the Sorting of Sirius Black

by sevenn

Mr. and Mrs. Black, of number twelve, Grimmauld Place, were proud to say they were perfectly pureblooded, thank you very much. They were the last people you'd expect to give birth to a blood traitor, an abomination, or a filthy stain of dishonour on their (quite incestuous) family tree... (UNDER REVISION)

1. A Place No Light Could Ever Reach

Most people couldn't see the house, but it was there. It had been there for centuries, cocooned in an impenetrable web of dark wards and enchantments. Over the years, each generation of the Black family had woven in their own murky layers of protection, until the air about the place throbbed and hummed with magic. Most people couldn't see the house, but they could feel it. It was the creeping, unshakable sense of someone, somewhere, watching. It was a strange, lingering chill in the air; an out-of-place shadow on a sunny day. It was an impulsive backward glance, and the irresistible compulsion to walk a little faster.

In all that time, no one in the neighborhood had ever guessed that an ancient family of wizards lived in an invisible house on Grimmauld Place. Of course they hadn't. Even if someone had, no one else would have ever believed them. Of course they wouldn't. The very idea of a secret world of magic, existing unseen, alongside unsuspecting everyday people, was absurd. Preposterous. Absolutely ridiculous. All of those things, and yet… it was there.

Somehow, deep down in that secret what-if place that hides in the darkness of everyone's mind, the neighbors must have known something wasn't quite right. The owners of number thirteen were nearly always away, and more often than not, a weatherbeaten For Sale sign was propped against the gate at number eleven. The occupants of number twelve had never even noticed this.

Except for one.

That one sometimes stood in the highest window and stared wistfully out from the shadows. That one wondered why, that one dreamed of a day when he would walk away from this accursed house and never look back. Eventually, he'd actually done it.

But the house had never let him go, not really. Even when he'd finally achieved what he'd been striving for since the age of eleven, and gotten his name ceremoniously blasted off the family tree…Even then, in that black bottomless well of madness deep within him, a place no ray of light would ever reach, it was there.

Always, it was there; it was waiting. To claim him, to mock him, for daring to think he could ever be free from this soul-sucking spot of darkness upon the earth. Darkness he owned, and that had owned him, since the day he was born.