Falling Inside the Black

Laughs erupted around me each more gleeful than the last. I looked around but saw nothing. My sourroundings were illuminating white. The laughs continued. Slowly the white faded into green. Lush green grass spotted with vibrant flowwers each begging for attention. Laughs filled the air once more my clothes losened and morphed into flowing white dress.

The laughs grew louder and when I turned once more I saw a beautiful redhead sitting amongt the flowers. Her thin fingers wove the ends of the flowers together creating a train of blossemed buds.

"Lilly"

Suddenly strong armes encased around my waist and I was lifted off my feet a small yelp escaped my mouth before a masculine chuckle tickled my ear. Deep brown eyes corraled in circular frames with shaggy black hair falling its way.

"James" I breathed touching his smiling face gently. "Is it really you?"

"Course its me who did you think I was Padfoot?" he chuckled.

I threw myself in his arms and he held me there as I began to cry softly. He gently stroked my hair and shushed me.

"Oh come off it mum you were always such a dramatic" I heard. I turned in James' arms to see a boy about 13 with shoulder length ebony hair and a coy smile. He looked just like Siriius only with my starteling blue eyes.

"Leo?"

He smirked and nodded. I slowly walked to my son. He was tall and lean ith a muscular build clothed under Hogwarts robs a Gryffendor crest gleaming proudly on his chest. I pulled him into me kissing him repeatedly loud sobs of euphoria erupting from my lips as I held him to me. His arms wound around my waist and his large hands patted my back affectionatly.

"S'alright mum. You know I hate to see you cry. Now dry up and we'll go play some qudditch eh?" this sentence broke me again as another loud sob echoed throughout the area. Leo sighed in defeat. "Now mum. Stop all this crying or Uncle James'll take a liking to calling me a mummy's boy."

I pulled away and brought his face in my hands. He was alive. He was living, breathing, heartbeating. A new batch of tears slipped past my eyelashes as I dragged my arms down his shoulders and back up again. "You're so handsome."

He gave me the famous "Black" smirk as his wandered to my left shoulder and arms encased my waist like a belt. His scent fogged my senses before I felt the heat of his skin through my curtain of hair as his chin rested on my shoulder.

"Yes he is. But I can't take all the credit now can I? I always said we would make one hell of a devilshly handsome boy now didn't I?"

I cautiously, so agonizingly slowly turned my head and met Sirius' eyes. Warm and glowing with love and affection. His cheeks werent sunken into his skull like the flyers had shown, nor was his hair greasy, his clothes dirty and tattered. He was here alive and well and as handsome as the first day I met him. My heart and my head suddenly belonged to two other beings beside myself. My head urged my to throw myself away from him. Scream at him hit him. Let him have just a small taste of all the pain and anguish he has caused me in these tweleve years. Yell at him my disappointment in him. Ask him how could he? How could he betray his friends? Betray me? How could he stand himself?

But my heart, my heart longed for him. Ached for his touch, his lips, his comfort. I turned in his arms and rested my hands on the rich fabric of his coat. My fingertips gently grazed the fine fabric until my arms circled his neck and soft tendrils of hair tickled my fingers. He leaned his foreheard on his as I closed my eyes. Images flashed behind my closed lids creating a memory of Sirius and I at my father's house out in the woods behind the garden. He had surprised me with a lunch in a baskit. We enjoyed the time to ourselves having been surrounded by others for the majority of two days for our engagement celebration. He had showered me with such affection. Small loving kisses would be littered along my skin with care and soft caresses would warm my flesh. I opened my eyes to meet Sirisu longing gaze before inching closer I closed my eyes feeling his breath on my lips but before they did he simply mumbled a simple statement his lips barely grazing mine.

Suddenly a loud pain filled cry broke me away from Sirius. Leo lay behind us on the ground withering in pain his face as white as a sheet sweat causing his hair to cling to his skin. The same plea hanging on to every breath

"Please please make it stop mum! Mum it hurts! Please!"

I dropped to my knees before him and pulled him to me. He continued to cry as the sky darkened and flashes of lightning erupted as soldiers clasing their swords in battle. As a strike of light illuminated so blindingly I couldn't see but when I did Leo's form changed of that of a teenage boy to that of the small baby that had cried out to me years ago. The image kept flashing back and forth the cries and pleas still pounding against the wind before agian all went silent and my son my teenage son stared up at me with those large forgiving blue eyes. The same eyes that had died staring at my years before.

