Word count for this part: 3600
EDIT: YOU ASTERISK AND PLUS SIGN DISALLOWING BASTARDS, YOU'RE MAKING IT AN ABSOLUTE CUNT FOR ME TO BREAK UP MY SECTIONS *FIST SHAKE*
1.
BYE BYE BLACKBIRD! WALBURGA BLACK DEAD AT 62!
By – RITA SKEETER
A farewell to Walburga Black, the Darling of New Wave Cinema.
We have all in our lives, seen at least one film starring Walburga Black. The former stunning screen siren (of whom this reporter is a big fan) left us last night after dying of a sudden heart attack, shocking the nation. And this morning, no doubt, tears will be shed around the nation.
Walburga Black, despite her various mental health and substance abuse issues, was surely one of the greatest actresses Britain has ever known.
Rita's exclusive find!
Very few people know Walburga had a troubled start to life. Her father, Pollux Black (son of acclaimed playwright Cygnus Black) was just thirteen at the time of her birth, her mother fifteen. The two were wed quickly but Walburga's birth (and the birth of her brothers, Alphard Black, novelist, and Cygnus Black, actor and father of Bellatrix Lestrange!) was hidden from the public. She was raised in secret, by a governess and few knew of her existence till she broke onto the screen, against her Grandfather's wishes, at age twenty.
The most talented actress of her generation
She began her career in 1945, starring in the harrowingly topical post-war drama Children of the Blitz. A controversial that was deemed too soon by many a critic (Of course, this reporter had always recognised it for the great work it was). She quickly became known for her mane of black hair and hypnotic beauty; she was often referred to as "England's answer to Katherine Hepburn" (Walburga was much sexier, in my humble opinion!) . It was in her early films, where she made a speciality of playing the tortured heroine, that she made her name. She would marry the director of the 1948 Oscar-magnet, The Grey Lady, Orion Black (who was also her cousin... oh er!) a dashing talent, whose star never quite rose to the heights of his wife's. Notoriously difficult to work with, he was known to have a foul temper and an obsessive attention to detail.
His behaviour on the set of his 1950 film (an adaption of Agatha Christie's short story, The Labours of Hercules) would leave a blot on his career, from which he would never truly recover.
Meanwhile, Walburga's star continued to swell. Her work in the fifties largely consisted of historical dramas, though she bucked this trend when she starred in the 1955 adaption of Alphard Black's (helping out her little brother, how sweet!) debut novel, kitchen sink drama: Cobalt Coloured Wedding Dress. She played, arguably, her most iconic character, Saphia Morrow, the neglected wife of Thomas Morrow (Abraxas Malfoy) a character lorded as one of the most complex to come out of 20th century literature. The film and novel tracked Saphia's decent into alcoholism and eventual suicide and the blossoming love affair between Thomas and a student of his. (Of course, the novel and film were far more subtle than my brief summary... but it was SO obvious.)
It was deemed one of her most controversial works to date, due to its rampant homosexual subtext. It was also the first work of legendary Director (and Killer Cult leader!) Tom Riddle Jr.
It was due to her Oscar winning performance in Cobalt Coloured Wedding Dress and the final seven years of her career, when she would work solely with Riddle that would truly solidify her status as a screen legend.
The Blackbird (1957), Look Back at the Liar (1960), Hell is Honey (1960), Live Your Life (1961)and The Stairs to the Scaffold (1962)
These were black, racy, gritty, films that were controversial in the extreme! Walburga often showed off some of her best assets (and we're not just talking about her acting chops!) in these films. Blackbird a tastefully handled film was thought to be the darkest of these, with its traumatic depiction of domestic violence. In Look Back At the Liar Walburga bore all during a scandalous stripping scene which sent audiences wild! (Noted as the first glimpse of a woman's pubic hair in an English language film!) And in the notoriously banned Hell is Honey, Walburga plays a sexually frustrated nun plagued with erotic visions of her imaginary lovers. In Live Your Life Walburga, shockingly for the time, took a black lover! And in The Stairs to the Scaffold... well there was no sex (Disappointingly!) but the film had a severe pop at the capital punishment system.
In November of 1959, Walburga's first son, Sirius (Or, Back Alley Black, as I like to call him.) was born. Her penultimate film, Live Your Life, was filmed during her pregnancy and Riddle went to great lengths to disguise her baby bump, often using a body double.
She prioritised her career over her new baby, and her husband had been (reportedly!) so outraged during the filming of The Stairs to the Scaffold, that she'd never worked again. Obviously, that had just been a rumour, probably as fictional as the one about Tom Riddle maybe being Sirius' father... But I won't bring up any of that nastiness.
Anyway, Walburga then disappeared completely from the spotlight.
