're not coming back here, not until we figure out what the hell they want with you."

They've definitely got it in for her— but why? Why now? There have been zero indications to suggest Marlene stepped on toes too large for her paygrade. Sirius helps her into her warmest jacket— his house in Scotland is a freezer on a good day — and resolves he'll get to the bottom of this as soon as he can.

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The emergency beacon around Sirius's neck goes off the instant they apparate to the front gate of Black Lodge.

"They're attacking your house now," Sirius tells Marlene, who drops her hastily-packed suitcase on the grass-grown path, all blood draining from her face. "Mordecai is already there, he's just called for backup. C'mon." He takes her hand and hurriedly leads her down to the Apparition point, eyes unfocused for a moment as he mentally yells for his brother's attention. "James is on the way. He'll bring help."

The house is engulfed in flames when they get there a second later. Flame-Freezing Charms in place, they both plunge inside together, following the cries and yells, but indoors it's just confusion rather than a battle.

Mordecai, Marlene's Hit Wizard brother, is tangled up in a fierce duel with three Death Eaters. Bodies litter the floor, and for a moment it's hard to make out who's who and what's going on.

"Make sure your family are okay," Sirius tells her, casting a quick series of shields that will let them at least gather their bearings. Moments later, Sirius has counted over twenty Death Eaters— whose numbers dwindle to fifteen after he's used a burning beam to great effect — but their odds are evened out moments later when the cavalry arrives— over thirty Aurors and Hit Wizards crowd the burning space, drag Marlene's parents out of the house, tag-team some of the Death Eaters, and it starts looking like they might just win this and make a handful of arrests, when—

"MIKEY!" Marlene's scream goes right through Sirius. He whips around, just in time to see three of the black-robed figures struggling to keep a hold on Marlene's youngest brother, Michael, who is home for the holidays before his Seventh Year at Hogwarts.

"I got him!" Sirius rushes off before he can think— he manages to catch the edge of the Death Eaters' apparition path as he slipstreams after them.

Sirius? SIRIUS? Bursts into his mind before he's even managed to land. WHERE THE HELL ARE YOU GOING?!

Get Emmeline and Caradoc and whoever else you can find! Sirius mentally yells back at James, as he materialises in an underground cell. There's little here, except for vaulted ceilings and that stench of too many terrified people crammed together for too long. Tell Marlene not to do anything stupid!

Like you, you mean?

Yeah! Exactly! Don't let her! He creeps out of the chamber, all senses on high alert. Familiar, harsh voices trail towards him from the right somewhere.

"Hold him still—" someone grunts.

"Crucio!" Sirius flinches out of instinct— that was Bellatrix, and a lifetime of being on the receiving end of her curses puts him even more on edge than before. Heart thumping, he follows the agonised screams, not bothering with stealth. It stops soon enough, though. Whatever they want Marlene's kid brother for, it's not for an immediate death.

"That'll teach the bloody brat!"

"You sure this is the one we were supposed to get?" That's Malfoy. "Wouldn't it have been easier to kill him?"

"No, he'll get us the rest of them, soon enough," the first voice says. Sirius isn't sure he's heard that wizard before. "They're looking for him as we speak— and then we will capture them all."

"What if he shows up, though?" Malfoy asks, and is that dread? Sirius likes to think it is.

"Then we hope for the best," Bellatrix answers.

Where do we go? James wants to know.

Hold on. It's a dungeon. Not sure where yet.

Hurry up!

Aye, aye, capt'n. Sirius takes a deep breath, turns the corner, and finds himself in a vaguely familiar underground vault. Over the years, he's been in loads of dungeons — but he can't quite place this one, for some reason.

"SURPRISE, YOU PACK OF MORONS!" he bellows anyway, makes the group surrounding a gagged and bound Mike give a collective jump. This isn't a trap— they really didn't expect to be followed. Sucks to be you, he thinks, and launches a volley of spells at them before they can react.

He's alive! I see him! Sirius tells James. Tell her he's alive!

TELL ME WHERE TO GO SIRIUS, DAMN YOU!

I'll tell you when I know myself! I'm still not sure where I landed!

"Little cousin! You did drop by, after all!" Out of them all, Bellatrix is the only one who looks genuinely happy to see him, and it's apparently because… "You owe me fifty Galleons, Nestor."

Nestor? That's a new one.

It makes alarm bells go off in his head, but he's too deep in it now to back off, and for a bit, all he can do is roll and dodge and parry and try to get a hit in. It feels almost like he's back in the Ministry training gym. Almost.

He feels them before he sees them — although seeing is a bit of an overstatement, the whole place goes pitch black — but there's the icy grip on his chest again, stronger than before, and the dungeon gives way to his father's library, to something that happened over a decade earlier, which gives way to something worse. He can't breathe, he can't breathe or move—

Shit.

