Chapter Text
Ginny’s whole body felt like it had been ripped apart and pieced back together. The world was spinning, her lungs clawing for air as she opened her eyes to cobblestones and brick walls.
An alley. Narrow, damp, smelling of stale beer and rubbish.
She blinked, tried to focus—and then heard it. A sharp breath, a hiss.
“Sirius?” Her voice cracked, thin with dread. She turned—and her stomach plummeted.
He was leaning against the wall, pale as parchment, sweat dripping from his brow. His left arm—Merlin, his arm—looked wrong. Mangled, twisted, a dark patch soaking through his sleeve. Splinched.
Ginny’s heart seized.
“Oh God—no—no—” She scrambled closer, reaching for him, her hands hovering uselessly over the blood. “What happened? Sirius—what—what did you—”
He clenched his teeth, every muscle straining against pain, but his voice stayed steady. “Cruciatus clipped me. Threw me off. Apparition didn’t… didn’t land clean.”
Her throat closed. Her chest felt hollow. “You—you’re bleeding everywhere—”
She fumbled for her wand, desperate to do something—but his hand snapped up, catching her wrist in a grip still frighteningly strong.
“No.” His voice was rough, commanding. “Not here. Not outside the wards. They’ll catch the trace in minutes.”
She froze. Her wand trembled in her grip. His eyes, when they finally met hers, were sharp despite the agony. Unyielding.
Then, with a practiced flick of his own wand, he muttered, “Ferula.” Bandages snaked from thin air, wrapping tight around the ruin of his arm. The bleeding slowed, but Ginny could still see it—seeping, staining white to crimson.
Her stomach churned.
“That’s not enough,” she whispered, hating how small her voice sounded.
“It’ll hold,” he rasped, adjusting his back against the wall. His jaw was clenched so tight she thought it might snap. “It has to.”
The silence between them thickened, filled only by the faint hum of late-night Muggle life beyond the alley. Distant music. Laughter. Completely ignorant of the blood war spilling into their shadows.
Ginny swallowed hard. “Where are we?”
Sirius dragged in a breath through his teeth. “Little Muggle town. Just outside London. Came to one of the bars here years ago. Remembered it.” His lips curled faintly, but it wasn’t amusement. “Lucky me.”
She glanced around the alley. Cold. Empty. Exposed. Her nerves screamed at her. “We can’t stay here. It’s not safe—and you—you can’t Apparate like this again—”
His laugh was low, humorless. “You don’t say.”
“Then what?” she pressed, almost pleading. “What do we do?”
He shifted, finally pushing off the wall with his good arm. His face was still pale, but his eyes were steady now. Calculated.
“Above the bar,” he said. “There’s lodging. Old rooms, cheap, no questions asked.”
Ginny blinked. “How—how do you even know that?”
A pause. His smirk—weak, but still there—was answer enough. “You could say I’ve… entertained myself here before. Once or twice.”
She wanted to ask more. Wanted to demand more answers, demand he let her fix him properly. But looking at him—bandaged arm cradled close, jaw tight, refusing to let her see how much he was hurting—she bit back the words.
Too much. Too raw. For now, she let it go.
But she noticed—how his voice hadn’t softened once since they landed. How he hadn’t quite looked her in the eye.
And for the first time since the Death Eaters appeared, Ginny felt fear not just of them—but of what came next.
Sirius pushed off the wall, teeth clenched, arm cradled against his ribs. To anyone else, he looked like he’d just finished a duel and won—shoulders squared, stride steady, chin lifted. But Ginny saw through it. She saw the tightness around his mouth, the stiffness in every step. He was holding himself together by sheer bloody will.
She hurried to his side, hovering, wanting to help him walk, but too aware he would never let her. Sirius Black didn’t lean. Not even when his arm was half gone.
The alley spat them into the back street. Neon lights flickered on the corner, spilling from a doorway where music throbbed low and smoky. The bar.
“Tergeo,” Sirius muttered, flicking his wand before entering the establishment.
Inside, it was dim, thick with the stink of ale and sweat. Muggles hunched over their drinks, too lost in their own nights to notice two strangers slip through. Sirius moved with the same casual arrogance he’d carried in Grimmauld, as if his shirt wasn’t just covered with blood a few seconds ago, as if nothing was wrong. Ginny trailed behind, every nerve screaming.
