Where She Is Headed Is My Place to Go

Where She's Headed Is My Place to Go

Chapter 1:

Monologues and conversations

'Tis the most tender part of love, each other to forgive. - John Sheffield

Pale rays of sunlight poured through the hazy, knitted curtains in the living room at Twelve Grimmauld Place. It spread in odd patterns across the polished wooden floor, and as the breeze sent the curtains dancing in their rings, the small patches of light fluttered over the room. It was an ever-changing picture, as sunlight on the surface of water. It was painfully illustrative - it reminded Sirius of the nice and dull summer weather outside, he could hear the birds singing in the trees, he could smell the cut grass. Patches of sunlight had always reminded him so of summer - mostly, he suspected, because he'd spend seven summers in a row inside for most of the time in order to study, watching sun-patches and filtered sunlight through glass. He'd had four summers out of Hogwarts, four summers of which he'd enjoyed three of them under the crystal blue sky of Dover with Lily and James. The fourth had been so dangerous that he'd stayed in Little Puddlington in his apartment there, but he'd had windows and doors open, spend long days sitting in the real sunlight, watching it make patches through the filter of a red beech. Real, nature sun-patches, signs of freedom, the freedom to go where you wanted, pack your most precious things and leave.

But these glittering sun-patches... they spoke of imprisonment and locked doors, and guardians with guardian's stern faces, telling you to stay inside "for your own good". Whether it was in the form of an invigilator, who wanted you to finish exam, or a former Headmaster didn't matter, the doors were locked and the windows closed, keeping sunshine and freedom out of reach.

Sirius wondered dimly how many hours he'd spend watching the patches. He found that he didn't care all that much.

He sighed, partly out of annoyance and partly because he didn't know what else to do. He lifted the glass of brandy and took a deep sniff. It was a bottle left from his fathers time, one he'd found in the darkest dungeon, behind bottles of homemade elf-wine, mead, scotch and whiskey. He'd even managed to discover a watery liquid he suspected to be the Russian vodka, but he hadn't yet dared to open it. There had been Anti-stealing curses on roughly every bottle in the cellar, and he'd almost blown up his own hand when he'd opened the carafe of brandy.

Some (as a well-known werewolf) would perhaps argue that a glass of brandy for lunch wasn't very healthy, but Sirius had long gone reached and crossed his own limits for what he considered "acceptable". He'd been up early because Remus had ordered him to take a bath, but when he'd cleaned up the kitchen, without magic, as he still didn't have a wand, the tiny bit of appetite he might have felt had vanished. As he was currently the only one in the house, he hadn't bothered to make any food.

Sighing again, Sirius took a heavy sip of the amber brandy, allowing the fine tastes of buttered nuts, fruits and spices to seep through his throat before he swallowed. Brandy had always been a favourite of his; there was something about the deep-seated smell and taste of dried fruit that appealed to him. This was an old Calvados, one he'd given his father for birthday present when he himself was fourteen. It seemed ages ago that he'd picked out the two bottles in Hogsmeade with James at his side; one had he send to his father and one had they smuggled up to the dormitory. He could still remember the puzzled face of the young Rosmerta, as she handed the two finest scholars of Hogwarts her last two bottles of Muggle distilled spirits.

"You're sure you don't want Ogden's?" she'd asked for the third time. Both boys solemnly shook their heads.

"It's for my father," Sirius had announced with a bright smile. "He loves brandy."

This, of course, was a bold-faced lie; his father only enjoyed scotch and imported Russian Wizarding vodka. The un-opened bottle spoke for itself. But Muggle brandy was far cheaper than Ogden's, and the boys had planned a great night.

In the dead of night, when the others had gone to sleep and the common room was deserted; the two of them had sneaked out covered by James' Invisibility Cloak, heading for the Northern Tower. They'd spend a very enjoyable night at the tower, consuming almost the entire bottle of Calvados and telling each other dirty stories, but at about three in the morning, James began to feel very ill, and they decided that getting in bed would probably be a good idea. They were on their way to the common room, when Sirius, who in the meantime had begun to feel a bit dizzy, vomited all over the floor just outside the Trophy Room, which caught Filch's attention.

