The grave she stared down at was empty. No body lay in the final bed that was six feet under the ground. It was just as well; no one could harm him if he wasn't there.
She stood, a dark cloak wrapped around her, the hood drawn, her gaze transfixed on the freshly dug grave. No headstone, no mark of who was supposed to be there. But she would know. She would keep this spot in her mind forever. This spot, in the middle of the woods, hidden from the world, a spot in which only she would know what happened.
She didn't cry, she couldn't cry, not for this one. Not for the one she should cry for. Crying was lost on her. She couldn't do it no matter how much she tried. The tears wouldn't form, all the things that would make the tears come were there, but the tears themselves never came. A release from her pain never came.
She could remember when they were little, they had been together always.
"Bella, Bella."
Her head whipped around, the voice, that voice. What was happening? She shouldn't hear him, memories flooded back into her mind. Times they played, laughing, danced, everything, everything they would never share again. Never again would they share the secret glance or secret smile over something someone had done. No more were the jokes they had had as a child.
They hadn't had those for a long time, not since school. Not since the division of the Sirius and the Blacks. Not since he was disowned by the family, the Black Sheep, when they turned seventeen. Not since then had they spoken a kind word. The years spent in such a good way were now lost, but not forgotten.
It was almost as if with his death the hope that one day everything would be better was finally gone. They couldn't make amends if he was dead.
He eyes saw the memories play like a movie playing. She could no longer see the grave, just her memories.
"Bella, Bella," he said softly as he twirled her around the dance floor. He gave her a smile, and it lit up her world.
"You saved me," she said softly, so no one would overhear.
"Well, I couldn't let you dance with that horrible excuse for a wizard." He shook his head, mock sadness filling his features, "Poor Snivellus," he said with a grin now on his face once again.
"It was horrible," she said, looking down, not able to look him in the eyes anymore. "I'm so glad you came tonight, Sirius," she said seriously. She got no reply. Not then. She didn't see the look upon his face. The look that said he would do anything for her if she asked. She missed the look that held his love for her in his eyes.
The dance ended and she untangled herself from his arms. Stepping back, she could allow no more dances to him. Propriety stated she was to dance with no single man more than once, cousin or no.
Instead of staying in the ballroom, filled with people she could care less about she made her way out and up to her own room. Laying face down on the bed she didn't hear the door open and softly shut. She didn't notice the person had entered until she felt the bed shift beside her.
Rolling over she looked up at him with a smile, a smile she saved only for him. "I'm glad you came," she whispered, giving him a hug. Fighting the urge to cry. She didn't know why she was about to cry, but she was upset and he could tell this. He had come. Her Knight in Shinning Armor. He held her for as long as she wanted him to.
Together they lay back onto her bed, his arms around her, keeping her safe from whatever tormented her.
It was almost as if she could feel the arms around her still. She could still feel the breath on her cheek. She almost felt safe. It was then that her surroundings came back to her. It was then she realized that she wasn't safe.
And she was the reason.
She had escaped Azkaban after him. After he had been accused of killing all of those people. How wrong they had been, had they known her Sirius they would know that he never would have done any of that. But he wasn't her Sirius, and they hadn't known him. She watched from the crowd as he was sentenced to a life behind the walls of the prison of which the name itself made people shiver.
A few months later she herself stood in the same predicament. Only this time, she was truly guilty of the crimes she was being charged with. As she walked by the cells her eyes were not on the back of the guard leading her in, but instead they where searching. Not paying attention to where she was going.
He was in there somewhere. If only she could see him.
There he was. Staring back at her with cold eyes as she walked past him. If her heart wasn't made of stone it could have broken in that moment. She was lead, thrown, actually, into the cell next to hers, and all that she could think was that it was as close as she had been to him in years.
Her husband was put in the cell on her other side. At night she could hear the dreams tearing them both apart. As she herself refused to allow herself to sleep.
The first few years were the hardest, knowing that he was there, and that she couldn't talk to him. What would they talk about anyway? The old days, the days in which they were best friends, they loved each other more than anything.
Then Azkaban began to break her. Screams filled the night from her nightmares, she grew horribly thin. He noticed her then, he looked at her with sad eyes whenever she would pass his cell, or he would pass hers. He began to care again, she could see it in his eyes. She knew that part of him wanted to go and hold her, protect her from the madness that had worked its way into her head.
She could remember the day that he escaped. She had thought that the dog that had sat for a second in front of her cell was just another figment. It wasn't real, and then she heard of what was happening. He was gone, Sirius had been the first to break out of Azkaban.
Two years later she herself was broken out of the hellhole she had been in for the past fourteen years. As she fell into the arms of her husband, all she wanted to be doing was holding onto Sirius. Though she knew now that it was impossible for that to ever happen. But there was that hope in her mind. Maybe, just maybe one day.
Her mind was almost gone. She went for a few months with no word of her beloved cousin. Tucked away with her husband in the forest so they could regain their strength.
Then they were called. To go into the Ministry and retrieve the prophecy. To take it back to her beloved Master. But they had showed up. The boy and his followers. He had ruined everything; he had been the cause for her Lord to fall.
She hadn't been ready, she was still half crazy, not knowing that those she fought her of her own family, her own blood. Traitors, all of them. They betrayed the family name; they were the reason that He fell in the first place. The blood traitors, all their fault.
She was fighting her niece, she was no match for Bella. Then came Sirius. Even in her half-crazed state she knew she didn't want to be fighting him. But this time it was different, she could no longer stop herself. She wasn't capable.
Spells were thrown back and forth, she was no longer aware of the people around her. It was only them. Fighting over right and wrong. Good verses Evil. Who would win?
The spell hadn't meant to kill him. If only he had fallen in a different way. Not into the curtain, but the other way. Then he wouldn't have been lost. Then she wouldn't have killed him. She wouldn't have had to add that to her conscience. He was the only person whom she had killed that she felt any remorse over his death.
She had watched from afar as the boy, Harry Potter, grieved for his lost godfather. Possibly the only real father figure that he could look up to. And she had taken it away from him, not meaning. She felt it as he cursed her name for taking him. But what he didn't know was how she cursed herself.
Fellow Death Eaters were in Azkaban now, partially her fault, her husband was gone again, back into the prison that had almost broken him so long ago. Her Master was angry with her for loosing the prophecy. She was lost.
And all she wanted was to be held by the one person who could make everything better. The one person whom she had killed that made her feel anything.
She stared down at the empty grave with mixed emotions, she told herself that it wasn't really her. She was crazy then, blamed it on the insanity that she knew he could understand. But the other part of her knew what she had done. She had killed the one person whom she had ever cared about.
The grave was empty, as was her heart.