Barking Mad (Sirius/OC)

I'm on my knees

Chapter 60

Well I never pray,

But tonight I'm on my knees, yeah.

~Bitter Sweet Symphony - The Verve

On the first of November I woke up with a cry. As soon as I looked at Sirius' sleeping form, I started crying. No, no, no, I thought in a panic as I held my hand to my mouth. I wasn't even crying anymore, I was weeping with big heaving sobs as my heart hammered away at my ribs. I couldn't - I felt like I was dying, and all the while I couldn't look away from Sirius' peaceful sleeping form.

I must have woken him up with my cries, since he opened his eyes and turned to look at me worriedly. He sat up almost immediately and pulled me into his arms. "Sssht," he whispered. "Sssht." I could hear in his voice that he himself was panicking quite furiously, but he was trying to keep himself in check as he hugged me and tried to comfort me.

"I don't know who it is," I finally managed to hiccup several minutes later, when the weeping had died down to a steady stream of tears.

Sirius kissed my forehead and laid his chin on top of my head. We stayed like that for several minutes as we tried to come to grips that someone Sirius loved was going to die. Again. I hated being this bearer of bad news. Especially since Sirius and I had just had a fight yesterday over today. We had only patched it up before Sirius finally came to bed. He had disappeared for the better part of the afternoon and night and I had been worried sick.

The Death Eaters had tried to take power and failed but they were out there, roaming the streets. Sirius would have been a pretty damn nice target for them. A blood traitor was what they were calling people like him now.

I whimpered and tried to blink the tears away. Who on Merlin's spelled planet could wake me up from a deep sleep with a cry like that? Who would make Sirius weep like I had just now? And why had I woken up for someone else's sorrow? This had never happened before.

Unless...

I bit my lip. Could it be that I loved that person too? My mind jumped to Lily, then to James, Peter and Remus. I pushed Sirius away from me and crawled out of bed. "Ouch," I muttered when I landed on the floor with a loud thud. At least I had landed semi-soft, I thought as I looked at our scattered clothes. I raised my head to see that our alarm clock read 1:55 PM already. We'd slept the day away and were expected at McGonagall's in less than two hours.

"What are you doing, dove?" Sirius asked me worriedly.

I jumped to my feet. "We need to go," I said urgently.

He stared at me incomprehensively for a second before he fell out of bed, not unlike I had. He kicked the sheets away from his legs and stood up. "Hurry, Nika," he urged me as he dashed to our closet and grabbed some fresh clothes. I was already halfway to the bathroom as I nodded.

"We need to check up on everyone," I told him as I shut the door behind me.

We arrived at McGonagall's ten minutes later. We were early, but I could barely stay still long enough to brush my teeth. No way was I going to wait forty minutes before I did something. By the intensity of my weeping, that person might have died already, I thought with a shaky breath as I marched to McGonagall's house for the very first time.

McGonagall lived in a modest townhouse in London. I was still shaking when Sirius started knocking frantically on the door.

When it opened, Sirius barged right in.