Mortem . Sirius Black

chapter one hundred and twenty

May 20th - Slytherin Common Room  

With NEWTs only a week away, the entirety of seventh-year was holed up either in the library or in their common rooms, studying from sunrise to sunset. Younger students were avoiding both of these spots, electing to study for their end-of-year exams outside, to avoid the easily provoked older students. 

Theodore Nott was one of the students currently in the Slytherin Common Room, pouring himself over his Ancient Runes notes. His mind was hardly focused on the parchment in front of him, though, not with the letter tucked in his trunk, detailing exactly what he'd have to face when he returned home. 

How the hell did that girl manage to locate the diadem?

And why was the blasted crown so important to the Dark Lord? 

Needless to say, exams were the last thing on the boy's mind at the moment, even though he wanted desperately to find something to occupy himself with. 

Nephera was in her dorm, seeking the silence of the dungeons to study, knowing that if she were in the marauders' dorm or the library, someone would be around to bother and distract her.  She'd miss the green and silver common room, she realized, the coldness of it, the ominous atmosphere that lingered in the air, it was her first home, after all. 

But more than that, she'd miss the safety the castle provided. From the very first year, Hogwarts had been a safe haven for her, away from her father, his abuse, a place where she could be a child and teenager without the outside world playing any part in it. 

And now, that there was only half a month left in her seventh year, they'd be leaving, and they'd be thrown head-first into a war no one had asked for. Rummaging through her trunk, she found the four letters she had written and rewritten so many times, never quite managing to find the perfect words to write. 

Setting down her notes for Defense Against the Dark Arts- she hardly needed any help with the subject anyways- she moved from her desk to her bed, sighing loudly. Her two roommates were someplace else, leaving the dorm empty and the brunette to her own devices. 

Taking out a roll of parchment, she wrote the four letters again. 

And again. 

And again. 

It took four tries for her to finally give up and seal them into envelopes, putting them in a pile and staring at it intently. How could someone fit everything they wanted to say in a letter? Their entire lives, their last words... how could a single piece of parchment be enough? 

Still, she had to find a way to do it. She wasn't exactly low on Voldemort's hit list, hell, after the stunt with the diadem, she had probably catapulted herself to the very top. She could die any moment, especially now that she was leaving Hogwarts and she'd be involved full-time with both the Auror office and the Order. 

The question that remained now would be who she could give the letters to, who was the one person that would no doubt survive the war when she couldn't. 

Dumbledore was the obvious answer to that, but Nephera would much rather light herself on fire than trust that old fool. 

Only one name came to mind after that, and she quickly changed out of her sleeping attire and into jeans and one of Sirius's shirts, pulling on her shoes and exiting the dorm quickly. 

Her original plan was to head straight to her original destination, but the girl paused once she saw Nott sitting on one of the armchairs, notes jumbled on the table in front of him, although by the way he was smoking cigarette after cigarette it was clear that his mind was elsewhere, and it didn't take a genius to know where.