At the bar, the owner—a broad man with thinning hair and a pint halfway to his mouth—looked up. His eyes narrowed. “We’re full up, mate. Try the—”
Sirius slid his wand from his sleeve before Ginny even realized what he was doing. His voice dropped, smooth and low. “Confundus.”
The man’s gaze went glassy. His pint wobbled.
“You’ve got a spare room upstairs for us,” Sirius said. “Free of charge. And meals. If anyone comes asking, you’ll swear you’ve never seen us. Not a man, not a girl. Understand?”
The owner blinked, slow. “Right… never seen you. Room upstairs. Meals…”
“Good lad.” Sirius pocketed his wand and turned without a hitch, striding toward the narrow stairwell at the back.
Ginny followed, her heart a knot of fear and—something else. Something that twisted deeper watching him like this: bleeding, splinched, cursed, but still standing as though nothing could touch him.
The stairs creaked under their weight. At the top, a narrow corridor with three doors, all paint peeling and numbers faded. Sirius picked one at random, shoved it open, and swept inside.
The room was small, shabby—a single bed, a crooked wardrobe, a cracked mirror. Dust lay thick on the sill. It reeked faintly of smoke and damp, but it was shelter.
Ginny shut the door behind them. “Sirius—you need to lie down.”
He didn’t even look at her. He was already moving, wand raised, murmuring low, sharp words. Wards. Layers upon layers of them, each flick of his wrist costing him more than he’d admit. Sweat beaded along his temple.
She stood frozen, hands fisting in her sweater, throat tight. Wanted to scream at him, beg him, force him to stop before he collapsed. But she didn’t. She knew better. He needed this done—needed the room sealed, secured—before he’d let himself rest.
The last ward snapped into place with a faint shimmer. Sirius’s arm dropped. His wand clattered to the floorboards.
Only then did he stumble toward the bed. He sank onto it heavily, back hitting the mattress, face pale and contorted with pain. His bandaged arm pressed tight against his chest, his eyes closing as though holding them open had finally become too much.
Ginny crept closer, her chest twisting.
Here he was—Sirius Black, infamous, untouchable—undone by blood and exhaustion. And for the first time all day, she realized just how close she’d come to losing him.
Ginny lowered herself onto the floor beside the bed, knees tucked under her, the boards cool against her legs. Sirius lay half-sprawled before her, his breath shallow, skin ashen. The makeshift bandages he’d conjured were soaked through, sticky with blood. Too much blood.
Her chest clenched. She reached carefully, fingers brushing the wrappings at his arm. If she could just undo them, get a clear look, she could—
A hand shot out, clamping around her wrist.
She startled. His grip was firm despite the tremor in his fingers, his dark eyes flat, unreadable. “Leave it,” he said, voice low, scraped raw.
Ginny blinked. “Sirius—”
“Leave it,” he repeated, more sharply this time, and pushed her hand away.
For a moment she just stared at him, stunned. Anger sparked quickly on the heels of hurt. “The wound needs tending to,” she snapped. “You’re losing blood."
“Mind your own business.” The words came out like a snarl, rough and cutting. “Stay away from me.”
Her breath hitched, sharp in her chest. For half a heartbeat, the sting landed—hard and ugly. But then fire rose to meet it. If he thought for one second she was going to back down because he was too stubborn to accept help, he was bloody well mistaken.
“Get over yourself,” she hissed, eyes flashing. “Nobody cares what you want. You need healing, and you’re damn well going to get it.”
His jaw clenched. “I don’t—”
“No.” She cut him off, fury boiling over. “You can keep up your childish, noble, self-destructive attitude all you like, but I’m not going to sit here and watch you bleed because your pride’s bigger than your brains!”
Before he could shove her away again, she climbed onto the bed, straddling his hips, pressing her palms hard to his shoulders. He jerked under her, hissing as pain lanced through him.
“Ginny—” His voice broke on the edge of a growl.
“Shut up.” She leaned over him, face inches from his, her hair falling like a curtain around them. “You can glower, you can sneer, you can call me whatever cruel thing you want—but you’re not stopping me. I’m healing you. With or without your permission.”