What?! James yelps in his mind. Sirius, answer me!

Shi—

.

.

Voices pierce the fog in his mind, and he is vaguely aware his arms are bound with iron shackles behind his back, threatening to pop out of their sockets as he hangs limply from them. He blinks a few times, cold and groggy and in pain.

"It's been two hours," the unfamiliar voice says. Nestor, his aching brain supplies. "There's no doubt this is indeed Black, not some polyjuiced agent. How much longer do you want to wait?"

"Oh, you don't know my little cousin," Bellatrix drawls. She sounds further away than he expected. "Last time we captured him, it turned out to be an animated exploding mannequin."

Oh, yeah… Sirius remembers that one, bites back a smirk. Glad it made an impression.

He swallows thickly, pretends he's still out of it while he comes up with some sort of plan to get out of here. It would be a whole lot easier if he knew where the hell he was.

"This is the real thing," another voice insists. Another new one. "I weighed the wand. Ollivander's, made in 1666. Lignum vitae, 11.5 inches, Hebridean Black heartstrings."

"It's him."

Ungh.

SIRIUS! WHERE ARE YOU?! James sounds frantic.

Sirius huffs air through a clogged nose. Coughs out a bloody loogie, lets out a theatrical groan. Not that the lot outside his barred cell seem to notice the effort he's putting into his acting. They're too excited planning his demise.

I smell pea-cock, so at a guess. Malfoy is around.

Quit joking! Where?

Lestrange's dungeon in Somerset, maybe? It looks familiar, but. Not sure. Hold on. Mikey is here, tell her he's alive and he's coming back. Let me just confirm location.

"We have him, I can't believe it! It worked!" Nestor exclaims. "See, this kid was way more valuable to us alive than dead, I told you!"

The Death Eaters outside his cell — some twenty feet away, he notes when he risks squinting towards the voices — are so excited over having captured him, they haven't noticed he's awake at all. Sirius has been in a similar position enough times to know he's got one chance to change things around. He can't fully trust himself, though. Wakefulness has come with the piercing cold of the Dementors, and they are nothing if not aware of his return to the world of the living.

They are also not in his cell. It will have to be enough, he decides, trying to shut out the blackness trying to swallow him again.

He shifts one of his hands into a paw, pulls it out with a deep breath, a grimace and a crack. Undoing the other is comparatively easier.

"Call the Dark Lord," Malfoy orders imperiously, while Sirius rubs his aching shoulders, now sitting on the dungeon floor. He can see Mikey in the other cell, staring at him with wide eyes. Still alive. Good. "He will shower us with praise!"

"The only thing he'll shower you with is insults," Sirius points out, making sure he sounds more cocky than he really feels. He picks himself up off the floor, rolls his shoulders. When he looks at them, he gives them his most feral grin.

"He's awake!" They jump back, even Bellatrix looks startled for a moment. Sirius finds their reaction mildly satisfying.

"Nice dungeon," he says, looking around, as though he weren't trapped in a locked cell at all. "Looks solid."

Only it becomes less so, when he spots the first vent. It's a tiny little thing, but a sliver of light is pouring through, and, Sirius finds, this is enough.

A wandless Blasting Curse erupts from his fingers and fresh air and rain rush in, and with it, the information he needs the most, right now. He sends James the full location.

Lestrange's Wiltshire manor, aisle four. Full of turds, bring the cleaners.

We're on our—

"GET HIM!"

Bitter cold grips him, voices from a past he has left behind but that is always within easy reach of those monsters drown out whatever James is saying — the world swirls out of focus, plunges into darkness again—

Bony hands are pulling him forward, dragging him upright. He can't move, can't breathe, can't—

"Expecto Patronum!"

He's so cold—

"Don't let them give him the Kiss!"

"Expecto Patronum!" more voices add themselves to the first, flashes of light that pierce the unyielding blackness break through— the first full thing he sees is a silver python coiling around one of the Dementors' necks.

Fancy that, he thinks nonsensically, as the Dementor's hands lose their grip on his face and he falls to the ground. Now I owe Bellatrix a life debt.

Sirius feels himself land onto the stone floor with a thunk that might or mightn't have been his head, but he doesn't get to figure it out.

"Oh, I'm going to have fun with you until the Lord arrives!"

On second thoughts, never mind.

"Crucio!"

Sirius' world erupts in agony, wave after wave of pain slams into him, unstoppable and relentless. All he can do for an eternity is writhe, his every cell on fire—

And then it stops, as suddenly as it started. Then there's James, yelling something at him that he can't make out. The Death Eaters scramble away, even the Dementors begin to scatter as a blur of red and blue pours in, voices yell and light flashes overhead. Sirius isn't quite sure what's going on, too busy trying to get his jerking limbs under control, heaving for breath on the stone floor. He sits up after a while, shakes his swimming head to clear it, but it doesn't really help.