Her legacy lives on in niece Bellatrix Lestrange, a schoolyard chum of mine, who was all too happy to step into her shoes, starring in her first film in 1963 at the tender age of twelve! And what a star she's turned into!
And, though Sirius may have turned out to be something of anti climax (Pretentious hermit, acting underground in Europe? How dull!) we mustn't forget the budding writing career of her second son, Regulus! Who has his first novel due out in November, how fabulous!
As you'd expect, Walburga's funeral promises to be a star studded affair! And I'll be right on the front lines, writing my report!
Until then, stay fabulous darlings!
Remember to send a thought to the Black family! RIP Wally!
"Hullo... That Sirius?"
"Yeah? Who's this? How'd you get my number?"
"Calm down, got it through James... It's Regulus, by the way."
"To what do I owe this pleasure?"
"Mother died."
"Oh."
"I got all the property, most of the money... You got a considerable chunk of it though."
"She just...? I can't believe..."
"I know. It was very sudden."
"No I mean... I just can't believe she left me anything! How much is a chunk?"
There was a heavy, disdainful sigh from Regulus' end of the phone.
"Ten mil."
He hung up.
"Do you think that kind of behaviour is acceptable?"
"No, of course not. Don't be ridiculous."
"Then why did you work so hard to keep this covered up?"
"I- I didn't make any effort to cover it up, I just didn't want this story everywhere."
"Father Lupin, why are you protecting a paedophile?"
"You're putting words in my mouth. I did it for the boys' sakes, the community's sake, not for the sake of that Monster."
"Father Lupin, is it true you were aware of the abuse before-"
"No. No that is not true. An outright lie."
"Where was God when your, and I quote, close friend, mentor and colleague, Father-"
"That's enough. This is not a theological debate. This is nothing, what gives you the right to break down my door and-"
He blinked as a camera flashed right in his face. He slammed his door.
Sirius grabbed the nearest man and jammed his tongue down his throat. He could smell sweat, sex, man, all mixed with the sharp tang of alcohol and the smell of cigarette smoke. A drink was thrust into his hand, he took it without question, without even twisting his neck to see who'd handed him it. He tipped it into his mouth, mostly down his t-shirt and handed the empty glass to someone else. He grabbed another man, a man he'd looked over a the bar earlier, and pulled him closer, pushing their bodies together. He licked a stripe up the man's neck. They were both hard, from the dancing, the club the other men; even in the darkness, they exchanged a heated look. Sirius found himself being dragged by the wrist to the toilets. More men in there, men together, shameless, not even in a cubicle, down right pornographic. Sirius' man banged him through the door of an empty cubicle and threw him down on the closed lid of the toilet. He locked the door, fell to his knees and yanked Sirius' jeans open.
The mouth humming round his cock, the music pounding in his ears, the alcohol burning in his veins, flooding and fogging his senses, intensifying, dulling, bringing the walls in closer and spinning around him, the beautiful bed waiting for him at his flat, the shower, his dream job, more inheritance money than he knew what to do with, his life, his new life, his perfect life. Things couldn't be more perfect right now.
Remus pinched the bridge of his nose and sighed. His own face stared out at him from the front page, eyes wide, like a deer in the headlights. He crumpled the paper in his hands. Why his parish? He groaned and filled the kettle, slamming it listlessly on the lit stove.
He hadn't even wanted to think about the possibility. For goodness' sake, Remus had known the man almost his entire life. First as a primary school teacher; second, as a mentor and a friend, when he'd joined the priesthood. He didn't even want to half contemplate some of the strange things he'd seen.
But he thought of the boys. The poor boys. It had been Remus' call to social services regarding one of his alter boys, Thomas, that had started this whole debacle. Thomas had broken down while speaking to the social worker and after that had been exposed, more boys had come forward. He decided to break the story once Remus had asked his parishioners, for the sake of the children, to "just keep the whole awful situation quiet, please?" Unbeknownst to him, one of the local journalists had had other plans.
He now had national newspapers banging on his door all day long, shouting questions, twisting his words and jamming cameras in his face.
The questions were the worst. They always seemed to feel it necessary to drag God in. They used Him as tool to mock Remus; a stick they could use to prod him with, then watch him squirm. Remus could never respond under the pressure, could only panic. He questioned himself. His vocation. For the first time in his life, he found himself questioning his faith.
After the journalists had left, he'd buried his nose in his bible, searching for answers. None came. His eyes slid out of focus time and time again, and he became distracted by his own blasphemous thoughts. After a while, he had fallen asleep.
He'd had the dream again. Last night. Every time he had the dream, it felt more real. His surroundings, not just in his head, corporeal, more like flashes of memory that hit him once he woke. Not the vague kind of memory one has of a dream, but a true memory. He remembered a transformation, painful, like something tearing through him, tearing him in half. Then power. The smell of damp earth, pollen, sickly sweet in the summer night air, flooding his nostrils. A sharp tang of something, rising, hot and thick into the air. The feel of the earth: damp grass, rock, mud, bark, beneath his feet.