When he brought them into his office to fill out the templates under loud shouting about "disintegrated, alcoholised, filthy students", James managed to be sick all over Filch's table, which gave them yet another template to fill out.

They'd both been called to Dumbledore's office in the morning, where they had stood shoulder to shoulder, each more tired-looking, worn-out and drunk than the other, and had received about ten weeks of detention each. Dumbledore, however, had a hard time refraining from smiling too broadly.

James had smiled tidily to their Headmaster, glasses askew and said: "I sure as hell hope it won't involve line-dancing, 'cause I won't be able to walk straight for five weeks at least."

Upon which he promptly fell asleep whilst standing and began drooling all over Sirius' robes.

With the memory of James, Sirius felt a rash sadness surge his veins, but he had nowhere to turn the maddening despair, he had no one to talk about it with. He had talked a great deal with Tonks about it during summer, but...What good did brandy do when your best friend had died? He threw the half-empty glass at the wall; feeling only slightly better with the shattering noise of glass against stonewalls. A single tear found its way down his cheek.

"Thirteen bloody years," he whispered hoarsely to himself, "thirteen years. And you're still crying."

He knew it was crazy to keep thinking about it, crazy to blame himself continuously, crazy to keep craving things long buried in the past. Lily and James were undeniably dead and gone. Remus had mentioned it this particular morning, casually dropping one of these carefully worded phrases he was so great at doing.

"Don't you think it's time for you to begin to live again? It has been thirteen years," Remus had observed in a very kind voice, knowing that this was a tender subject. But Sirius had been angry anyway.

"When you've been locked up in a cell in Azkaban for thirteen years, reliving the most horrible part of your past every day, dreaming about it in the nights and not seeing a living, normal person when you're staring down in your glass of water, but merely the ghosts of your choices - perhaps you'll understand why I seem a bit caught up in the past," Sirius had replied calmly but with an angry edge to his voice.

"Perhaps you should stop drinking so much," snapped Remus after a few minutes of silence, and left the words hanging in the air, before he Disapparated to Merlin knew where. There had been an almost concerned look in his eyes, Sirius had mused afterwards. Whether it was for Remus himself or for Sirius, he had no idea.

"You should talk," Sirius said loudly to the empty room, "as if you haven't had a drinking problem for a few years time. But no, just go ahead and punch me in the face, because you haven't gotten anything else to do. Bloody werewolf."

Absorbed in his own thoughts as he was, Sirius was startled by a sudden panging at the doorframe behind him. He jumped out of the armchair he'd been sitting in, only to meet the twinkling dark eyes of Nymphadora Tonks.

"Talking with yourself, are you?" she said with a half-smile. Today, her hair had a magenta-red colour; it was twisted in dreadlocks and pulled up in two pigtails and matched her pink t-shirt perfectly. A waistcoat in a horrible neon-green colour finished her attire.

"Tonks," he choked. "You startled me."

She twisted a lock of hair between her fingers. "Didn't intend to, uncle," she said absentminded. "May I come in?"

Sirius gestured for her to step further, and she conjured herself a large armchair which didn't look very comfortable, and sat down. Dropping himself in his own armchair, Sirius gave his cousin's daughter a figurative look. She was fiddling idly with one of the silver bracelets she wore around her left wrist and there was a hazy look of distance in her eyes, as if she didn't know exactly what she was doing here. She even looked a bit nervous.

He got up and walked to the cabinet in the corner, finding a new glass for himself.

"Would you like a drink?" he asked casually, holding up the brandy.

"It's lunchtime," she said quizzically, in a tone as somebody who'd just been asked to wear a sweater and a woollen cloak in July would say: "It's summer."

"I know. Would you like one?"

"No, thanks. I just ate."

He poured himself a new glass of brandy and sat down again, taking a heavy sip. The alcohol didn't even burn his throat anymore, which was usually a sign that he'd had too much. He took another sip.