I cried out holding my son to my chest running my hand through his dark locks. My screeches sounding that of a wild animal I clutched to him crying out to anything unfortuanate enough to hear. I was jerked away from Leo's body but fought reaching for the fallen boy. Sirius held a crazed look in his eyes as he drug me away from Leo. My heels dug into the dirt in attempt to stop but he was too strong. Green strikes of lightning lit the dark sky as the surrounding trees began to die, the flowers that were once full of life began to curl inward in brown starving clumps. Images of James' body laying sprawled on the floor the striped robe I gave him on Christmas tied hurridly his dark eyes staring at my lifeless the image continued on up the stairs to Harry's bedroom. Lilly lay in the same state as James amongst broken glass completely lifeless. Through these visions my screams and sobs had not faltered if any they had grown louder and shriller.

The tugging and pulling had stopped and I began to beat on Sirius' chest. He gripped both my arms in a painful grip as a dark cloaked figured emerged throught the trees. It stepped past the now dead boddies of Lilly and James that lay on the dead flowers their eyes staring at me. I felt sick. As the figure approached closer I noticed the large looming hole in the ground behind me as I turned again I found myself face to face with Voldemort. I cowered into Sirius as he repeated the same statement in my ear before pushing my backward into the hole as the words "Ava-da-kadavra" left the dark wizards mouth. As I fell through the dark abyss the green lightning chasing me. My eyes widened as it suddenly grew closer.

~*~*
"No!"

I sat straight up my silk robe clining to my flushed skin. Remus' room was dark and cold the spot beside me abadoned. I ran my hands through my wild curls and pulled the heavy now sticky covers away from me and pulled on my rob the cool silk feeling refreshing against my skin. I sighed leaning against the bed post when I heard a door open. 'Must be Remus.' I thought I pulled the robe closer to me and continued through his office and to the balcony overlooking his classroom.

".....seems like a pretty poor way to repay them." Remus voice boomed at who I noticed was Harry.

"Remus?" I called out pulling my rober closed again and running a hand through my hair in an attempt to keep it away from my face.

"S'alright go on back to bed Ella." Remus sighed before turning back to Harry "Now I will not cover for you again. Do you hear me?"

"Yes sir" Harry nodded.

"I want you to return to your dormitory and stay there. And don't take any detours. If you do, I shall know." Remus patted a folded parchment. Bloody hell it was the map!

"Professor, just so you know, I don't think that map always works. Earlier, it showed someone in the castle. Someone I know to be dead." Harry spoke strongly.

This piqued my curiousity and I looked up again.

"Oh? And who might that me?" Remus investigated.

Harry shrugged "Peter Pettigrew."

My breath caught in my throat and I clutched the railing of the balcony to keep from topolling over. Peter? Peter Pettigrew? Surely not! Peter was dead! And he had no other family! I felt sick to my stomach at this.

"Thats not possible" Remus reasoned.

"Its just what I saw." Harry shrugged again. "Night Professor, Ella." He nodded at the two of us before disappearing. Remus turned slowly to me and I gave him a painfilled look before turning on my heel and retreating to the bathroom my robe falling down my shoulder and billowing past me as I went.

I emptied the contents of my stomach into the toliet and sat back down crying once again. Finally pulling myself together enough to stand I washed my mouth out repeatedly before filling a cup of water and chugging down large gulps. I stared at my dissheveled appearance in the mirror in silence. My reflection began to distort into Sirius his lips molding into the words he had told me in my dream. He kept repeating them over and over and soon enough his voice brought them to life in my head. I gripped my hair in large chunks and pulled. The voice had to stop. It wasn't possible. It couldn't be! I picked up the cup and smashed it into the mirror the cup shattering at the pressure and the mirror collapsing against the force. Blood oozed from the various cuts as I let out one good scream and threw punches into the glass repeatedly.

"Ella!" the door busted open and Remus evaluated the situation and caught me as my knees gave out. He pulled me to him shushing me as he held a spare towel to my bloody mess of hands. His voice was calm but his demonor concerned. He kissed my forehead and rocked me softly until I calmed. His voice still repeated the same sentence.

"Peters a traitor! He's alive. Peters a traitor, he's alive....."