He'd woken up to find his living room a wreck, his bible thrown carelessly on the floor, his notes scattered everywhere, his furniture tipped up. Several ornaments and light bulbs were smashed; even a nail had fallen from the top of his crucifix, causing it to hang upside down.
He'd found himself, naked, his clothes torn and abandoned in a pile. He was filthy and sore all over.
Upon standing, he'd discovered the piece of bark stuck in the soul of his left foot. He proceeded to yowl, and hop into the bathroom. He then spent a grand total of twenty three minutes, hopping around searching for a pair of tweezers (which needed to be thoroughly cleaned and disinfected before they did any actual tweezing).
He had to talk to someone about this. If not a professional, at least someone he trusted. Because every time it happened it seemed less and less like a dream. And more frequently he could swear he smelt, tasted blood. And it was all so vivid. Especially the transformation. Pain. The exhilaration, energy and power that followed it. Remus was beginning to worry himself.
He was either going fucking bonkers, or there was something very strange going on. Though, in Remus' opinion, the fact he was even willing to consider the latter gave more evidence to the former.
After cleaning himself and cleaning the rectory, he'd found the paper on his doorstep, seen his own face and decided tea was very, very necessary.
Whilst slurping his tea, his thoughts were not filled with musings on religion or ideas for sermons, as they were on good mornings, but with thoughts of the Dream. He decided, speaking aloud to himself,
"Change the bloody subject already... Ugh."
He had a funeral today. Walburga Black, the actress who had died, very suddenly, last week of a heart attack. Remus had been friends with her eldest son, Sirius, when he was younger. It had been almost ten years since Remus had last seen him.
Though he'd seen an awful lot of him in the papers. Everyone knew the Blacks. They were all writers, actors, directors, caught up in one scandal after another, affairs, drugged and drunken disgraces, murder, ties with criminals: they were hardly out of the papers.
But Walburga was a good woman, Remus had always thought. She had been very pious and proper and had always donated to the church. Sirius had never thought much of her. But Sirius had always been the Black sheep of that family.
He took up with a very unsavoury crowd toward the end of secondary school and ended up in a long, drawn out scandal that was painful for Remus to watch, even if he only saw it through the papers. Goodness knows how awful it must have all been for Sirius.
Last Remus had heard, he'd become an actor of some sort. He hadn't been in the tabloids since he'd finished boarding school.
Sirius coughed something up. Too chunky to be phlegm, too solid to be sick. He decided not to think about it too much and flushed it down the sink. He'd woken up in his new bed, which was so comfortable it was staggering and was pleased to find that whatever he'd dragged home last night had had the courtesy to fuck off before Sirius had to face him.
Thanks to Dear old Walburga's decidedly unexpected generosity, he could actually afford this flat now. Maybe something better.
It was nice being back in his old stomping ground and even nicer knowing he would be working in the newest, most technologically advanced, down right sexiest observatory in the UK. Much better than the ratty old thing he was working in in Edinburgh, which was a neglected, cheap, little thing. Its tendency toward tantrums and technical glitches had gained it the nickname Marvin among the staff. It never went so far as to fall to bits or moaned about never having asked to be built, but God it had been a temperamental little bitch of a telescope.
The new observatory he was going to work at was, in fact, the largest astronomical telescope in the world designed specifically to operate in the submillimetre regime (between the far-infrared and the microwave regions of the electromagnetic spectrum). He remembered the look on James' face when he'd told him that: a mix of confusion and outrage at such shameless use of scientific jargon.
He exited the bathroom, unable to stop himself from considering that thing he coughed up, and was about to sit on his gorgeous, lovely new, new, new leather sofa when the phone rang.
"Hello?" He said, with a yawn.
"Jesus, someone over did it last night! You sound like shit!" James said, sniggering at him.
"Aww, I love you too, James, you fucking dickhead." Sirius murmured.
"Good morning star shine, the earth says hello!" James trilled. "I know you've probably gotten yourself in a bit of a tizzy over attending Mummy Dearest's funeral, but-" James began. Sirius almost dropped the phone.
"Funeral?" He said, suddenly panicked. Surely he hadn't been invited? Surely the family embarrassment hadn't been asked to attend the funeral of Walburga Black: National Treasure?
"What, you didn't think they were just going to stick her in the bin or something, did you?" James snorted. Sirius rolled his eyes. "I heard that eye roll, mister."
"No you daft prick, obviously not. I just assumed I wasn't invited." He said frankly. James paused, then sucked a breath in sharply.
"Did Regulus not tell you?" he asked guiltily.