CATCH! His wand is suddenly bouncing off his chest. He fumbles to grip it, gets it wrong— by the time he's managed to figure out which end to hold, the cold is pressing in on him again.

Only, he's had enough of it. James needs him, Mikey needs him, he can't waste his time with this crap.

It is not I who will hurt the mutt, Sirius.

No— It always starts with that one, fresh as though it were happening all over again. Why does it have to be that one? Why can't that one day never be over? He can never look past it.

But then there's a flash of pain, James lets out a cry, followed by Bellatrix's laugh— both elements of his worse nightmares — and Sirius is pretty sure this isn't some rerun from his past. This is happening right this minute. It does wonders to refocus his attention away from one day that was terrible and to the present— which could well become something worse unless he moves.

The clarity he feels right then is beyond unusual, but Sirius doesn't stop to figure it out. An enormous Padfoot leaps out from his wand and barrels the Dementors over, clawing and ripping at them. Another flick of his wand blasts the cell wide open.

Sirius staggers out, leans against the smoking, cracked wall to steady himself as he takes aim. A moment later, Bellatrix is slamming against a rack of torture devices, and James is struggling to his feet, a nasty-looking cut on the side of his head.

"You did it!" he exclaims, turning towards him with undisguised pride and a grin that is about as focused as Sirius is himself. He grins back.

"I think they fried my fright." For some reason, he finds it hilarious.

"They might have fried more than that," James points out, shatters a Beheading Curse that vanishes in a blast of blinding sparks before it hits Sirius in the face. Sirius curses, rubs his eyes. "Where's the kid?"

"Over there." Sirius gestures vaguely in the direction of the cell he saw Mikey in, earlier. "I'll just—" He starts stumbling over groggily.

"All you will do, is park your arse over there," James interrupts, points at a wall as far removed from the fray as can be found, then decides the iron maiden over in the corner would be put to better use if he traps Bellatrix in it. Sirius snorts, but he can see James has a point; he is kind of useless right now.

Still, he came here to get Marlene's brother, so he stumbles drunkenly to Mikey's cell, blasts it open, and unties him.

"C'mon, you," he informs the wide-eyed lad he sees as a kid even though he's only about as old as Regulus. "Your sister will kill me if I don't bring you back at least three-quarters whole, and if you stay here, you'll be three-quarters holes." He grins at his own little joke, but it doesn't get the expected reaction. Mikey just gives him a wide-eyed stare. Maybe there's dirt on his face?

"Sirius? I… I think you need to sit down." Sirius gives Mikey a confused look.

"Come on, Mike, really?" he asks, rummages around in his robes pockets, finds no chocolate but unearths his battered bag of liquorice wands. "You look like you need to sit down. Liquorice wand while we wait? No?"

Mikey shakes his head.

"Suit yourself. Let's get out of here, shall we?" Sirius sticks a piece of candy in his mouth, then casually points his wand at the wall and gives it a tentative tap.

A blast rocks the place, but at least the air pouring in is fresh.

"I SAID— STAY PUT!" James shouts from across the chamber, and there is that exasperated tone again. Sirius wonders when his brother will learn to relax.

"I didn't move! It just crumbled all its own! Right, Mikey?"

"Er…"

"See? He agrees with me," Sirius states. Behind James, a very dishevelled Bellatrix is getting up from under the destroyed iron maiden. Sirius gestures at James to turn around before she takes his head.

He does; she doesn't. Even later, Sirius isn't quite sure what happened there. Just that they were all covered in rubble a second later and he didn't do it.

"Come on," James hauls Sirius outside, who hauls Mikey outside— and the next instant, they're no longer in Wiltshire, but a busy Muggle street, next to a movie theatre. Monty Python and the Holy Grail is playing.

"Hey, I like this film!" Sirius exclaims. "Have you seen it, Mike?" He turns to give the kid a grin. Then the world goes black.

.

.

It's dark outside when he opens his eyes again.

"Hey," a soft voice trails to his ears. Sirius squints up at Marlene, who comes into a very blurry focus as a handful of candles burst into flame. "How are you feeling?"

"That last pint had a hell of a kick," he slurs out with a smile. "I can't even move."

"Castle gave you a muscle relaxant, to help the Cruciatus cramps," she tells him, sitting on his bed. That would explain why he feels about as mobile as a Flobberworm. "You're in a safe house in Kent. We set up a sort of field hospital here."

"Is everyone…?"

"Everyone's ding'd up, but alive," Marlene tells him, taking his hand in hers. "Mum's near-hysterical, though. Dad's hurt, and so is Mordecai. He lost a leg."

