QLFC S3 - Round 9
It starts like this:
Sirius is six and when his brother reaches forward to open Sirius' present, he gets so mad that his vision flashes white for a second. Something explodes between the two of them and he's thrown onto his back, all the breath in his body forced out of him in a single moment. When he collects enough of himself to blink back stars from his vision, he sees Regulus thrown clear across the room, blood dripping slowly down from his temple to his chin.
Even from where he's lying in the middle of the ballroom, Sirius swears he can hear the blood dripping onto the tile.
Then, a tray clatters to the ground and the spell breaks and then everyone is running around confused because no one touched Regulus, not at all. They rush his brother to his room and call the doctor in and his birthday party is over just as quickly as it started. Sirius is ushered to his room by his mother, and she gives him a tight, pinched look just before the door slams shut.
The resounding echo is a hollow one.
In the end the Black family announce it was some sort of spy come to kill the family heir on his sixth birthday. Still, Victorian ladies are known for their gossip and oh, do they gossip. It starts off with whispers spoken behind fans and side-long glances and then it grows and grows like a malicious tumour until everyone knows that something weird happened on that day that no one can explain.
Not just something weird, though. Something… magical. Something… like a witch.
And witches need to be hunted.
…
Later, his mother summons him to her quarters. All the way to her rooms, he can feel the uncertain gaze of the maid flickering to and from him and the way she never quite touches him. Her hand hovers above his back, and the moment he stands before her towering doors, the maid escapes the situation. Sirius steels his nerves, because he isn't, and never will be, a coward and knocks three times.
"Mother?" he calls. "I've arrived."
"Come in," she says, her voice muffled.
He pushes open the doors and moves to stand behind her. She does not rise at his entrance, nor does she look over when he respectfully clasps his hands and waits for her to speak. The flickering firelight casts odd shadows over her face, but when she shifts to face him, they flee from her face.
She smiles at him.
"Sirius," she says. And then: "How would you like to go with your father on a fishing trip?"
Sirius does a double take, because he was sure that she was going to mention his birthday party, or Regulus, or the odd power he can feel tingling through his skin. She takes his baffled silence as an indication to continue.
"You're getting old enough for these sorts of recreational activities," she says calmly, "and this upcoming trip is also a chance for you to escape all these… nasty rumours flying around."
So they want him to get away from England for now? That makes sense, Sirius thinks. He could always apologize to Regulus when the fire died down and he came back.
"When is the trip?" he asks.
She smiles at him again. "Next week," she says.
When Sirius emerges from his mother's chambers, he finds Regulus idly sitting on the polished tiles. Regulus' eyes widen and he jumps to his feet.
"Sirius, don't go," he says.
Sirius' eyebrow jumps up. "You were eavesdropping?"
"No," Regulus says with such conviction that he believes him. "But, that's not important. Don't go, please."
Sirius takes his arm and strides down the hallway. "You should still be resting in bed," he says firmly.
Regulus presses his lips together and doesn't say anything more.
And then finally, the day of the trip comes. Sirius, excited and only slightly nervous, packs his bags and is ready hours before everyone else is. He sits just out of sight of the stairs while the household bustles around him.
Regulus finds him like that. His brother, fully recovered, shuffles anxiously.
"Don't go," he says again, looking even more uneasy than before. Sirius frowns at that, and can't help the flicker of apprehension that appears at the sight of his brother's drawn brow and clenching fists.
"It— it'll be fine Regulus," he says despite himself. "Really."
They're interrupted by a passing butler.
"Sire," he says deferentially, "your father is waiting for you. The carriage is ready."
"Be back before you know it!" Sirius yells behind him as he takes off for the stairs.
...
The boat trip is the worst thing that's happened to him.
Sirius leans against the rim of the boat, hands in his hands, and sighs. At first, when the boat was riding the waves and the sailors were moving purposefully around, he had been so excited be could barely sit still.
Five hours later though, with only an apple and a slice of bread as sustenance and a sore rump to boot, Sirius can't wait to get off.
Staring off into the horizon, he sees the dark clouds milliseconds before the rest of the crew do. They murmur worriedly behind him, the only indication that the situation is worse than it seems.