For a long moment, their eyes locked. His gaze burned into her, hard, unyielding. Testing her. Daring her.
Then, slowly, Sirius turned his face away.
Ginny let out the breath she’d been holding, shoulders sagging with the smallest release of tension. She took it as her win. Quietly, firmly, she murmured, “Vulnera Sanentur.”
Magic poured from her wand in a soft, steady glow. The blood slowed, then stilled. Torn flesh knitted, angry red fading to pink, then pale. Bit by bit, the ruin of his arm began to mend beneath her hands.
Ginny kept working, biting her lip to keep steady, even as her chest ached at the stubborn man beneath her.
He could push her away all he wanted—but she wasn’t going anywhere.
The spell was almost complete now. Ginny’s wand moved with practiced steadiness, coaxing the last of the wound closed. Sirius lay still beneath her, jaw tight, his face carved with tension. He hadn’t said a word since yielding to her, hadn’t even looked at her. Just stared at the cracked ceiling as if it could hold back the world.
She noticed. Merlin, how could she not? His silence pressed against her as heavily as his body beneath hers.
So, in her best attempt at casual, Ginny asked, “Going to tell me why you’ve suddenly gone all broody and quiet? Or should I just get used to doing all the talking in this arrangement?”
At first, nothing. He didn’t so much as twitch, eyes still fixed away from hers. But then, low and rough, he said, “It could’ve been you.”
Her wand faltered for a fraction of a second.
He shifted beneath her, not in pain this time but in something heavier—fear, maybe, or anger. His hand came up, settling on her hips, firm. His fingers slid beneath the hem of her shirt, stopping just at her skin. Not wandering. Not teasing. Just… needing the contact, the grounding.
When he finally turned his head, their eyes locked. His own burned, dark and unguarded. “It could’ve been you splinched,” he rasped. “Only—luckily—it was me.”
“Lucky?” Ginny’s voice cracked sharp with disbelief. “There’s nothing lucky about you bleeding all over the place, Sirius!”
But he didn’t even flinch at her protest. His jaw stayed tight, his eyes never leaving hers. As though he hadn’t heard her at all, he pressed on.
“When they cornered us… logic said I should’ve gone for the one directly in front of me. Any of them. Would’ve given us a clean escape.”
His mouth twisted, fury flashing across his face. “But no. I went for him.” His teeth clicked around the name. “Fenrir.”
At the sound of it, a shiver bolted down Ginny’s spine. She couldn’t stop it—the memory of the way Greyback had looked at her, the promise in his eyes, vile and leering. Her stomach turned. Sirius noticed the flicker of horror across her face; his own softened, briefly, protectively, before hardening again.
“I acted in anger,” he continued, voice rough, breaking on itself. “In fear. I didn’t think—I just wanted him gone. And it nearly cost us both our lives.”
His grip on her hips tightened as if to anchor himself. His chest rose and fell sharply beneath her, every breath a battle.
Ginny held his gaze, heart pounding, wand hand trembling though the spell still glowed faintly at his arm. He looked raw, stripped bare—not the cocky, reckless Sirius Black she’d known until now, but a man consumed by guilt, by fear of losing something he hadn’t even admitted aloud yet.
And it made her ache.
“There,” she whispered at last, lowering her wand. The glow faded from his arm, the wound sealed as best as she could manage. “All done.”
She swallowed, brushing back a loose strand of hair. “I’m not as good as Madam Pomfrey, but the bleeding’s stopped. You’ll want to take it easy or it’ll tear open again. And the pain—well, there’s nothing I can do about that, sorry…”
She knew she was rambling, words spilling in nervous bursts, but his earlier confession still rang in her ears. Fear. He’d said fear.
For what? His life? Hers? Both? Or of the Death Eaters themselves? She didn’t know, but the thought of Sirius Black—reckless, sharp-tongued Sirius—admitting to fear shook her. And in that tremor, she realized just how close they had come. Captured. Tortured. Dead.
The weight of it left her dizzy.
She suddenly became acutely aware of where she was—straddling him, her thighs tight against his hips, her palms pressed to his bare chest, his hand on her hips. Heat rushed up her neck and across her cheeks. Merlin’s beard, what had she been thinking sitting on him like that?
The position. Their position.
