SHE'S ALL THAT ➭ SIRIUS BLACK ❨2❩ ✔︎

ACT FIVE, SCENE TWENTY FIVE

HOGWARTS

Despite Harry's enthusiastic refusal of his godmother's attendance of the third and final Triwizard Tournament task, Sage Fontaine-Black still showed up with her best friends in tow.

She wished her husband could have been with them that night. After all, Anna-Lee had had a dream the night before that Harry won the Tournament, bringing glory to not only his house, but to Hogwarts as a whole.

Instead of being sandwiched between Sirius and Lily, like they'd always been during the quidditch matches of their last year at Hogwarts, Sage sat between Remus and Rowan, passing a thermos of butterbeer between them.

Although the late-June weather had been pleasant all morning and afternoon, sunset had brought a chill upon the crowd, and Sage shivered, thankful for the warm drink and her best friends squeezing her from both sides. She was cozy, but every time the breeze shifted, she shuddered.

"Earlier this evening," Dumbledore began from the clearing in front of the crowd, the maze in which the champions were meant to navigate behind his back. "Professor Moody placed the Triwizard Cup within the maze. Only he knows where it resides. As the scoring is close, the first to touch the Cup will become the first Triwizard champion in over one hundred years."

He paused, giving the crowd a moment to cheer. Sage shivered at his words, an odd sense of foreboding settling over her bones.

"Champions, prepare yourselves. On three—one, two—"

A loud boom from a cannon went off, cutting Dumbledore off, and all four champions rushed into the maze, disappearing behind a wall of greenery.

Sage suddenly wished for something stronger than butterbeer. She almost leaned over to whisper in Rowan's ear, maybe to ask if she still had her trusty flask of firewhisky on her, but Sage was too anxious to speak.

Somehow, the same feeling that had gripped her with a strangling hold on the evening she'd found Lily and James's bodies had come back to haunt her, and it lingered at the base of her spine, tugging and pinching at the nerves. She fought back nausea.

"Fontaine, he's fine. He'll be alright." Remus assured her, so confident and sure.

She almost corrected him, that her name was no longer just Fontaine, but she still couldn't bring herself to even whisper.

She just gripped his hand and hoped that her eyes conveyed what she was thinking.

Being a parent had sharpened her senses; Anna-Lee had often talked about motherhood giving her a sort of sixth sense, but Sage had never understood it until this very moment—even the times when she could tell Harry was about to trip and scrape his knee, or when he was getting into something he shouldn't, she hadn't felt it this strongly in the thirteen years she'd been raising him.

Sage absentmindedly scratched at the marring of inky blackness that resided on her left forearm, hidden under the sleeve of her jumper.

They watched the hedges for another half hour before a fire bloomed on her arm, right where the Dark Mark was.

"Fuck!" She gasped, torn between pain and confusion. It burned, so badly that she thought she might jump out of her skin or rip it off herself.

Rowan glanced at her, concerned. "You alright, Sagey baby?" She asked, eyes looking for visible injury.

Regulus was sitting with Anna-Lee, somewhere behind the three friends, and Sage swiveled her head to find him.

He seemed to already be looking at her with the same amount of panic and fear.

"Go. You've got to go—now." She urged, already standing in order to reach him as fast as possible. When he didn't move, completely paralyzed after thirteen years of protection and safety, she shoved him, earning strange looks from the students and faculty around them. "Regulus, you have to run. Something's wrong."

He still was frozen in place, until another wave of firey, burning agony stabbed them in the arms. That pain was enough to push him over the edge, and he bolted.

She watched him go, fleeing into the darkness that resided in the shadows beyond the well-lit clearing.

And then he was gone, like a ghost in the night.

While Sage Celeste Fontaine-Black was a known double agent, she hadn't faked her own death to escape a horrible fate. She had been Voldemort's darling, but unlike Regulus, she hadn't run until the war was over.

In her mind, it was either her or Regulus. The man, a year younger than her but infinitely braver, who had sacrificed everything to keep her safe. It was the least she could do to return the favor.

"Sage. What's wrong? Talk to me." Rowan said, eyebrows furrowed with concern.

Sage was too distraught to talk, and her nails dug into the palms of her hands in order to not scream bloody murder. She wanted to vomit, or hit someone, or run into the maze after Harry and find him and protect him from whatever horrible thing was in there with him.

She'd known peace. For thirteen years, she hadn't had to look over her shoulder every time she went out in public. She had lived in her safe reality where she raised Harry and moved on from the trauma that had been her early twenties. But that sense of peace was shattered into shards of a false sense of security. And everything was crumbling down around her, as if she'd never been safe at all.

The wall of the maze burst open, and Harry James Potter flopped down onto the grassy earth, carrying the Triwizard Cup in one hand, and his other hand gripped onto Amos Diggory's son, stiff and unmoving and surely dead, for dear life.

"Harry!" Sage shrieked, diving through the hordes of people surrounding the boy. "Harry!"

He looked up at her with teary eyes. "He's back."

Her heart stopped in her chest, and she nearly fell to her knees. Harry didn't have to specify who he was talking about, for the agony that was still blooming under her skin told her all she needed to know.

There were voices, hushed and decidedly male, that spoke in whispers as she wrapped her arms around her godson, feeling him shake and sob against her.

"He asked me to bring him back...I couldn't leave him—not there." He said between hiccups and blubbering.

She gnawed at her bottom lip. "I know, my love. I know. You're safe now, and he's home. I promise, it'll be alright." She assured him.

Too bad she was lying through her teeth.

uh oh!