"No?"
"Oh... That's probably because he told me to tell you the details and I forgot." James said sheepishly. James had always had a memory like a sieve, but since his drinking had gotten worse, it had given out completely. Sirius had even considered hiring a new PR agent.
Not that he needed one so much, nowadays. The tabloids had basically given up on him ever doing anything interesting again.
"Ugh, Christ almighty, James!" He moaned, "Speaking of Regulus, thanks for giving him my number, deeply appreciated." Sirius spat sarcastically.
"Aww, you love him really." James sung.
"Do I shite. What time's this funeral, then? Where is it? I probably won't be able to make it. I imagine the Darling of New Wave Cinema, would demand a burial at West Minster Abbey." Sirius sniffed.
That was what The Prophet had called her. Less schmaltzy than The Times' "Goodbye England's Rose", he supposed.
None of the articles had been as disgusting as Rita Skeeter, for The Daily Prophet.
"Erm... Sorry to tell you mate," James began hesitantly, "But she's went for the local church. With how close that swanky, new flat is, she's getting buried practically in your back garden." Sirius sighed heavily. There was no way he could avoid it now.
He'd have to go and be disapproved of for three hours, while Regulus glowered at him, Bellatrix sneered at him, Narcissa and Lucius threw things at him and Snape (who would undoubtedly be invited) discussed ancient rumours of Sirius' degenerate lifestyle with the local Priests. James had said something about one of them being arrested and put away for kiddie-fiddling. Though Sirius had no idea if this was true or not, he didn't watch the news and he didn't read papers. He'd only known what the papers had said about his Mother because he'd strolled into the newsagents and flipped straight to the obituaries.
He knew for certain this funeral was going to be absolutely crawling with paparazzi.
"What a lovely mental image." He muttered sourly.
"Funeral starts in about ten minutes by the way." James told him, with a hint of amusement.
"Fantastic, don't even have time to shower, never mind shave."
"Oh, assuming you were out on the lash last night-"
"Bingo."
"You're going to look fabulous." James said, his words thoroughly laden with sarcasm.
"Ugh... I'd better go then." Sirius mumbled.
"Enjoy!" James yelped. Sirius gagged a bit. He'd best have a glass of water or two before he left.
"I might be sick. Literally though, I've really overdone it."
"That's fine, as long as you don't get any in or on the casket."
She'd wanted a proper, catholic burial. The short walk with the coffin from the Black's house to the church should have only taken about five minutes but the streets had been so packed with paparazzi and Mrs. Black's fans that it had taken almost a quarter of an hour. Remus felt sorry for her coffin bearers. Especially poor Regulus, who'd been quite attached to his mother and was forced to fight back his tears to save face in front of the cameras.
Security had been hired by Lucius Malfoy to keep people out of the church, for the mass and the absolution and the local police had managed to clear away most of the crowd by the time they left the church for the graveside ceremony.
There were a lot of tears. Remus winced a bit, when he swore he saw Bellatrix Lestrange, whom he understood there was Oscar buzz around this year, turn to a spot where the police had warned them were a lot of photographers. She then proceeded to push the elaborate black veil she was wearing away from her face, and stare mournfully into the distance with tears streaming down her face. Remus hadn't seen the woman look even remotely grieved before now.
He dismissed that, as his own dislike of Mrs. Lestrange colouring his view of her behaviour and carried on with the ceremony.
He could see Regulus shaking silently, his head in his hands. He was stood next to Severus Snape, who couldn't have looked more uncomfortable if he'd tried. Snape gave him a very stiff pat on the back, that either went completely unnoticed or completely unacknowledged.
He scanned the crowd, consciously looking for Sirius as he spoke. His eyes were caught by the Malfoy family, their blonde hair very noticeable against the crowd, all clad in black. Mr. Malfoy looked more annoyed by the presence of photographers than anything, continually looking in their direction and rolling his eyes. He kept checking his watch, as if he had somewhere better to be. Mrs. Malfoy had been crying steadily and quietly throughout the ceremony, still tightly holding her little boy, Draco, who'd drifted off in the church earlier.
He asked the crowd to silently say the Lord's Prayer, as Remus sprinkled the coffin with holy water.
He checked the crowd again for Sirius, but failed to spot him. Remus spoke again.
"Grant this mercy, O Lord, we beseech Thee, to Thy servant departed, that she may not receive in punishment the requital of her deeds who in desire did keep Thy will, and as the true faith here united her to the company of the faithful, so may Thy mercy unite her above to the choirs of angels. Through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen."
The crowd mumbled along with him, the "Amen" much clearer and louder. He could hear Regulus sobbing now. Loudly, he completed the ceremony,
"May her soul and the souls of all the faithful departed through the mercy of God rest in peace."