"He and Moody can team up then," Sirius mumbles, and Marlene laughs a little, gives him a kiss. Sirius finds himself smiling against her lips. "And your baby brother?"

"Mikey is asleep. He'll be fine, it's mostly just the scare. He told me what you did."

"At least one of us was paying attention," Sirius answers. "What's wrong?" he asks, when his eyes finally cooperate and manage to focus. She sounds relieved, but she doesn't look the part at all. Instead, she looks like someone died.

Sirius suddenly finds himself making a mental tally of everyone who showed up to fight the Death Eaters, can't for the life of him figure out who might have—

"We… we are leaving as soon as he wakes up."

"Leaving?" Sirius frowns, confused. "Where?"

"I'm not sure. Somewhere far away. We're going into hiding. Mum… Mum's very shaken up. It was a close call, for all of us."

"You too?" Sirius asks, when he makes enough sense of her words. And now he feels like something is dying, right in front of him.

"Yes. Someone has to make sure they stay in one piece."

"Yeah." He bites his lip. Lots of people are going into hiding, these days. People you don't hear from again, like the Drummonds, the Finches, the Vances minus Emmeline… There's been rumours of the Dearborns considering going soon, and the Fenwicks. It's not surprising, at this point. "You could stay at my place. Black Lodge is bigger than I know what to do with. We'd be close by, to help—"

Marlene shakes her head.

"I'll come back," she promises, "I'll just won't get to see you every day anymore."

"I'll hold you to it," Sirius says, but the reality of what she's telling him still hits him like a bucket of ice water. "We should have gone to have that damned lasagna," he mumbles. "Better yet, we should have gone to Paris. Then at least we'd have Paris."

"We'll have it soon," Marlene promises. "Let me get us all settled in, and I'll come back." She puts the keys to her flat on his bedside table. "For you. Peter is cleaning it up so you can crash there whenever you want. Don't level it, please."

The McKinnons are gone before dawn.

.

.

"I have a bad feeling about this, James." Three days later, they're both standing outside Marlene's flat, which shows none of the signs of wreckage from when Sirius was here last.

"She'll be safe," James counters, correctly reading what Sirius is talking about. "Trust that, at least."

"It feels wrong. They should stay where we can help them, not Merlin-knows-fucking-where."

"Emmeline knows fucking where," James tells him levelly, like he has for the past three days. "She took them to the safe house this morning. Who knows, she might even tell you later at the meeting."

"Emmeline will take that secret to her grave," Sirius mutters, then sighs in defeat. "Maybe it's better so. We shouldn't know, that's the whole point of it, right?"

They open the door to the recently-repaired flat. It looks the same as Sirius remembers it, but the smell of Marlene is gone. Her books are here, maybe, but she isn't, and it feels… empty, and Sirius knows he won't come back here again. Not without her.

On the table, there is a slender wooden box with his name in her handwriting. Sirius steps towards it, lifts the lid.

Inside, there's a note with a single picture stapled to it on top of a myriad photographs. She always liked snapping pictures, always liked preserving moments for posterity, and she is good at it, too. The meaning of this isn't lost on him— pictures is all he'll get, for a while.

But then Sirius reads the note. The next moment, it's as if a rock has dislodged itself from his heart, and he smiles despite himself.

On the picture stapled to the note, he can see the Pyrenees quite clearly, a smiling Marlene on an unfamiliar terrace. Spain, his brain suggests at once. She is gesticulating, signalling which of the floor-tiles is the one he can apparate to without risk.

Sirius shows James the picture, the note, and they both laugh.

"She always was too clever for her own good," James states, and Sirius grins all the wider. He feels lighter than he has in weeks as he burns both, takes the box under his arm.

"Looks like we're going to the Pyrenees for dinner," he tells James with satisfaction. He won't mind doing the commute every day. Who knows, if this bloody war worsens, he might just grab his own family and join them. Get the house next door.

.

.

"My Lord, I have news." The Death Eater bows low, shivering a little with nerves.

"On Black? Potter?" Voldemort asks keenly. Peter shifts uncomfortably.

"No, My Lord," he admits, and the Dark Lord rolls his eyes. "On the McKinnons. I know where they are hiding. Marlene, she… gave me this for Sirius when she asked me to clean up her flat. I copied it." In his chubby fingers, Peter holds a picture and a note out to the Dark Lord, who takes both in his slender hands.

"You will always be welcome here, as long as you step carefully. Bring a fresh lasagna tonight for dinner. I love you."

The note, the picture, make him smile despite himself.

"You're smarter than I thought, Pettigrew. Your service has been noted. Call the Lestranges and Crouch. We are going to the Pyrenees for dinner."

.

.

FIN.

A/N: Liked it? Yea or nay? Let me know!