"Father?" Sirius spots him, isolated, at the end of the boat. He goes to join him. His father says nothing of it, only sparing a single glance at the distracted crew behind him before turning his gaze back to the sky.
And then, just before the storm hits, two hands push against Sirius' back, and he plummets into the ocean.
...
When Sirius wakes up, it's to sand in his clothes and hair and mouth, and really, its not that important but he has to think about it otherwise, otherwise—
His father pushed him off the boat.
Logically, it makes sense. Sirius has magic. Magic, or even suspicion of magic, is enough for a death sentence and it's more than enough to mar the proud Black name. Being killed in his own house would be too much of a scandal so they brought him here, where a storm of a slip of the foot could happen to anyone. That way, the Black name remained pure and they could get rid of the rumours flying around about him.
Sirius, numb, thinks this should come as more of a surprise. It isn't. He wonders how much his brother knew.
But that isn't important right now. Somehow, he survived and he needs to continue to survive. He won't let his life end like this. Sirius staggers to his feet and glances around the small island he washed up on. There isn't much to it. A beach as far as the eye stretches, with a small forest to his right. And then, right behind him, a small hut.
Sirius eyes it warily, wondering if he should enter. Could there be someone else on this tiny island? He creeps up on the house and peers in through the only open window. It's pretty well equipped for a place literally in the middle of nowhere. A small woodstove in the middle of the room and a small stack of hay in the corner, which must be the bed. A desk, of all things, and right beside it a large bookshelf nearly overflowing with books. The place looks lived in.
Sirius enters anyways because he'd never been much in the way of manners. He peers closer at the book titles and he's never seen anything quite like them because they all have to do with magic. At random, he selects one and flips to a page. It's a detailed description of frog legs and how exactly to brew it in a potion to cure the common cold, along with copious warnings on how mixing it in wrong could blow off his head. Interested, he flips the page.
There's a rustle behind him and then:
"Ariel has a guest!"
Sirius startles, fumbling with the book.
"Uh. I wasn't doing anything, I swear!"
The book falls and crashes into another stack of books and they all topple to the ground as he catches sight of the strange creature before him. It's… a gnome? An elf? He's not quite sure, but it looks like something straight out of the fairytales the maid used to read to him before bed.
"What exactly are you?" he asks.
"Ariel is a houself, sire," the … houself says, staring at him with bulging eyes. "You look like Ariel's previous master. Are you here to put Ariel to service again?"
"I, uh, I don't know," Sirius answers, completely at a loss.
The houself cocks its head at him. It ushers him to the stack of hay and then says, "New master should sleep."
Sirius, oddly enough, feels his eyelids closing even though he was wide awake only moments ago.
The next time he awakens, it's to food and safety and someone taking care of him. Sirius takes to reading the books and slowly awakening his magic as he recovers his health.
He stays this way for the next ten years, with no other way to get off the island and no idea how.
…
Sirius watches the offing, pressing his lips tightly together.
"Sire?" Ariel asks, the newest catch of fish hanging from his nets. He tilts his head as he looks in the distance as well.
"There's a boat," Sirius says. "Boats never come by here. Never."
Ariel hums at that, but seems entirely unconcerned. He moves in the the hut to cook their lunch, but Sirius stays exactly where he is. Why is there a boat now, of all times? It has to be his family. Maybe, he doesn't know how but, maybe they got wind that he was alive and well and were sending someone to finish the job once and for all? He's sixteen as well, and of age.
It has to be.
Sirius huffs out a breath and retreats back into the hut. He grabs a single book from the top shelf of the bookshelf and pages through it.
"Aha," he murmurs, and then rushes back out again, "the tempest spell. Meteolojinx recanto!"
Almost immediately, the previously clear sky darkens and clouds come rumbling in. The rain patters down, lightly at first, and then hard enough that it hurts just standing under it. Sirius watches the scene, entranced. It's just like it was back when he first washed up on this island as a weak, young boy who didn't think anything bad could happen to him.
Sirius blinks hard, shakes his head, and then retreats back into the hut.