He twisted the glass in his fingers, watching the amber liquid slide around the edges, wondering silently what Tonks was doing here, and why it looked as if she didn't even know herself. He looked up at her again, meeting her eyes. She quickly looked away and blushed.

Oh Merlin.

"So, how's the Ministry these days?" he asked, trying to sound interested. It had been four days since Kingsley had been around, but he hadn't managed to muster very much curiosity back then. He admitted to himself that he still didn't take much interest, except if: option one) the news was that they gave up looking for him or: option two) they had found Peter, which would eventually lead to option one, considering the fact that he then legally would be innocent. Other than that, the Ministry could burn down to ground zero for all he cared.

"Busy for those of us who knows, and quiet for the oblivious ones," she replied. She was very aware that he looked bored out of his mind, and she wondered how she could accomplice the task she'd come to do.

"That's wonderful. How's Fudge?" he asked with a sarcastic edge in his voice.

"Oh, he's not very well. Harry seem to have caused a lot of trouble lately, Fudge isn't very pleased. Umbridge apparently controls everything at Hogwarts now, due to that."

This caused Sirius to sit up straight. "Hopefully, this is just apparently?"

Tonks shook her head sternly, the dreadlocks fluttering around her face. "No. She has applied a lot of rules lately, all signed by Fudge. It is now illegal to walk and meet in large groups at the school, illegal for teachers to discuss anything not student-related with the students, illegal to read The Quibbler and illegal to say that You-Know-Who has returned. Umbridge even made a rule that allow her to seek out bad teachers and get them thrown out of the school."

"What!" Sirius jumped out of the chair, looking alarmingly angry. Tonks looked up at him. Her dark eyes had a hint of concern to them.

"It's true. She nearly had Hagrid kicked out. Trelawney has been forbidden to teach. She is slowly taking control of the school. Arthur is deeply worried."

"So is Dumbledore, I hope?" Sirius asked.

"I don't know. I haven't seen him for months. But I believe he is; I would be."

Sirius began to walk up and down the carpet, his newly washed hair clashing against his thin cheeks. Since Harry, Hermione and the Weasleys had left the house, he'd begun to take less and less interest in his own appearance, which Tonks found sad, as he now, more than ever again, looked like he'd done when he'd just left Azkaban. The only difference from now to then be that his long, black hair was clean. He'd lost weight again; there was something unhealthy about his skin as it was spread thinly over his bones. He was clean enough, but Tonks knew from a reliable source (Remus) that it was rarely that he bothered to take a bath.

As he strode over the carpet, muttering unintelligible words, Tonks suddenly realised what Remus had meant, when he said that Sirius was fading away slowly. The man before her had a strong will for living; nobody could survive Azkaban as long as he'd done without. He was clever, no doubt about that; he had courage too, which was one of the things Tonks admired most about him.

But he was fading - fading as a flower in the darkness. The dark, unfriendly house was suffocating him with the memories; it was a prison like none Tonks had ever heard of. Tonks had never been proud of her ancestors, her mother had told her more than enough about them to scare the living daylight out of her, and after she'd seen this house, it had only increased.

She had heard the story of how the young Sirius had finally had enough with his parents and had left the house. During summer, she'd been a patient listener when he talked about all the things on his mind. They'd formed some kind of bond; not quite friendship and not quite the bond of family, definitely not a bond of lovers - it was far subtler. It was the kind of bond that made you wake up a three o'clock and simply know that in the kitchen, someone dearly needed a shoulder to cry on. Mostly, it had been Sirius talking and needing help, but she'd been sitting down there too, talking and talking for hours about the fear she couldn't suppress, the fear that woke her up at three o'clock in the morning, panting and crying because she was afraid what might happen to her family, to her friends... She'd joined the Order because she believed in Dumbledore, but she had been confronted with the dangerousness of it from the very beginning, and it was what woke her up from horrible nightmares.

But Sirius had, all along, been the most frustrated one of them, because unlike her, he could do absolutely nothing to help. He was caught in the house, which actually meant that he had fewer rights than a house elf, and it required more than just a sock to set him free.

