The Last Gryffindor (Sirius Black)

Chapter II: The Reaper

• — • — •

There is a Reaper whose name is Death,
And, with his sickle keen,
He reaps the bearded grain at a breath,
And the flowers that grow between.

He gazed at the flowers with tearful eyes,
He kissed their drooping leaves;
It was for the Lord of Paradise
He bound them in his sheaves.

O, not in cruelty, not in wrath,
The Reaper came that day;
'Twas an angel visited the green earth,
And took the flowers away.
-HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW

• — • — •

"I want to go home," Aeliana whispered, sounding like a stranger to her own ears.

"This is your home," the Minister of Magic said solemnly.

She wasn't so sure she wanted it to be anymore. After Professor McGonagall tracked her down in the corridor, Aeliana demanded they let her return home,  to prove them wrong, to show everyone that her family was just fine.

From there, time passed in a whirlwind until somehow she found herself standing in the Great Hall of Gryffindor Manor with the Minister of Magic and a slew of Aurors. Honestly, Merlin himself could have been draping himself buck naked across the couch and Aeliana knew she wouldn't have noticed. She only vaguely knew the Minister was there because he had been her escort. The Minister, a man of weak constitution, quickly complied to her demands when he became too flustered by her "unseemly" show of emotion.

She wanted to prove to herself it wasn't true. But now that she was there, she couldn't erase the truth. They were all gone. Every last one.

This place wasn't her home anymore. Not without them.

"Lia," Sirius began, "you shouldn't be here. You shouldn't see this."

Sirius, without her consultation, all but ordered Dumbledore to let him tag along, saying he wasn't going to just leave her with "this old sod," as he fondly referred to the Minister. For whatever reason, Dumbledore agreed. She wasn't really listening, though. Perhaps he made a good argument. It didn't seem too matter at the time, but now she was glad she had someone with her, even if it was only him.

Wordlessly shrugging out of his hold, Aeliana spotted a familiar form across the room. Her heart stuttered in the cage of her chest. There was no mistaking it.

"Caius," she breathed, voice cracking with repressed emotion. Her knees buckled and slammed into the plush, blood soaked carpet beside him.

He didn't move. His dark, oceanic eyes stared past her, unseeing. She was instantly trapped in their hollow depths, unable to look away. People always said they had the same eyes, just like their father's. It was the only feature that identified them as being related, she always thought, because his hair was darker, his skin tanner, and his features finer, stolen from a painting of a long dead prince. Now, the light behind his eyes had all been extinguished, like so many others before him in this war.

Sirius reached out a hand and carefully closed Caius's eyelids, like a curtains coming down at the end of a show.

With his eyes shut, the truth wasn't so clear. He might not be dead if his eyes were closed. Aeliana and Caius both deserved the lie that he could be sleeping. He would still wake up, ruffle her hair, and call her his "little monster," like he did when she was small, and then she would swat his hand away and tell him to stop calling her that, even though she never really minded.