In the morning, he finds three completely unconscious strangers on his beach. They're not his family. At all.
"Well, crap," he says.
...
Ariel helps him drag them back to the hut and tends to their wounds. Sirius peers at their faces. Three of them, all male, about his age. For once in his life, he's at a loss for what to do. He could always throw them back into the ocean he supposes, but then they could also be his ticket out of here.
Just as Sirius decides he'll pester them into bringing him back to England, the black haired one rolls over and groans. He blinks awake and sits up, looking around with squinted eyes.
"I'm blind!" is his first, plaintive cry. He pats the area around him and accidentally smushes his two companions faces. The shortest one jolts up in a single jerked movement. He seems to be able to see perfectly unlike the black haired one, because he takes one look at Sirius' face and screams.
Rude.
The last one opens his eyes and stares at Sirius' ceiling, and then sighs. He draws himself up and glances around, and there's something in that languid, easy movement of his body, the smooth curve of his back, his sedate gaze that draws Sirius closer.
They meet eyes, and Sirius feels his breath catching.
"Hello," the stranger says. "Who are you and where are we?"
Sirius smiles at him, and draws a hesitant smile back from the stranger.
"Sirius Black, at your service," he says charmingly. "Your trip has landed you in —" he spreads his arms wide— "the middle of nowhere!"
The stranger's brow furrows at that, and he taps his hand against his knee.
"That's... a problem," he says mildly. Then, he blinks and says, "Pardon my manners! My name is Remus Lupin. Thank you for taking care of us until now."
Sirius just shrugs a shoulder at that, because while he did give them shelter and treat their wounds, he also happened to be the cause of them in the first place. But they don't need to know that.
"So what even happened, anyway?" Sirius asks, reaching over to brush a stray strand of hair away from Remus' face. He moves away once he realizes what he's doing.
"I— we, uh," Remus says, blinking rapidly, "we were just taking a boat trip out because we had a day off, and then a storm came out of nowhere."
Sirius hums noncommittally.
"And what about you?" Remus asks, looking at him curiously. "Why are you alone, here on this island?"
"Not my choice," Sirius murmurs. Remus leans closer, and Sirius can feel a spark of warmth where their knees are pressed together.
"Hey guys!" comes the voice of the black haired guy, a small laugh in his voice. The two of them jolt apart. Sirius had completely forgotten about the other two. "This guy is a wizard, like us!"
Sirius looks over and black haired guy is holding one of his books in triumph. Short guy is standing by his side, looking jittery and vaguely nauseous.
"James! Peter" Remus scolds. "Don't go leafing through other people's belongings."
"Well, I asked and neither of you seemed to hear me," James says.
Remus just sighs, and Sirius gets the feeling that this is a common occurrence.
"You guys... have magic too?" Sirius asks, cutting a glance to Remus. A nod is his answer.
"So now that it's okay to use our magic here," the short one says timidly, "we can just build a boat and go back home right?"
"Of course!" James says, beaming. "We can leave right now. Remus?"
Remus starts, then looks at Sirius. "I—"
Sirius looks back. He grins. "Hey, you guys don't mind if I tag along do you?"
When they leave, Ariel watches from the hut, and then continues sweeping.
...
The black house looms in front of him, scorched and charred and unrecognizable. Sirius stares mutely at what once was his family home. Now, it's nothing.
The other three stand a polite distance behind him.
"What happened here?" Sirius whispers under his breath.
There's a loud clatter, and then suddenly a wizened face comes into view. "Young master? Is that you?"
Sirius blinks in surprise. It's the head butler. "Yeah, it's me. Why is—"
The butler shakes his head. His face darkens. "It was young Regulus. He was a witch! Burned down the entire house and all the people in it one day. There's no one left."
Sirius stares, numb.
"Young master, you're now the Duke of Black. But there's nothing left to you but this house. The household is gone."
With that, he hurries away, without a glance back."
A gentle hand lands on his shoulder, and he turns to see Remus' face crinkle in concern.
James slings an arm around his shoulder, and Peter comes around to smile at him.
"Why don't you come join us at Hogwarts?" James asks, grinning.