Thicker than Water (Marauders Era)

27 July, 1993 - Change

Lavinia spent the next several days feeling rather as though she was in a haze. It didn't feel real. No matter how many times the paper ran stories and opinions about why and how and what was being done to fix it. No matter how many times she heard the hit wizards in the ward considering the strategies they could use to catch him. It just... couldn't be real.

It was almost like there were two different parts of her trying to reconcile this information. One part saw it just as news and nothing more. There had been a breakout from Azkaban. It was scary perhaps, but in a distant, disconnected sort of way. A tangential sort of fear that didn't really affect her life. And the other part of her, which usually arose during nights that were now restless and long, connected the pieces and realized that it was Sirius who had escaped. Sirius who everyone seemed to be afraid of. Sirius. Who she had loved. Who she had lost.

And none of it seemed to fit. She didn't know how to look at the face that kept showing up in the papers. A face that was wild and dirty and full of a sort of rage she'd never seen there before, but a face that was familiar all the same. A face that made her heart go tight and painful. A face that made her remember a million 'I love you's even as her eyes skimmed over words that condemned him for eternity.

And through it all, that parting phrase kept echoing in her head.

Remember I love you.

Those were the last words he had spoken to her. And on those dark nights when her clock read well past midnight but her head didn't care that she needed to sleep, she kept wondering if those words still mattered. If they still carried that same weight. If he would have still said them to her now. If he himself still remembered.

Because she did.

It had taken her years and years to make peace with it and that peace was still fragile but it was there. And now she remembered. She remembered the way her heart had soared every time he'd reminded her how much he cared. She remembered the gleam in his eyes when he looked at her. She remembered that he had loved her. And that she had loved him.

She just didn't know if he still did. She didn't know if she still did.

And if she was honest with herself, she didn't know if she wanted him to or not. Or if she even cared in the first place.

Of course, at the end of the day, she knew it was all pointless worries. They would catch him. And soon. The full might of the ministry had been unleashed to track him down. The world was out to find him and catch him and end him. She would still never see him again. That much hadn't changed. Even if he was out, he wouldn't find her. Wouldn't come to her. And even if he bothered to try, which some small, cold part of her frankly doubted he would do in the first place, they would catch him before he had the chance. And this time, they would make sure he couldn't escape again. They would make sure that it was over. Permanently.

And there was nothing in the world she could do about it.

Or mostly nothing, anyway.

And that mostly was what had Lavinia was standing in Dumbledore's office perhaps a week or so after the news had broken in the Daily Prophet, pacing. Waiting.

Dumbledore was late. And Dumbledore was never late. Of all the long list of things Lavinia was less than fond of about the old man, his punctuality had never made the list. That he was late now... well. It was doing nothing to help her stress levels.

Of course, she supposed she hadn't exactly made it sound like she wanted to talk about anything urgent when she'd sent him a letter asking to discuss something. In fact, she'd done her very best to make it sound the opposite of important because she didn't dare let anyone get wind of what she knew and guessed. What she now needed to tell Dumbledore.