It had traveled on the wind, through fireplaces and owl feathers, a whispered terror that had already soaked into the marrow of the wizarding world. Voldemort had fallen. The Potters were dead. And Sirius Black, husband of one, best friend of the other, had been dragged away in chains, screaming that he hadn't done it.

Y/n stood at the window of the small flat in Camden, a half-empty bottle of firewhisky on the sill, the glass cold against her palm. She hadn't cried yet. She couldn't. There was a strange, humming numbness in her chest, a buzz like after a bad apparition. But it wasn't the fall that lingered. It was the words, repeated over and over by every witch and wizard she crossed in the street, in the pub, in the bitter grey morning:

He was the Secret Keeper. He told You-Know-Who where they were hiding. He's the reason Lily is dead.

She knew better. She had to. Because if Sirius was capable of that, then she didn't know the man who'd pressed his forehead to hers in the dark and whispered I'll burn the world down before I let anyone touch you.

The flat was small, cluttered. A pile of unopened letters on the table. A photograph of four marauders and a girl on the mantle, all of them laughing, frozen in a moment of sunshine that now felt like a lie.

Outside, the streetlight flickered on. Somewhere below, a door slammed. The silence after it was thick, pressing against her ears.

She raised the bottle to her lips. It burned. That was good. That was something she could feel.