She gazed up at him again, seeing for the first time beyond the annoyance in his eyes. She saw the sadness lurking in the endless grey sea of his eyes, she saw the hopelessness of a stalker stuck in a frozen land at winter's time, where nothing seemed to live or ever be free again. She saw the permanent self-blame, the self-hate that had torn through his heart fourteen years ago, when he realised he'd made the greatest mistake of his life; he'd trusted a friend and it had ended in the death of the two people he cared most for. It had never been mended; it had never been throughout healed. The pain was still there, always present except for when he looked at Harry; it always seemed to lessen, even soften a bit when Harry was there.

Sirius turned around and looked at her, and she could see deeper into the dark eyes than she had ever been able to, could see borders of forbidden forests, she could see the rime covering the grass of winter in his soul....

He startled her out of her reverie when he said her name softly.

"Tonks?"

"Yeah?" she said with a dry voice.

He gave her an inquiring look.

"Why are you staring at my face?"

"Sorry. I'm just... very tired," she said, knowing it was a lame excuse, and everybody but Sirius would have pressed the matter. But he ignored it, turning around to stare out in the garden, which was highlighted with sunshine.

"Ministry keeping you from sleeping?" he asked, taking a sip of his glass without looking at her. Whatever he was staring at in the garden got more interest than her. Tonks wondered idly how much he'd drunken. He wasn't swaying at his feet; obviously he was still in control of himself. But that had to be at least his third glass. The bottle of brown liquid in the ebony-cabinet was half-empty. Had he drunken it all by himself?

She shrugged. "I don't know. I suppose I'm just a bit off my mind these days." She paused, wondering again if she really wanted to get to the bottom of this and knowing that once she'd said it, it was irreversible. "Mother's not very well."

There. She'd said it. It was the first time she'd really admitted to herself that her mother was ill.

She looked up at her uncle to see his reaction.

For the first time in days, a veil of distance seemed to slip off Sirius' gaze, he turned around and stared at her, eyes wide open. There was a flickering sensation of worry, of interest; something he'd not shown very often.

So it is true, Tonks thought with the surprise of the person realising a strange rumour to have the least bit of accuracy about it.

"What's wrong with her?" he asked. There was no flicker of false concern in his voice, no wavering uncertainty of confusion. He really did care.

"She has... I don't know; it's a kind of fever. It looked a lot like dragon pox, but it's not that. Dad's looking after her."

This piece of information seemed to uptight Sirius a bit, his shoulders sagged and he sat down in the chair opposite Tonks'. He was, by many means, a very neat man. Twelve years in Azkaban had not taken away his elegance, he still moved with a fluid grace one didn't learn, either you were born with it or you weren't. Tonks herself had often adored his ability to move swiftly between stacks of books and furniture without brushing either. Her mother had the same efficient way of moving, a talent Tonks had envied her since her birth.

"How's your father these days?" Sirius asked. "Last I heard of him was that he'd been shoved out by your mother. Never would've thought that he'd survived it, Ted always loved food. I lived with him once, you know. I shoved him out too." Sirius underlined this last statement with a kick of his foot that send a sprinkle of dust flying over the carpet. Tonks lifted her eyebrow; this wasn't something she'd heard before. "Why?"

He grinned. "To quote Shakespeare: He hath eaten me out of house and home."

It was said in a causal way, but Tonks tensed up. It wasn't that she was particularly fond of her father, but she didn't like that somebody talked badly about him.

"You never liked him, did you?" she asked sharply.

Sirius sat down the glass on the table. "On the contrary," he replied," I liked your father lots."

She paused.

There was something about the way he said it, that reminded her of her mother. It was the same way her mother had said "I like that dress, it's nice to you" about a mixed red-and-green summer dress which Tonks had loved to wear. Many years later, when she found it in the bottom of her cabinet, Tonks had metamorphed into herself as a nine-year-old and tried it on. It looked horrible on her; it clashed terribly with her mouse-grey hair and made her look like a ghost. Her mother had liked it because Tonks had liked it - and never had the heart to tell her that it didn't fit.

