Lone Wolf | SIRIUS BLACK

Chapter Thirty One

|   S O A R I N G ,  R I S I N G , 
        F L O A T I N G  ,  D Y I N G   |

January, 1977

MY FIRST thought was that he shouldn't have been here. What I actually did though, in spite of knowing what I knew, made all rational thought into a tool of carelessness. I stood up, on wobbly legs with knocking knees, and threw myself into his arms.

Instantly when my body collided with his, I came to the realization that he truly wasn't a hallucination as my borderline insanity would have me believe. Sirius was here. I began to cry, grasping fistfuls of his shirt. His arms closed as firmly as steel girders around my waist. One hand crept up to the back of my head to hold me to his chest. I could hear his heart beating rapidly and felt my own bursting and banging on its cage to be let free.

"You know, No.2, as much as I love you putting your hands all over me, the whole point of a rescue mission is to not get caught."

That sobered me up. I had been so wrapped up in relief to see him that I hardly remembered what him being here meant. He was committing a terrible crime, helping a convict escape from Azkaban.

I stumbled away from him. "T-this isn't a good—"

Sirius sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose tightly. "Don't do this to me, sweetheart. We don't have time for this."

They'll kill him. The Dementors will destroy him. The boy I lo— care about will be torn apart!

He has to go. Without me. Before they find him.

"Go."

"Not without you." 

My heart stopped beating at his absolutist remark.  He couldn't seriously be putting himself on the line for me.  He wasn't pulling some semi-harmless prank at Hogwarts.  We were talking about his life here!  This wasn't a decision that he could just bounce back from!

"You can never take this back." I warned, hoping that would deter him if nothing else.

Instead, Sirius grew even more stubborn. "I know. Now, either you stop protesting or I get us out of here with you hanging from my shoulder."

He couldn't apparate within the prison. Which begged the question how he'd gotten in. Azkaban was surrounded by jagged rock and volatile waters reaching sky-high with their sea spray. Not to mention the prison hovered over the water, so if we thought we could hop down to land safely, we were wrong.

"You think this is where you belong. I understand that, Cassandra, but you're wrong. Something happened to you that night when Con— when tragedy struck. Someone else had something to do with this, I can feel it. They set you up."

But I still killed her.

That was undeniable. My heart and head wouldn't lie to me about that. But Sirius wouldn't leave until I went with him. And for the sake that I couldn't let him suffer because of me, I put my hand in his outstretched one. "How do we get out?"

"You're not going to like this." He drew his wand and pointed it at the wall across from us. "Reducto."

To my amazement, the wall crumbled, as if the stone bound with powerful magic could be nothing more than clumps of packed gravel when properly tested.