𝐉𝐈𝐆𝐒𝐀𝐖

Chapter 23

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Chapter Twenty-Three:

Counting the Dead

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Interlude Two:

Sirius was so bored he wanted to scream. It was Saturday afternoon and he had been reduced to reading--on purpose, no less. Remus had declined to visit since it was a Hogsmeade weekend and Sirius tried very hard not to resent Harry and the other teenagers Remus wanted to meet with instead.

It was very odd. Harry had said that Remus loved him--and not like a brother. Sirius had always wondered. Men didn't normally look at each other the way Remus would look at him. But Remus did nothing else and still did nothing else but watch him with those sad, brown eyes of his. After Harry's revelation, Sirius half expected Remus to do or say something, but the man was as courteous, mild, and physically distant to Sirius as ever.

And Sirius still wondered how he would react if Remus ever did do or say anything. He'd never, ever thought of a man in a sexual way. Well, maybe once. Perhaps twice. Three times, if you took into account the time he was wankered beyond belief. All right, he had to confess it was four. Although there was another time that--

This was pointless. Sirius had certainly thought of it before, he'd just never done anything about it. He'd never really considered Remus or any man very seriously before. He had always thought of his friends like brothers. Was that why Remus had never said anything? He didn't want to endanger their friendship? Or was Harry wrong?

The girl snorted in her sleep and interrupted Sirius's thoughts. Sirius looked over at her, lying on the couch next to his armchair. Shameful really, for her to fall asleep in the middle of the day. But he expected she wasn't getting much sleep at night.

At first, he'd thought nothing of the bruises around her neck, not even when they started to appear on her wrists and arms. It wasn't the sort of things Sirius was going to put a lot of thought into, not for one of his Death Eater cousins.

But the bruises didn't go away and only seemed to get worse and more numerous. Sirius questioned her about them, but she was evasive and angry about his line of questioning. That didn't necessarily mean anything--she was always evasive and angry with him.

Then he had walked past her room at night after one of his midnight snacks. He'd heard her choking. He had burst into her room, his wand out. But all he saw when he entered was the fading ghost of a man. Silver tendrils of what looked like ghostly Devil's Snare wrapped around her throat had faded with him.

There were two types of spirit apparitions. There were ghosts: the dead whose spirits remained behind. There were the personifications of ideas: like poltergeists. Ghosts couldn't effect things, but things like poltergeists could.

Sirius was by no means an expert on spirit apparitions or death, but you couldn't come from a family founded by a Necromancer without knowing a little something about both. In fact, Sirius's great-aunt Juno had been a Necromancer. He'd never met her as she had died young, gored in the chest by a unicorn. There had been a lot of Black Necromancers over the generations.

He had walked over to Contessa, who was still making gasping noises as she gingerly touched her neck. "You killed that bloke, then?" Sirius had asked.

Contessa had glared at him. "What does it matter?" she had rasped out.

"Ghosts don't leave bruises."