With the realisation of what it meant, what Sirius meant, Tonks couldn't resist the reflection of the idea she'd had wondered ever since first introduced to her uncle. It was the reason why she'd come today, knowing in her heart that her mother might not survive the fever, thus being unable to tell her. Torn between a desperate need of knowing and a desire to forget she ever had the thought, she had Apparated and Disapparated to Twelve Grimmauld Place about five times before she finally opened the front door.

"Sirius..." she began, just as he sighed and said, "Look, Tonks..."

"You first," he said.

"No, no you first," she insisted.

"Right." He sighed again. "Your mother. Does she... does she ever talk about me?" There was a strange tone in his voice, almost like concern. He looked at the floor and seemed almost embarrassed to ask.

Tonks gave him a sharp, pondering look. "You've never asked me that before, and we spend almost a summer together here."

"I didn't ask about how you wanted your eggs done, either," Sirius joked and ran a hand through his hair; it fell in tussled tendrils around his narrow, but undeniably handsome face. He tucked it carefully behind his ears and looked up at her with that wry, crooked smile. Sitting like that, all curled up, made him look exactly like he had done at the age of eighteen, which was the only picture Tonks had seen of her uncle before she'd met him. His dark, grey eyes glinted with a forced amusement, but she had no trouble seeing past it and recognise the leaden fear, which he was trying to hide.

It was typically Sirius, Tonks thought, to try and joke his way out of a question he didn't want to answer. It seemed like a habit he couldn't quit, almost like smoking. It gave him a kick and he needed it.

"True," she agreed. She fiddled with her silver bracelets. "Why do you ask?"

The expression of surprise had the instant effect of making Sirius look like a ten-year-old.

"Because... Because she's my cousin, because I liked her a lot, because she meant a lot to me," he replied a little snappishly. "Does it matter why?"

"Yes, actually it does. You haven't asked for her all summer, while you had plenty of chance. You didn't visit her after you escaped from Azkaban," Tonks snapped, "that's why it matters."

Sirius looked at his hands, running a finger along his knuckles. They shook. "I... I thought it was obvious why I didn't do any of those things," he said hesitantly.

"Well, it wasn't. Why?"

"Because Harry was my main priority," he suggested.

Tonks snorted. "Don't lie to me. You've been free for two years, Harry is as safe as he can be at Hogwarts and still you haven't paid a visit to her. There is a reason why, and you won't tell because you're ashamed."

A flush of red flooded his face and the grey eyes glistened. He leaned back in the chair, falling back on the nonchalant behaviour he had shown as a teen. The dark expression on his face aside, he looked surprisingly handsome in a very Criminal-casual-fashion-way.

"Ashamed? Ashamed? Why would I be ashamed?" he barked sarcastically. "Because I'm afraid she'd slam the door to my face? Because, Hell, even because I was afraid she might alarm the Ministry? I am not," he said, leaning towards Tonks, so close that their breaths entwined, "afraid to be locked back up, I'm not afraid to die for my own sake. I'm afraid to die, because Harry will be alone again."

There was a dangerous, angry edge in his eyes; he was practically blazing with fury. He smelled of alcohol and aftershave. Tonks leaned longer back into her chair.

"But I'm ashamed of being afraid," he continued, "that the feeling she'll show is fear, because that is the one feeling I will not, ever, consciously imply in her."

Tonks simply stared. The shock of his words waved through her heart in uncontrolled ebbs and she shuddered with a sudden cold.

"Why?" she asked simply. "Why?" But she knew why.

Sirius looked strangely at her, and twirled his glass of brandy between his long fingers. "Can't you tell?" he asked. "Can't you tell? Who would you never, in your heart, want to frighten?" There was a dark light in his eyes.

Tonks spoke quietly and with a heavily pounding heart. "The ones.... The ones I love."

There was a soft thud! when Sirius sat down his glass. "Exactly," he said, his dark eyes glinting as the ocean mirroring the starlit sky.