Her mind jolted back to before—when they’d been on his bed, when his mouth had been on hers and his hand had been sliding higher, higher—until the walls had shaken and the world had broken apart around them.
Her blush deepened furiously.
Ginny scrambled to move, muttering a clumsy, “Sorry—sorry,” as she tried to climb off him, eyes everywhere but his face.
Ginny slid across the mattress, putting distance between them, and pulled the covers over herself. She didn’t need the warmth, not really, but she needed something to do, some buffer between herself and the whirlwind that was Sirius Black.
The silence stretched. Heavy. Unsettling. She thought maybe he’d drifted into a restless sleep, maybe the pain had finally dragged him under.
Then his voice cut the dark.
“How did I die?”
Ginny froze.
The words hung there like smoke, curling through the air, impossible to ignore.
She stared at the ceiling, willing her heart to slow. He said it so plainly, but the weight behind it—Merlin, it nearly broke her. She knew that after their talk about James and Lily… he’d stopped searching for answers. What truth was left to find, when the world had already taken everything from him?
She bit her lip hard, unsure if she should speak. What was the point of hiding anymore? The hope of sending him back—of undoing any of this—was fading like mist at dawn. She wasn’t even sure they would survive the war.
Her chest tightened. She was so tired of holding it in.
So she told him.
“Harry Potter—your godson—” the word made Sirius stiffen, “—he had a dream. Or maybe a vision, a warning, I don’t know. But in it, you were captured by Voldemort. At the Ministry. He thought you were being tortured.”
She swallowed, but once the dam had cracked, she couldn’t stop.
“He wanted to go alone, but… we couldn’t let him. Not Hermione—she’s the brightest witch I know—or Ron, my brother. Neville came too, even though he barely knew what he was getting into—he was just caught trying to protect me. And Luna Lovegood—she’s a Ravenclaw, a little odd but… good. Strong. And me.”
Her voice wavered. She pulled the blanket tighter around herself. “I knew you. I’d spent that summer with you at Grimmauld Place. If you were in trouble, if you needed saving—I wasn’t about to stay behind.”
Her cheeks flushed hot even in the dark, but she forced herself on.
“We broke into the Ministry. Foolish, really. It was a trap. The Death Eaters were waiting, and they… they tore us apart. Hermione fainted after being hit with a spell. Ron went delirious. Luna and Neville were both badly hurt. My ankle was shattered. We—” She stopped, throat tightening, but pushed through. “We barely held on.”
She drew in a shuddering breath. “And then the Order came. You came. You fought like hell to save us. And then—”
The word snagged in her chest, but she made herself finish. “Bellatrix. She hit you with the Killing Curse. And you… disappeared. Into the Veil.”
Silence swallowed the room.
Ginny turned her head, staring at him through the half-light. His face was unreadable—blank, but not empty. His jaw clenched hard enough to tremble, his eyes burning with a storm of emotion he hadn’t yet let loose.
He was quiet for so long that Ginny thought maybe he wouldn’t answer at all. Maybe he’d just turn his face into the pillow and shut her out again.
But then his voice cut through the dark, low and sharp:
“So James’s son just decided to rush in—break into the bloody Ministry—because he thought I was in trouble? Why would he do that?”
The bite in his words made her flinch. Not at him, but at the pain she heard under the anger.
She swallowed. “Because… you’re all he has. You’re family. He thinks of you that way. And so did you—you left him everything. Grimmauld Place, your fortune… You mattered to him. More than anyone.”
Sirius’s head turned slowly. His eyes caught hers in the dim light, unreadable and dark, and then—suddenly—he barked out half a laugh. Bitter, incredulous, but real.
“Just like James,” he muttered. His mouth twisted, something almost like a smile ghosting there. “Reckless. Stupid. Brave. I’d like to meet him someday.”
Ginny let out the breath she hadn’t realized she was holding.
But the softness didn’t last. His face shuttered again, hardening like stone. “Well, so are all of you. Risking your lives to save me. Foolish is correct.”
The quiet that followed was heavier than before.
Then Sirius pushed himself up on his elbows, grimacing with the effort, and his eyes locked on hers with a sharpness that brooked no argument.
“Go to sleep, Ginny. We leave tomorrow.” His voice was final, clipped. “I’m taking you home.”