She gave him a shallow bob of her head, and in a fit of pettiness, swept away in the shadows, pulling the light from his candles and leaving the man alone in the dark.
She collapsed on the loveseat in her office. Sirius had dragged in from the Black Library because it was her favorite, a lovely deep blood-red stained leather couch that he had insisted she take. She ran her knuckles over the smooth fabric. She really was overdue for a conversation about the horcruxes with Sirius. Which was fine, she wasn't avoiding him. His opinion of her mattered even less than Dumbledore's did…
Even the bottle of gin hidden underneath the red cushions was a gift from that cowardly, temperamental idiot. She couldn't even drink away her problems without a reminder of the bastard.
...
Sirius was avoiding Alabasandria. Instead, he was knee-deep in Death Eater corpses and he had a lead.
It wasn't childish to avoid her. He had every right to be angry, what she'd done was despicable, evil to a degree unfathomable to Sirius prior. (God help him, he'd been relieved, so relieved at the knowledge Harry could be brought back as he watched the boy face off against a bloody dragon and then again during the attempted kidnapping.)
It was awful, and Sirius was awful for justifying it somehow, as he considered how they might as well utilize it. His moral dilemma ended right at the moment when Harry could be resurrected. Without question, he would assist in such a ritual. He would kill to do so. He would probably do a lot of equally despicable things to ensure Harry's safety.
The horcrux was disgusting, it had no doubt caused significant harm to Harry's psyche. Had it been worth it, for this just-in-case? Would Sirius, holding the stiff corpse of his dead son - godson - in his arms, be able to view that as just? If there had been any option at all to save him, would Sirius agree to it, regardless of cost, at that moment?
He was getting lost in the hypotheticals again.
The blank eyes of Bellatrix Lestrange nee Black stared back at him. She released a little giggle and floated aimlessly.
"Right, so it's in your vault?" He asked, wiping the exhaustion from his eyes.
She cackled harder, a small nod visible amongst mad twitching.
Harry could very well turn out like this, he considered. That wouldn't be worth it, would it? His sweet boy was fond of the Cruciatus. Bella had the Black Madness, a madness he now knew flowed through his veins. Madness to even consider what Alabasandria had forced Harry to do was acceptable.
He'd been avoiding Bella. Family trauma, and all that. He'd assumed even Voldemort would know she was batshit insane and not be stupid enough to trust her with anything as important as a bit of his soul, but Voldemort was pretty dumb.
Maybe it was the horcruxes that made you irrational. Harry was pretty irrational. Again, the whole Cruciatus thing. Alabasandria could be too, when it came to necromancy and ethics and what was appropriate to teach a young boy.
"Where is it in your vault?"
"Uhhhhh…. Hehehe - on a shelf, I think, dear cousin."
Sirius heaved a heavy sigh. "What does it look like?"
"Is the Dark Lord still alive? I've been looking for him. If he were dead, he would look for me too. And the Dark Lord will never die, hehe, so he must be alive. Does he miss me?"
"I would be shocked if he did. What does it look like, Bellatrix?"
Sirius didn't have a lot of control over spirits. Calling them forth, easy. Getting the Death Eaters to actually talk? Awful.
"Ummm… it's a big cup."
"A cup?"
"Yup."
"For the love of - describe it, Bellatrix, and I'll tell you what your beloved Dark Lord has been up to. He's been very angry lately, I think he does miss you."
Her ghostly face widened into an ecstatic grin.
"It's a cup. Big. Fancy. Little animal on the side, a beaver?"
"A badger?"
"Uh-huh. Badger. With two handles."
"Hufflepuff's Cup?"
"Yup!"
"Did you put a curse on it, are there any protections in the vault?"
"Yup!"
"You know what, fuck it and fuck you. I'll get Andi to help me get in."
He dismissed her with a wave of his hand. He scrawled out some notes quickly - they hadn't been certain he'd used the Founder's artifacts, but now between this one and the unknown one somewhere in the school it was safe to assume. Could it be Godric's Sword? He'd have thought Dumbledore would notice that.
He scrawled out a letter to Andromeda Tonks. It might not have made much sense, it was nearing three in the morning and he couldn't exactly write out dear cousin, please help me kill Voldemort, but it would have to do.
He hadn't written to Andi at all since he was freed. She might ignore it. Sirius wasn't really close with anyone anymore. He'd tried with Remus again, and things were alright, but it was just alright. He'd come back from Azkaban a broken loner, and he'd burnt all bridges with his former friends and family.
He'd only been able to build an easy kinship with Alabasandria.
It was three in the morning, but he wasn't in the mood to sleep, despite exhaustion weighing down his body. Couldn't get his fucking mind to shut up though. He tidied up the room. It felt weird to ask Kreacher to mop the circles of blood off the floor. The nature of the ritual meant it must be cleaned by hand, impervious to magic as it now was - meant to be a permanent stain on the floor to forever show how the sanctity of life and death had been played with at this spot. Well, he had nothing better to do but clean.